Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Health Informatics News

Health Informatics News

CHIME and CHIEF Join Forces

Posted: 07 Apr 2009 09:06 AM PDT

Ann Arbor, Mich.-based College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and Toronto-based Canada’s Health Informatics Executive Forum (CHIEF) have entered into a partnership.   CHIME says it’s happy to have the new members on board. According to the organization, the agreement that began in March 2009 stipulates that all CHIEF members are granted online membership to CHIME.   CHIEF is an extension of COACH: Canada’s Health Informatics Association, which is an association dedicated to advancing health informatics through education, information, networking and communication.

Data Aggregation Moves Forward

Posted: 06 Apr 2009 12:44 PM PDT

Nashville-based Informatics Corporation of America (ICA) has unveiled an enhanced version of its CareAlign solution. The product, ICA says, is designed to offer flexibility for data storage, patient matching and auditing functionality for HIEs, RHIOs and hospital systems. The updated solution offers a more advanced single technology product for clinicians to readily access, evaluate, and act upon patient information across disparate systems, it says. The CareAlign patient matching feature is based on a user’s security access and a patient’s opt-in status, and provides clinicians with access to a complete patient record, regardless of where the patient was treated or which healthcare information technology system housed the data. The product is compatible with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Version 7 and Mozilla Firefox, and can be accessed from desktop computers and mobile devices.   ICA was created with Vanderbilt Medical Center to take innovative technology developed by Vanderbilt physicians to the broader healthcare market.  

EMR Pilot for Urgent Public Health Alerts is Launched

Posted: 06 Apr 2009 12:06 PM PDT

GE Healthcare (United Kingdom) is collaborating with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ’s (CDC) National Center for Public Health Informatics in a pilot project to notify physicians of urgent public health advisories, notifications and alerts. The company says the pilot project is designed to demonstrate the capability of a public health agency to utilize EMRs to provide clinicians with timely, patient-specific information at the point of care. CDC routinely disseminates important health alerts, advisories and notifications — via e-mail and on the agency’s Web site — to public health practitioners and clinicians. The pilot program, the company says, will explore the feasibility of creating and integrating actionable alerts with its Centricity EMR system based on patient record content, using a standard messaging format. GE says the project will determine the EMR’s ability to identify specific patients with risk factors related to the health condition identified in the alert, enabling clinicians to immediately act on the alerts by addressing the impacted patients. Additionally, it says the development of a feedback mechanism to capture the provider’s response will be explored.  

HIMSS Analytics: Most Hospitals Are Steps from EMRs

Posted: 06 Apr 2009 11:43 AM PDT

    With the Medicare and Medicaid incentives for health information technology use announced, almost 70 percent of United States hospitals are only two steps away or less from having the health IT applications necessary to deliver EMRs, according to the EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) from Chicago-based HIMSS Analytics .   According to HIMSS Analytics, while only 6 percent of hospitals report comprehensive adoption of health IT applications, which are frequently associated with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), EHR criteria (major ancillary department information systems, clinical documentation, CPOE and clinical decision support), 67 percent need to add only one or two of these applications to have this threshold of EHR functionality available for their clinicians’ use.        According to David Garets, HIMSS Analytics president/CEO, the majority tracked by EMRAM appear to be two steps or less from having the applications implemented to achieve an EMR tool capable of realizing ‘meaningful use’ objectives. “That means that almost three-quarters of U.S. hospitals are on the right track to EMR implementation,” he says. “We believe that when hospitals reach Stage 4 on the EMRAM, they will be able to meet many, if not most, of the pending criteria for the current definition of ‘meaningful use’ of the EMR.”   Garets says his group recognizes that the technology is necessary but not sufficient as change management must also be involved. “We believe that ‘meaningful use’ will demand measurement and reporting of clinical quality, patient safety, and cost reduction data, for example,” he says. “That data should be available to hospitals as a byproduct of their EMR’s clinical documentation and reporting tools.”   Developed in 2005, the EMRAM has become an industry standard to measure the progress in EMR implementation for healthcare organizations. To view the eight stages of EMRAM, visit the HIMSS Analytics Web site .  

Free ride to end in Medicare plans?

Posted:

4/7/2009 © Wall Street Journal Online
Federal payments to "Medicare Advantage" plans will fall between 4 and 5 percentage points in the year to come if the Obama administration gets its way. (Effects on the 800,000 Floridians enrolled in such plans should be minor because payments in Florida are so high most members pay no premiums or even get cash back. See explanation: Freebies flow for Medicare patients -- if they're in the right county.)

Broward couple sentenced in Medicare fraud

Posted:

3/17/2009 © Miami Herald
David Hernandez's family business involved setting up shell companies to bill Medicare for non-existent equipment. Medicare patients made that easier by selling Hernandez the right to use their Medicare ID numbers.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)