Health Management Technology articles from November 2005

Health Management Technology archives from November 2005

Settlement and sorry.(From the Editor)
November 1, 2005... When two pieces of news collide in a way that delivers irony with a capital "I," it's hard to resist. Late in 2004, more than 3,800 patients at two hospitals operated by Duke University Health System were operated on with surgical instruments...

Central data repositories.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Disasters Spur Use of Healthcare IT The devastating hurricanes this summer underscored the need to computerize and centralize patient information and galvanized the industry into action. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina lambasting...

Excellence in health information technology.(Industry Watch)(Good Samaritan Hospital)(Coshocton County Memorial Hospital)(Hannibal Regional Hospital)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Vendor Gives Hospitals Cash Awards In its first annual Quest Award program, Reston, Va.-based QuadraMed Corp. gave three hospitals $5,000 grants, to acknowledge and reward innovative uses of the company's healthcare IT. The winners and...

GE to acquire IDX for $1.2 billion.(GE Healthcare Information Technologies)(IDX Systems Corp)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... GE Healthcare Information Technologies will buy Burlington, Vt.-based IDX Systems Corp. for $1.2 billion in stock. The acquisition will allow GE Healthcare to offer practice management systems and EHRs to physician practices of all sizes, from...

Delaware promotes electronic prescribing.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... The Medical Society of Delaware is recruiting 100 physicians to pilot test electronic prescribing technology. The doctors will get DrFirst Rcopia e-prescribing licenses, handheld PDA devices, WiFi wireless network hardware and Epocrates Rx Pro...

National Medical errors database hits one million records milestone.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... MEDMARX, nongovernmental database of medication errors, has received over one million medication error records to date, the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) announced recently. MEDMARX is an anonymous, Internet-based program used by hospitals and other...

JCAHO creates IT panel.
November 1, 2005... The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has created an advisory panel to recommend ways the Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based organization can use its accreditation process to increase the role of IT in healthcare. The...

Correction.(Industry Watch)(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2005... Due to an editorial error, Health Management Technology incorrectly spelled the name of the Ntierprise product, a practice management/electronic health record product from A (4) Health Systems in Cary, N.C., in its lead article in the October...

Physician practices.(Industry Watch)(Medical practice software)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... CMS Seeks Small Practices to Test EHR The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is due to select five to 10 practices of one to five physicians this month to test an evaluation version of VistAOffice EHR. The software, released...

Electronic health records.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... $162 Billion in Annual Savings Possible Widespread adoption of EHRs and other health information technology in the U.S. could save lives and $162 billion annually, according to a new study by the RAND Corp. Potential cost savings include...

Health plans and payers.(Industry Watch)(new version of online Quality Dividend Calculator )(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Calculator Helps Employers to Compare Health Plans A new version of NCQA's (National Committee for Quality Assurance) flee, online Quality Dividend Calculator (QDC) shows users, particularly employers, how various health plans in their area...

Regional health information organizations.(Industry Watch)
November 1, 2005... Awards Recognize RHIOs For the first time, the Microsoft Healthcare Users Group (MS-HUG) at its 2006 annual awards will recognize IT vendors that have used Microsoft technology to develop solutions for regional (and local) health...

PACS: small, medium or large: regardless of size, every hospital that has installed PACS technology can demonstrate benefits. Organizations that gained the most knew exactly what they wanted to achieve with the implementation.(PACS/Diagnostic Imaging)(picture archiving and communications systems)(Cover Story)
November 1, 2005... Sharing high-resolution diagnostic images across a network and being able to access those images from remote locations is a goal of most hospitals these days. For large healthcare organizations, the new generation of PAC S (picture...

Tap, tap, tap to better patient documentation: solo practice family physician on Nantucket Island uses an EMR to improve documenting patient visits and increase online communication with patients.(EMRs/EHRs: Case History)
November 1, 2005... Dr. Greg Hinson is in the minority. He's among the meager 13 percent of physicians in solo practice who use electronic medical records, according to a recent Commonwealth Fund survey. But Hinson is comfortable being apart from the madding...

Bringing evidence-based best practices into practice: more than 600 Minnesota physicians put EBM to work.(Evidence-based Medicine)
November 1, 2005... The Vanderbilt Center for Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) defines the term as "the judicious application of scientific knowledge by clinicians in tandem with patient preferences and values... an ongoing process of integrating evidence with the...

Blueprint for a digital revolution: legacy data centers can support administrative IT, but clinical IT requires a new approach to ensure uptime and accessibility.(Disaster Planning/Power Supply)(information technology)
November 1, 2005... Healthcare IT departments within "wired" or digital hospitals are busy designing infrastructures that deliver the required bandwidth, storage, redundancy and security for clinical applications. As they deploy IT equipment to support it, many...

Medical flat grayscale display.(Hardware: Monitor and Display)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Barco has added a 1MP grayscale flat panel to its growing line of medical displays. The MFGD 1218 is an 18.1-inch LCD designed for PACS, DICOMs, CT, MRI and other medical applications. It accepts both analog and digital DVI-D inputs and...

High-contrast backlite LCD.(Hardware: Monitor and Display)(NEC Display Solutions of America Inc.)(Liquid crystal displays)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... NEC recently introduced the MultiSync MD21 GS-2MP medical-grade 21.3-inch, 2-megapixel grayscale LCD. It features a maximum resolution of 1600x1200 pixels and a 700:1 contrast ratio. The medically certified display incorporates built-in X-Light...

Rotating high-contrast LCD.(Hardware: Monitor and Display)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Lenovo Group has added a new 17-inch flat-screen LCD monitor to its ThinkVision line. The L171p can rotate up to 90 degrees for vertical portrait viewing of Web pages and horizontally for document layout programs. Its canti-lever rotates at the...

