Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Health Informatics News

Health Informatics News

SunGard Debuts Advanced Crisis Communications Technology

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 09:57 AM PDT

SunGard Availability Services (Wayne, Pa,) introduced NōtiFind for Hospitals to enable hospitals to locate, inform and coordinate responses with doctors, nurses, support staff and public safety officials in disasters. According to the company, NōtiFind provides a comprehensive, automated approach that helps link hospital operations and IT staff through communications to boost operational resiliency and recover more quickly from business and IT disruptions. NōtiFind can be used as a standalone notification solution or as a complement to SunGard‘s LDRPS for Hospitals business continuity planning software – avoiding the need to maintain two separate data sources. When integrated, LDRPS data updates are automatically transferred to NōtiFind, keeping critical contact data up to date, says the company.

Blessing Hospital, University HS Achieve Magnet Recognition

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 09:56 AM PDT

Blessing Hospital of Quincy, Ill. and University Health Syste m of San Antonio, Texas were recently awarded Magnet Recognition by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). The Magnet Recognition Program was developed by the ANCC to recognize healthcare organizations that provide not only excellence in nursing, but also the highest quality of patient care at all levels throughout the hospital. Both hospitals are using Atlanta-based Eclipsys clinical information technology. Since 1875, Blessing Hospital has provided high-quality, accessible healthcare to residents in a 15-county area of northeast Missouri, western Illinois and southeast Iowa. A not-for-profit, not-tax-supported, independent hospital, Blessing is home to centers of excellence in the treatment of cancer, heart and cardiovascular ailments, wound care, and women's health issues. University Health System, the public hospital district for Bexar County Texas is the lead level I trauma center for South Texas. It is a 498-bed acute care hospital, and is the primary teaching hospital for the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. University Health System also includes 16 community clinics focused on primary, specialty, preventive health services.

KLAS: Ambulatory Practices Considering More EMR Vendors

Posted: 07 Apr 2010 08:02 AM PDT

According to a new report from Orem, Utah-based KLAS , physician practices are considering an ever-increasing number of software vendors for EMRs. Well-established vendors Allscripts (Chicago), NextGen (Atlanta) and eClinicalWorks (Westborough, Mass.) still maintain the most mindshare in the ambulatory EMR market, however,   and are considered in one of every three purchase decisions, the study adds. For the new report, Ambulatory EMR Buying: A Roller Coaster Ride in 2010, KLAS interviewed more than 370 healthcare providers who plan to choose an EMR solution in the next two years, to discover which EMR vendors are making the short list. KLAS found that providers are increasing, not reducing, their pool of considered vendors, including lesser-known options. This is especially true for small practices with one to five physicians, where 72 percent are considering solutions outside the best-known vendors. In similar fashion, larger practices are also considering vendors that have traditionally serviced smaller organizations. The KLAS report also found that among providers planning an EMR purchase, nearly a third of them are actually replacing an existing solution. Further, half of the providers planning a switch are doing so because their current EMR lacks functionality or certification – in short, because they are not viable go-forward strategies in today’s ARRA-focused healthcare environment. Which ambulatory EMR vendors providers are considering varies significantly depending on practice size. For more information about the ambulatory EMR market, as well as in-depth provider perceptions of participating vendors, Ambulatory EMR Buying: A Roller Coaster Ride in 2010 is available at www.KLASresearch.com/reports .    

ONC Awards $60 Million for Research

Posted: 06 Apr 2010 09:35 AM PDT

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC, Washington) has awarded research grants totaling $60 million to four organizations through the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program. Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.), Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.), University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston , and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will all receive funds. According to David Blumenthal, M.D., National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, the research projects will identify short-term and long-term solutions to address key challenges, including health IT security, patient-centered cognitive support for clinicians, healthcare application and network-platform architectures, and secondary use of EHR data while maintaining privacy and security.  

Studies Say There Is No Magic Bullet for Health IT Adoption

Posted: 06 Apr 2010 08:54 AM PDT

Although health IT adoption can yield significant benefits, it may not necessarily improve the quality of care, according to findings from studies published in the April issue of Health Affairs , a journal based in Bethesda, Md. The journal published papers examining the successes and failures various organizations have had in adopting and implementing health IT. Some of the findings were as follows: ·          Investment in health IT can yield significant benefits, according to a study by the Center for IT Leadership at Partners in Healthcare (Charlestown, Mass) of Department of Veterans Affairs. From 1997 to 2007, the investment yielded $3.09 billion in potential cumulative net benefits, while improving healthcare quality. ·          Adoption of health IT is not a magic bullet for improving quality; success may depend on how it is implemented and the environment in which it is deployed, according to a study by the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. The group found only modest performance improvements in targeted areas, such as prevention of surgical complications, following adoption of EHR systems. Another study by the University of Minnesota School of Public Health found that use of EHRs and CPOE improved quality for some measures and noted greater quality improvements in academic hospitals than nonacademic hospitals. ·          Interaction with health IT is increasingly becoming part of the patient experience, say researchers at Group Health Cooperative’s Group Health Research Institute (Seattle), who found that nearly one-third of all patient encounters with primary care physicians were conducted through secure e-mail messaging. ·          The transition to paperless health records is not only complex, it’s often a struggle, according to leaders at Renaissance Health (Cambridge, Mass) and the AtlantiCare Special Care Center (Atlantic City, N.J.). While implementing an EHR system at a medical home practice, they found that limitations in the technology gave rise to medication errors, interruptions in work flow, and other problems. ·          Despite efforts to increase health IT adoption among physician practices, barriers remain, according to researchers at RTI International (Chicago), who conducted a study of nearly 5,000 office-based physicians in the U.S., and found that only 18 percent had purchased at least a basic EHR system. ·          Even with health IT support, hospitals vary widely in their ability to prevent medication errors, according to findings from a study by CSC Healthcare (Waltham, Mass.). Of 62 hospitals using CPOE, hospitals were able to detect just 44 percent of potential adverse drug events. ·          Small clinics should enlist tech assistance and reduce workloads temporarily during a health IT implementation, according to a study by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (Washington, D.C.), which found that practices that faired the best not only had outside training but also reduced their patient load during a period of one to three months.

Hospitals slam House plan

Posted:

By Jim Saunders  4/7/2010 © Health News Florida Should hospice patients be moved into HMOs? How about those who have an IQ of 50? No, say advocacy groups, adding their protests to those of hospitals and doctors who say a House Medicaid overhaul bill would force them into unwanted contracts with managed-care plans.

Doctors' certificates expiring

Posted:

4/6/2010 © Associated Press For the first time since leaving medical school, many doctors in 147 specialties from dermatology to obstetrics must take tests to renew board certification in their fields. And some are feeling the heat.
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