Thursday, May 28, 2009

Health Informatics News

Health Informatics News
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Elsevier Appoints Managing Director of CDS

Posted: 28 May 2009 09:46 AM PDT

Amsterdam-based Elsevier has selected Chris Dillon to serve as the managing director of the Clinical Decision Support (CDS) group. Dillon will assume responsibility for all CDS operations and strategy, including product development, marketing and sales. Dillon brings more than 30 years of experience in marketing, management and sales of healthcare products and services. Most recently, he was senior vice president of marketing at Misys Healthcare Systems. He also served as the vice president/general manager of San Francisco-based McKesson’s specialty business.

Greater Baltimore MC Selects Physician Documentation

Posted: 28 May 2009 09:43 AM PDT

  The Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) has chosen Baltimore-based Salar, Inc. to enable electronic clinical documentation for the center’s emergency and internal medicine physician staff. Under the agreement, GBMC will take part in a nine-month pilot implementation of customized versions of Salar’s clinical documentation tools and charge capture solutions that will be used in an initial rollout of about 30 hospital physicians. The solution will be modified to meet the specific needs of GBMC’s physicians, according to the company. The 310-bed Medical Center serves nearly 22,000 in-patients annually and provides approximately 60,000 emergency room visits. GBMC also includes Gilchrist Hospice Care and the GBMC Foundation.

UNC Health Care, IBM Develop Data Warehouse

Posted: 27 May 2009 09:00 AM PDT

Chapel Hill, N.C.-based University of North Carolina Health Care (UNCHC) is teaming up with IBM   (Armonk, N.Y.) to accelerate the development of disease treatments with the deployment of the Carolina Data Warehouse for Health. Using the warehouse, researchers will be able to analyze large amounts of patient data and uncover trends much more quickly, according to the company. The system can also support queries relating to diagnosis and treatment of patients, which can lead to more intelligent decisions and improved patient care, it says. Built on IBM software and hardware, the warehouse focuses on diabetes disease management and performance measurement. It is designed to reduce the entire workflow of preparatory research, through regulatory approval, to obtaining a data set, from months to weeks, according to the company. The warehouse uses a secure web portal to provide access to anatomized cohort query selection, diabetes and inpatient data marts, business intelligence reports and analytics applications, and supporting clinical translation research. It is built on the IBM Health Integration Framework and utilizes InfoSphere and WebSphere software, running on System Z mainframe and P-Series computers.  

UPMC Earns Level 2 Rating for Software Development

Posted: 27 May 2009 08:58 AM PDT

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has become the first non-profit healthcare provider in the United States to achieve the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Level 2 rating, an internationally recognized standard for effectiveness and efficiency in software development. The rating is based on a rigorous appraisal methodology from Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, according to the organization. The scope of the appraisal focused on UPMC’s Strategic Biodefense Emergency Operations and Communications System (SBEOCS) team. Developed over the past four years, the system helps emergency management officials, first responders, hospitals and others to coordinate care during disasters, manage and share assets, and collaborate on disaster planning. SBEOCS includes a public information Web site which contains information to help the public plan for, respond to and recover from disasters. This system most recently was used during the H1N1 flu outbreak to coordinate information for UPMC, the region and the state. CMMI is a performance improvement methodology that was established to guide users in improving quality and efficiency through repeatable processes. The primary focus of CMMI is to identify and leverage an organization’s best IT practices in key disciplines to better meet its business objectives. UPMC is an $8 billion integrated health enterprise headquartered in Pittsburgh. The nonprofit health system has 50,000 employees and includes 20 hospitals, 400 doctors’ offices and outpatient sites, long-term care facilities and a major health insurance services division.

Fallon Clinic Wins AMDIS Award

Posted: 27 May 2009 08:57 AM PDT

Fallon Clinic , a large, multi-specialty medical group practice based in Worcester, Mass., is a recipient of the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems ’ (AMDIS, Lake Almanor, Calif.) annual award recognizing excellence in applied medical informatics. The Clinic’s IT department developed interfaces to four regional hospitals to capture patients’ clinical information and load it into electronic records at Fallon Clinic. The non-profit organization is also working on SAFEHealth.org, a health information exchange designed to simplify the patient consent process and to integrate clinical data directly into other healthcare facilities’ EHRs. In addition, Fallon Clinic has loaded over 15 years of detailed clinical information into its EHR, providing clinicians with a more comprehensive view of their patients’ medical history. Founded in 1929, Fallon Clinic has over 1,700 employees and approximately 250 physicians who see patients in more than 20 locations, including the Worcester Medical Center.

Reporting law ignored, group says

Posted:

By Carol Gentry
5/28/2009 © Health News Florida
Nearly half of the state's hospitals have never reported a single incident of physician discipline to a databank set up to protect patients from questionable doctors, a consumer group reported Wednesday. Earlier this year, the same group cited Florida's Board of Medicine as particularly weak.

Doctors' foes unveil poll

Posted:

 By Christine Jordan Sexton
5/28/2009 Health News Florida
Opponents of a bill backed by Florida’s doctors released a poll today that contends Floridians are on their side of the fight. But the Florida Medical Association dismissed the results, saying the poll questions were "skewed to get the answers they wanted."

13 more women accuse doctor

Posted:

5/28/2009 © Bradenton Herald
Bradenton police rearrested internist Gangadhararao Chapalamadugu, known to his patients as C.G. Rao, on Wednesday on charges of sexually molesting four women patients. Detectives say more than 13 patients called after news of Rao's arrest last week, but some alleged events were older than the three-year limit for prosecution.

2-lb. tumor taken from baby's face

Posted:

5/28/2009 © Sun-Sentinel
Two-month-old Jordan Smith was born with a two-pound tumor protruding from his mouth, blocking his airway. But doctors at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center rescued him and later removed the tumor.
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