All-in-one touchmonitor.(Hardware: Monitor and Display)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... ELO TouchSystems Inc., a business unit of Tyco Electronics, has added a new 15-inch LCD to its family of touchmonitors. The 1529L is a 16.2 million color active matrix TFT LCD with a 4x3 aspect ratio and a native resolution of 1024x768 pixels....

Large format touch screens.(Hardware: Monitor and Display)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... 3M Touch Systems Inc. has announced the release of the first commercial touch screen product to incorporate its Dispersive Signal Technology (DST)--MicroTouch. Offered by Richardson Electronics' Pixelink Division, the NEC MultisyncLCD 4010...

Privacy film for displays.(Hardware: Monitor and Display)
November 1, 2005... CI Displays, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Components International, now offers on all of their LCD products an optical film intended to enhance viewing privacy. The film, which is permanently applied in cleanroom environments and cannot be...

Healthy competition for data: acute care division of a Virginia IDN automates revenue cycle management.(Financial Information Systems: Case History)(Riverside Health System)
November 1, 2005... Competition is a great motivator. When a new acute care hospital moved into our backyard and started to reduce our market share and profit margins, we were motivated to improve the efficiency of our operations using data from an automated...

Disease management and the national health information network: the Emerging Nexus.(Disease Management)
November 1, 2005... Models for the future of healthcare in the U.S. can be arrayed along a continuum with two very different end points. On one end, healthcare becomes a market good with access based on ability to pay, and on the other hand it is recognized as a...

Document management for EMS.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Digitech Computer Inc. has released SecureDocs imaging and document management software for EMS. The product is HIPAA compliant and fully integrates with Ambulance Commander, the company's software for billing and dispatching. It an audit trail...

Evidence-based decision support.(New Products & Services)(Zynx Health has launched ZynxCare)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Zynx Health has launched ZynxCare, an evidence-based clinical decision support tool specifically designed to help nurses and interdisciplinary care teams with patient issues, compliance with regulations and accreditation. It integrates into an...

Medical dictionary module.(New Products & Services)(updated version of Medical Pack)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... PhatWare Corp. has released an updated version of Medical Pack, a 130,000-word English language medical dictionary intended to be used with CalliGrapher and PenOffice. The two products, used by physicians to record handwritten notes on...

Wireless security for healthcare.(New Products & Services)
November 1, 2005... LucidLink Wireless Security is designed to assist small and medium-size healthcare organizations secure their wireless networks using the same strong security in use at large hospitals to protect their Wi-Fi networks. It is HIPAA compliant and...

Radio frequency identification.(Socket Communications Inc. offers radio frequency identification devices)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Socket Communications Inc. now offers radio frequency identification devices (RFID) for PDAs, tablet PCs and other handhelds that can add tracking and control capabilities to handhelds widely used in hospitals and pharmacies. The card fits into...

Enhanced predictive analytic software.(New Products & Services)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... SPSS has released enhanced versions of ShowCase EssBase, ShowCase Analyzer and ShowCase Enterprise Reporting--business intelligence components found within its data mining solution ShowCase Suite 7.0. The software is designed to help...

PACS/imaging/radiology HotList.
November 1, 2005... Information in the HotList is based on survey responses collected from companies with products in the category covered. The HotList is not intended to reflect the quality of products or services, nor is it intended to be an inclusive list of...

Emdeon Corp. (formerly WebMD).(News Makers)
November 1, 2005... Elmwood Park, N.J.-based WebMD Corp. changed its name to Emdeon Corp. to avoid confusion with its spin-off WebMD Health subsidiary, which retains the WebMD brand. Emdeon will retain its health business services and physician practice software...

Picis.(News Makers)(Department of Veterans Affairs adopts CareSuite software)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Two hospitals within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are adopting Picis' CareSuite software to automatically track each patient's progress, while helping clinicians manage data and care processes in acute care areas. Miami VA Medical...

Healthcare Management Systems Inc.(News Makers)
November 1, 2005... Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital (MDMH) in Hamilton, Mont., selected Nashville-based Healthcare Management Systems' HMS Monitor integrated hospital information system. The HIS aims to increase caregiver access to patient information, and to share...

Dictaphone Corp.(News Makers)(speech recognition application)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Memorial Hermann Healthcare System of Houston selected Dictaphone's PowerScribe Workstation speech recognition application for deployment in all nine of its acute care facilities. It will support up to 200 radiologists as well as members of its...

QuadraMed Corp.(News Makers)
November 1, 2005... Watauga Medical Center Inc., Boone, N.C., selected Reston, Va.-based QuadraMed Corp. for its QuadraMed Affinity HIS. The contract includes a comprehensive suite of software applications, including Affinity CPOE, revenue cycle management...

Humana Inc.(News Makers)
November 1, 2005... Health insurer Humana Inc. is acquiring CarePlus Health Plans for $408 million, boosting its Medicare-linked plans in Florida and gaining nearly 50,000 members.

Eclipsys Corp.(News Makers)
November 1, 2005... Healthcare cooperative VHA Inc. has signed a three-year agreement with Boca Raton, Fla.-based Eclipsys Corp., extending and enhancing a previous contract between Eclipsys and VHA for clinical and financial solutions.

Quick Study Radiology.(News Makers)
November 1, 2005... Metropolitan Orthopedics Ltd. has installed Quick Study Radiology's digital imaging management system. The integrated system includes PACS, RIS and Web distribution (streaming media for images as well as text-based information). Both...

Helping small hospitals think big.(Thought Leaders)
November 1, 2005... I am a healthcare professional and a consumer, and as such, I'm passionate about small hospitals and the role they play in our healthcare system. Just as small towns are the backbone of America, community hospitals are the foundation of medical...