Health Management Technology articles from October 2003

Health Management Technology archives from October 2003

Bells and Whistle--RIP.(From The Editor)(Editorial)
October 1, 2003... Back in July, I was speaking with two future HMT authors from RMF Strategies when one of them uttered the most terrifying phrase I had never heard before: wrong-side surgery. It was so nonchalant, it almost snuck by me. Now, like then, it needs...

AHA pushes for more transaction guidance.(HIPAA)
October 1, 2003... The American Hospital Association (AHA) has asked a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) panel to provide more guidance to help covered hospitals comply with the Oct. 16 HIPAA transaction and code sets standards deadline. The...

Physician group seeks changes in proposed Rx law.(American College of Physicians )(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Suggesting that mandating electronic prescribing in three years is overly aggressive, the American College of Physicians (ACP) has developed its own recommendations for patient-centered e-Rx technologies as an alternative to provisions in...

Report: health plan IT spending will rise to meet demand.(Consumer-Directed Healthcare)(Brief Article)(Industry Overview)
October 1, 2003... Within the next seven years, health plans will need to make significant investments in IT to accommodate the accelerating demand by consumers for more control over their insurance options, according to a new report by Forrester Research,...

Sutter centralizing with Siemens.(MedSeries4)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Sutter Health, an integrated delivery network serving more than 100 northern California communities, will standardize with Siemens MedSeries4 (MS4) revenue cycle management solutions in all of its 33 facilities. The system, currently used in 14...

Palm becomes palmOne.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Palm Inc., Milpitas, Calif., has adopted a new name, palmOne Inc., following the proposed spinoff this fall of PalmSource Inc., the makers of Palm OS platform software, palmOne will be the moniker for the company's handheld computer hardware...

Boston Blues buys Accordant.(Blue Care Connection)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, a 2.4-million member Boston-based health plan, has contracted with Accordant Health Services, Greensboro, N.C., to provide a disease management program. Known as Blue Care Connection, the software will...

Family physicians go Greenway.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Ten family physician practices have chosen Carrollton, Ga.-based Greenway Medical Technologies' PrimeSuite integrated clinical, financial and administrative software solution for medical practices. The practices are: Partners in Family...

IT missing on most safety committees.(Patient Safety)(Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and McKesson Corporation's Information Solutions division survey )(Brief Article)
October 1, 2003... Technology has proven to help hospitals create a safer environment, yet IT departments often lack representation on patient safety committees. Just 41 percent of healthcare organizations with such committees said IT staff help to plan safety...

HHS provides final rule for electronic Medicare claims submission.(Medicare Claims)
October 1, 2003... By the middle of this month, nearly all claims submitted to Medicare must be sent electronically. Even though 86 percent of Medicare claims already are submitted this way, the government sought to reduce the remaining stack of paper--more than...

Quovadx acquires CareScience.
October 1, 2003... Global platform software and vertical solutions company Quovadx, Englewood, Colo., will acquire CareScience. The Philadelphia-based CareScience offers products and services to help healthcare organizations improve patient throughput, reduce...

Midmark Diagnostics makes mark.
October 1, 2003... Midmark Diagnostics Group, Versailles, Ohio, said it now has integration agreements with more than 50 electronic medical record (EMR) solutions. Midmark Diagnostics recently announced partnerships with [A.sup.4] Health Systems, Misys, NextGen,...

Survey: EDs slow to deploy electronic systems.(Emergency Departments)
October 1, 2003... Many of the nations' emergency departments (EDs) are slow to implement software applications or electronic programs that can increase quality of care. So says a recent survey by researchers from Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital. Led by...

Survey: physicians are big internet fans.(Doctors Online)
October 1, 2003... Physicians actively logon to the Internet for work-related reasons, according to a recent report by Forrester Research. The survey found that, of 88 percent of physicians who are online, nearly half spend a few hours per week browsing the...

Users group offered for healthcare IT execs.(Education)
October 1, 2003... A new healthcare users group will offer in-depth education for IT professionals and provide an interactive forum for healthcare executives to share best practices. The group, called SunSHINE, is a joint effort between Chicago-based HIMSS and...

Serious business: while physicians are busy seeing patients, practice managers drive the financial success of the operation with information technology.(Practice Management Systems)
October 1, 2003... The clinical side of medicine routinely gets the spotlight, but it's the business side that can make or break a practice. Running a successful practice is not unlike running any other successful business, says Stuart Patty, practice...

Scrip for success: Kentucky family practice uses electronic prescriptions to improve efficiency, revenue and customer service.(RX/prescription management: case history)
October 1, 2003... Unlike hospitals that have larger budgets, physician practices often must choose diverse best-of-breed IT solutions that offer greater efficiency at a significantly lower cost. Making such systems work together optimally, however, is the key to...

Calling for automation: pediatric call center at a Missouri children's hospital sees lower call times and higher productivity from a fully automated system.(Call centers/telecom: case history)
October 1, 2003... A Missouri children's hospital found that fully automating its pediatric call center helped it save time and streamline its triage and physician answering services. Staff is now better able to meet the needs of the physician subscribers and the...

Test-Drive IT at MGMA: practice administrators can test-drive the latest and greatest information technology at MGMA's exhibit hall.(MGMA Exhibitor Showcase)
October 1, 2003... The sights and sounds of MGMA, presented by an organization dedicated to excellence in physician practice management, are a once-a-year event, always worth sampling and savoring. With one of the biggest and most active exhibit floors in the...

