Health Management Technology articles from January 2002

Health Management Technology archives from January 2002

HIPAA Hmph. (From The Editor).
January 1, 2002... I'm searching for HIPAA Cliff Notes. You know, the 48-page, $12.95 brochure I can read in one sitting that will delineate every critical action step to take with its associated deadline, so I can ace the test in 2003. Can anyone help? ...

Congress Acts to postpone HIPAA. (HIPAA Update).
January 1, 2002... As HMT went to press with this issue, the House of Representatives was considering a bill to delay the compliance date for HIPAA's transactions and code sets rule by one year. Backed by several key supporters who previously opposed the delay,...

HIPAA budgets rise, commitment erratic. (HIPAA Update).
January 1, 2002... HIPAA delays may dampen their spending mood, but healthcare providers had budgeted more for HIPAA this year than they spent in 2001. In a survey of 343 healthcare providers by Phoenix Health Systems and the Healthcare Information and Management...

Feds to post nursing home quality data on Internet. (Internet Resources).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The Department of Health & Human Services is launching a program to collect information on the quality and performance of nursing homes and post it on the Internet. The initiative is intended to help consumers select long-term care facilities....

Clinical automation.(Carroll County Hospital licenses software from McKesson Corp.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Clinical Automation. Carroll County General Hospital in Westminster, MD, a nonprofit hospital with more than 400 physicians, signed a $5.5 million agreement licensing Horizon Clinicals[TM] from McKesson Corp. John Sernulka, the hospital's CEO,...

Healthcare cost rise.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Healthcare Costs Rise. Large employers will see double-digit increases in health care costs for the third straight year, according to a survey by Towers Perrin. The cost of health benefit plans will climb an average of about 14 percent in 2002,...

Longmont taps Sunquest.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Longmont Taps Sunquest. Longmont United Hospital, Longmont, CO, has licensed FlexiRad[R] Radiology Information System from Sunquest Information Systems for 64 users in its 143-bed community hospital. Longmont will utilize the RIS to...

Profiling an IT rebound.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Profiling an IT Rebound. Forrester Research projects that the technology sector slump will end in the third quarter of 2002, the revival will pick up momentum in 2003, and double-digit growth will return in 2004. Forrester also estimates that...

Monitoring for Bioterrorism. (Emergency Department).
January 1, 2002... Patient information systems are playing a new role in helping public health agencies survey the front lines for bioterrorist activity. Software from both A4 Health Systems, Cary, NC, and Health Hero Network, Mountain View, CA, have been pressed...

Web appointment reminder.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Web Appointment Reminder. SmartTalk, Salt Lake City, UT, announces SmartTalk Express, a Web-based service that enables small and mid-sized healthcare providers to use the Internet to set up and execute automated appointment reminder calls. The...

e-Commerce ramps up.(BroadLane Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... e-Commerce Ramps Up. After just over six months of operations, Broadlane Inc.'s private e-commerce exchange has processed more than 66,000 customer purchase orders totaling more than $100 million. The Broadlane Exchange now routinely processes...

Clip-on wireless for palms.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Clip-On Wireless for Palms. TDK Systems is debuting the world's first Bluetooth enabled clip-on device for the Palm[TM] m500 series of handheld computers. TDK's blueM allows users to access email and browse the Internet with any off-the-shelf...

Wireless printer.(Zebra Technolgies QL 320)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2002... Wireless Printer. Zebra Technologies, Vernon Hills, IL, has introduced the QL 320 mobile bar code printer with QuickLink radio modules for versatile wireless networking. Designed for indoor/outdoor medium-volume printing, the QL 320 can be...

Microsoft names Technology Doc. (Awards).
January 1, 2002... Dr. Eric Mankin was selected as Microsoft's Physician of the Year, a first annual award based on his use of Pocket PC-based mobile devices in enhancing the quality of care Mankin is chief medical officer at Temple Physicians Inc., Temple...

It's 2002: how HIPAA-ready are you? (HIPAA Watch).
January 1, 2002... HIPAA, its implications for how healthcare organizations (HCOs) do business, and opportunities it may offer for increased automation and process improvement are hot topics. While some HCOs have completed their HIPAA assessments and are...

Humana leverages the web: web-based applications facilitate systems integration. (Systems Integration).
January 1, 2002... Now that most of the hype surrounding the dot-com revolution has been laid to rest, companies are rediscovering the true value of the Web. For Louisville, KY-based Humana, that has meant achieving systems integration by using Web-based...

Security in the wake of change: the closing of a Florida mental health facility means relocation for 350 patients and security challenges for staff. (Data security: case history).
January 1, 2002... Less than a year ago, the technology staff at G. Pierce Wood Memorial Hospital in Arcadia, FL faced a harsh reality. With federal funding for state health facilities down by 40 percent, Florida had made reducing the number of hospital beds a...

Using technology to fight fraud: new software systems sift through mountains of data to give healthcare fraud investigators the upper hand in combating crooks. (Security).
January 1, 2002... Fraudulent healthcare claims cost America's insurance industry more than $90 billion annually, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. As much as 10 percent of all benefits paid may be for fraudulent claims. Fraud is all too often...

