Saturday, November 21, 2009

Health Informatics News

Health Informatics News

Our Lady of the Lake Connects Devices to EHR

Posted: 20 Nov 2009 08:38 AM PST

Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center (OLOL, Baton Rouge, La.) has successfully tested and implemented auto programming between infusion pumps and a bar-code point-of-care system throughout its facility. Through a three-way partnership with Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner and Hospira, Inc. (Lake Forest, Ill.), OLOL has completed house-wide deployment of a connected medication infusion device, which the company says helps minimize manual programming for entering medication orders on the pump at the patient’s bedside. The auto programming process uses a set of bar codes located on the patient wristband, the medication bag and the infusion pump to pull data from the EHR and to confirm the five rights of medication administration. Using a handheld device, the caregiver scans the three bar codes and confirms the order on the pump to deliver the medication exactly as ordered by the physician in the EHR. Auto programming infusion pumps decreases the chance for dosing errors, reduces programming time and increases compliance with medication orders, says the company. Our Lady of the Lake is one of the largest private medical centers in Louisiana, with more than 700 licensed beds and an 11-parish service area. Our Lady of the Lake treats more than 33,000 patients in the hospital and serves more than 350,000 persons through outpatient locations with the assistance of more than 1,000 physicians and 4,000 team members.

Doctors Without Borders Get Free Access to CDS

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 06:49 AM PST

The physicians of Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, will receive free access to MD Consult electronic clinical decision support from Amsterdam-based Elsevier. The company says that as part of its “All You Need to Make a Difference” Campaign, Elsevier, will donate a free subscription to MSF for each annual individual MD Consult subscription purchased between Nov. 16 and Dec. 18, 2009.  Based on its projections, Elsevier estimates that the month-long campaign could provide 400 subscriptions to MSF’s volunteer physicians.  Based on average monthly sales, Elsevier estimates that the licenses donated to MSF’s volunteer physicians could be worth as much as $140,000.  Doctors Without Borders/MSF is an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971. MSF provides aid in more than 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, or exclusion from healthcare or natural disasters.

Emory’s Cantrell Named CIO of the Year

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 06:43 AM PST

Atlanta-based Emory Healthcare ’s Chief Information Officer Dee Cantrell has been named CIO of the Year by the Georgia CIO Leadership Association ( GCLA ). The Georgia CIO of the Year Awards is the premier technology executive recognition program in the state. It honors technology executives who have shown excellence in managing enterprise-wide information systems in Georgia. Since 1998, the GCLA has used its CIO of the Year Awards program to recognize excellence in managing enterprise-wide information systems. Emory Healthcare is the clinical arm of the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University, which focuses on patient care, education of health professionals, research addressing health and illness, and health policies for prevention and treatment of disease. The health system has 1,184 licensed patient beds, 9,000 employees and more than 20 health centers located throughout Metro Atlanta.

Montana Facilities Will Share PACS

Posted: 19 Nov 2009 06:33 AM PST

Image Movement of Montana (IMOM, Kalispell, Mont.), a grassroots organization composed of 30 state-based healthcare facilities, will implement a cloud-based technology for secure sharing of radiology images and reports. The technology, coined eMix , was created by San Diego-based DR Systems , a provider of healthcare information systems including RIS/PACS/CVIS. According to the company, eMix required no capital outlay and created a revenue opportunity for IMOM institutions. The initial rollout of eMix will take place at three IMOM participant sites: Kalispell Regional Medical Center, Great Falls Clinic (Great Falls), and St. Luke Community Healthcare (Ronan).

Survey: Business Associates Unprepared for Data Breach

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 07:26 AM PST

According to a national survey conducted by HIMSS Analytics (Chicago) and commissioned by ID Experts (Beaverton, Ore.), 68 percent of all hospitals believe the HITECH Act’s expanded breach notification requirements will result in the discovery and reporting of more incidents. Findings from the study, which aimed to assess the state of healthcare vulnerability to data breaches, indicate that business associates are largely unprepared to meet the new data breach related obligations included in HITECH. According to the results, approximately one-third of business associates surveyed were not aware that they need to adhere to federal HIPAA privacy and security requirements, compared to 87 percent of health providers. On the hospital and health provider side, 85 percent said they will take steps to ensure that data held by business associates will not be breached, and 47 percent said they would terminate their contracts with their business associates for violations. To view the complete HIMSS Analytics survey, Evaluating HITECH’s Impact on Healthcare Privacy and Security, click here .  

KLAS Revises Performance Evaluations

Posted: 18 Nov 2009 07:19 AM PST

Based on feedback from providers and vendors, KLAS (Orem, Utah) is revising its performance evaluations for healthcare technology software, services and medical equipment vendors. According to the company, the total number of questions in the KLAS software and medical equipment performance evaluations is being reduced from 40 to 25, and the number of questions in the professional services evaluation is being reduced from 18 to 15. In addition, software and medical equipment will now be grouped into the following categories: Sales & Contracting, Implementation & Training, Functionality & Upgrades and Service & Support. The new categories for professional services are: Sales & Contracting, Service Delivery and General. The goal of the changes, will go into effect Nov. 24, 2009, is to provide a tool that assesses vendor performance by focusing on questions that best differentiate vendors, and by eliminating some redundancy. Grouping evaluation questions in logical categories will allow providers, vendors and KLAS to more quickly identify vendor strengths and areas of improvement, it says. For more information regarding the new evaluations, including details on the changes that have been made, or to download the new KLAS evaluations, click here .  
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