Converting interim HIPAA fixes into long-term strategies: HIPAA still represents an opportunity for MCOs to strengthen their financial efficiency, but only if they employ a strategic approach.(Managed Care)
October 1, 2003... Following years of anxiety, a sense of urgency and increased expenditures on information technology, the final deadline for healthcare organizations to be compliant with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is days...

New promise for interorganizational collaboration: as a network platform, VPNs can help beat the top five obstacles healthcare organizations face in trying to initiate and sustain information-sharing networks.(Network Integration)
October 1, 2003... Here is a vision shared by IT professionals, healthcare organizations (HCOs), practitioners, patients and legislators alike: improved patient safety and care quality, reduced medical errors and delivery costs, and administration simplification...

Taking it to the next level: Georgia specialty practice provides greater care by improving efficiency with EMR system.(What works: EMRs)
October 1, 2003... Specialty practices may stand to gain from using an electronic medical record (EMR) in a way that exceeds the benefits typically experienced by a general practice. Timely, accurate documentation is critical, of course, and the level of detail...

Security considerations when choosing an EMR system: electronic medical record (EMR) systems offer many benefits that can improve physician/patient interaction and relationships. In addition to saving time and eliminating paper charts, EMR systems provide numerous security capabilities.(EMR Security)
October 1, 2003... Most security concerns related to EMR systems originate from within the physician practice. Physicians' main concerns are information security, confidentiality and data ownership. Overall, it is reliance on technology to maintain patient...

Paper-plagued to paperless: Florida healthcare system now has instant access to patient charts anytime and anywhere it has Internet access.(What works: document management)
October 1, 2003... Imaging paper documents can help a healthcare organization reap some of the benefits of an electronic medical record (EMR) without the significant time and financial investments typically involved in EMR implementations. At Gulf Pines Hospital,...

Automated claims processing.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Webify ClaimsNet is intended to help insurance payers automate the entire claims management lifecycle across thousands of member and provider organizations, computerizing disconnected, manual processes, reducing administrative costs and driving...

Small practice EMR System.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Developed with the daily work flow of small medical practices in mind to assist in managing and protecting patient records, Janus EMR leverages a relational database architecture to provide the power and flexibility to manage large volumes of...

Payer solutions suite.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... PegaHEALTH Service Manager offers a suite of solutions for healthcare payers. The suite provides the tools to produce a universal service representative that helps to eliminate the need for separate, disparate contact centers and allows for...

Online contract administration system.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Designed to support the real time needs of e-business applications, the expanded THIN System is a Web-enabled portal to the Health Industry Number (HIN) database, which provides a common location identifier for identifying trading partners in...

Point-of-care computing.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... The Databrick Cart System is a complete mobile workstation for a wide range of hospital environments. The four-component system is designed around the Databrick III, a power-efficient, Pentium III processor-based computer with a rugged,...

Versatile speech recognition.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Reporting delivery of accuracy levels as high as 99 percent, Dragon Naturally Speaking 7 Medical converts speech into text at up to 160 words per minute, automating the input of patient information. It has built-in recognition for more than...

Disclosure Accounting System.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... The Beacon Disclosure Accounting System is an enterprise application designed for monitoring, storing and reporting on both electronic and manual disclosures across all platforms to help healthcare organizations comply with HIPAA regulations....

Web-based patient tool.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Offering MANAGEMENT several features that facilitate informed, customized healthcare decisions, Better Prepared Decision Support is an interactive Web-based tool intended to help patients evaluate treatment options for three common medical...

Secure physician/patient e-mail system.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... eMediary version 2.0 is a messaging solution that gives patients and physicians the ability to communicate securely via e-mail. Messages are stored within an encrypted database and transmitted using encrypted protocols to ensure that patient...

Medicaid administration system.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Adaptis system 2.0 is the latest version or the oracle based relational database system for Medicaid administrative processing. Designed to be more secure and scalable than previous versions, it is better able to accommodate growth and to...

Pharmacy module for tablets.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... RxVue version 1.5 is an updated Pharmacy Web Extensions module that enables healthcare practitioners to review patient profiles on a tablet PC, providing them with an instant overview of a patient's medication regimen, refill status and...

Fax server solution.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Built on Microsoft's .NET platform, FaxCore 4300 is a Web-based solution to centralize, control and manage all types of fax communications with the same convenience of e-mail. Using a thin-client system, healthcare organizations can easily...

Time and attendance software.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Timecard Monitor is PC-based time and attendance software that incorporates biometric fingerprint recognition technology to identify personnel and accurately record their hours on the job. It links with popular small-business accounting...

Prescription management software.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... Formerly an integrated component of Practice Studio software, RxWriter is available as stand alone drug and prescription management software for physician practices. Utilizing a leading drug database, it allows physicians to print prescriptions...

Patient tracking system.(New Products & Services)
October 1, 2003... VestiTrak is an automated system for patient follow-up, test-result tracking and practice management reporting. Its features include automatic notification of abnormal test results, missed follow-up appointments and missing lab results; a...

Practice management systems HotList.
October 1, 2003... Information in the HotList is based on survey responses I 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...

Patient participation in EHR benefits.(Thought Leaders)
October 1, 2003... The electronic health record (EHR) should be designed to reflect all activity relevant to the healthcare of an individual citizen. Because healthcare activity occurs in a variety of settings over one's lifetime, it is essential that EHR...