Facing new challenges: the healthcare IT sector addresses systems integration, EMRs, capital expenses and living in communities altered by current events at the 2002 HIMSS convention. (HIMSS Preview).(Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's 2002 convention)
January 1, 2002... A lot can happen in a year. This year's convention presented by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) will reflect some of the dramatic changes taking place in the industry and the world. Scheduled for Jan. 27...

E-prescribing: an opportunity for process re-engineering. (Medication Management/Patient Safety).
January 1, 2002... The virtues of e-prescribing have been well defined. The question now is not why to implement it, but how. Putting a detached PDA in a physician's hand and expecting rapid adoption and benefits has proven to be a flawed model. Implementing...

Real money: Chicago-based hospital uses UM to overturn and prevent claims denials. (Utilization management: case history).
January 1, 2002... Strong utilization management (UM) is the key to providing quality health care with an efficient use of resources--and also is the key to recovering substantial billed yet uncollected payments. Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital, a part of...

Technology helps squeeze costs from non-network claims: software solution provides benchmark costs for use in automating repricing of hospital-based claims. (Managed Care).
January 1, 2002... You've read the news: double-digit rises in healthcare costs, again, for 2002. That means payors, large employers and providers alike will need to drill deeper for ways to control their outlays. And that means payors may want to broaden their...

Defcon world: implementation of defined contribution will succeed in a competitive marketplace where providers set acceptable fees and risk levels, and consumers make informed choices based on personal values. (Profiles In Information Technology).
January 1, 2002... They're waiting. And waiting. And waiting. When it comes to defined contribution (defcon), players from all walks of healthcare are waiting for a jumbo U.S. corporation to adopt defcon as a model for providing health benefits to employees--and...

Physician driven CIS: physicians take charge of a successful transition from paper to CIS. (Clinical Information Systems).
January 1, 2002... Unlike many community hospitals, Great Plains Regional Medical Center (GPMC) in North Platte, NE, used the now legendary Y2K as an opportunity to examine all its IT needs. At the time, our hospital, which serves 150,000 residents and admits...

Talk before you walk: the right wireless handheld allows caregivers to spend more time with patients, less time in transit. (Wireless).
January 1, 2002... Every second counts in a hospital, and response time is critical to how well caregivers can meet patients' needs. An effective in-building wireless (handheld-based) communication system that connects to an existing communication network may...

See what develops without film: Arizona healthcare organization implements a three-year PACS plan in one phase, in one year.(Picture Archiving and Communication System)
January 1, 2002... Replacing film with a Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) requires a detailed and complex rollout strategy. The organizational benefits of PACS and our implementation plan were so strong that our board of directors approved the...

What a difference an EMR makes: conversion to EMR reduces paper and frees up time and space for busy Spokane practice.
January 1, 2002... Before they make the leap, it's hard for medical practices to realistically imagine the benefits that can accrue from using electronic patient records. While paper prevails, most physicians and office managers tend to view the benefits as...

Systems integration hotlist.
January 1, 2002... The information in HotList is based on survey responses from companies with offerings in the category covered. HotList is not intended to reflect the quality of products or services. Forms are sent to companies listed in the category in HMT's...

Off the chart.(MedPlus ChartMaxx 3.0)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2002... MedPlus has released the 3.0 version of ChartMaxx, a secured electronic patient record solution. Among the new features are security enhancements to assist in meeting HIPAA standards, which include role-based security that only allows...

HIS and yours.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... QuadraMed features Affinity, a fully integrated, Web-enabled healthcare information system (HIS) that automates clinical, administrative and financial activities in single- or multi-facility hospitals. The Affinity system is completely scalable...

It's all in the form.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2002... McKesson has introduced Document Manager, a new imaging solution for forms design, printing and distribution. The Document Manager has been designed to capture data streams as report input, overlay reports with customer-designed forms for print...

Take your dry pix.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2002... FUJIFILM Medical Systems, USA has introduced DryPix 3000, a new tabletop dry imager with new 11" x 17" film capability. Along with the DryPix 1000, which prints 8" x 10" and 10" x 14" films, the DryPix line provides digital imaging for a wide...

A powerful combination.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Philips Medical Systems features GEMINI, a system that combines the ALLEGRO PET with a high throughput multi-slice CT scanner. By bringing these two systems together, GEMINI enables both functional and anatomical imaging in one patient episode....

Payor administration solutions.(Erisco Facets)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2002... The TriZetto Group's Erisco Inc. features Facets, a software solution for payor administration. Facets scales to support the heavy transaction demands of large organizations and is flexible enough to provide built-in interoperability. Erisco's...

Meeting the needs of the pay-at-the-pump generation. (Viewpoint).
January 1, 2002... From paying for gas at the pump to managing portfolios online, today's consumer expects a high level of customer-specific service. With impending changes in the insurance world, these consumers will control more of the dollars spent on...