Friday, April 16, 2010

Health Informatics News

Health Informatics News

Data from CHCF Study Show PHRs Can Improve Health

Posted: 15 Apr 2010 07:22 AM PDT

Patients who access health information through personal health records (PHRs) report that they know more about their health, ask more questions, and take better care of themselves than when data is accessed only by paper records, according to a study released by the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF, Oakland). According to the survey, one in 14 Americans has used a PHR, which is double the number of users from a year earlier, and one in three respondents say they used the PHR to take a specific action to improve their health. Research shows that the benefits of PHR use are most valued in patients with multiple chronic conditions, less education, and lower incomes — populations that have been difficult for providers to engage. Privacy, however, is still somewhat of a barrier. Many of those surveyed expressed concern that their health information could be used by employers, health insurance plans, or others, and one third said they would consider hiding some information from their provider because of that fear. Still, two-thirds of those surveyed said privacy concerns should not stand in the way of learning how technology can help improve health care. The survey of 1,849 people was conducted by Lake Research Partners between December 18, 2009 and January 15, 2010. To view the full survey findings, visit www.chcf.org .

California eHealth Collaborative Names New CEO

Posted: 15 Apr 2010 06:58 AM PDT

Katherine R. Tavitian has been named chief executive officer of the San Francisco-based California eHealth Collaborative (CAeHC). Tavitian has served as CEO of the National Coalition for Health Integration (NCHI) since 2009, where she was Board Member of the start-up, non-profit health IT organization. Prior to her work at NCHI, Tavitian was senior vice president for Healthcare Business Development at Walgreen Co., where she led new healthcare businesses that aimed to improve patient engagement, care coordination and access to care. Tavitian succeeds Michele Kang, who has served as Interim CEO since 2009. The California eHealth Collaborative is a nonprofit collaborative of stakeholders whose mission is to provide an open and inclusive approach for eHealth activities in California that will drive the development of secure access to clinically-relevant information at the point of care.

Calif. Hospital Rolls Out Surveillance Solution

Posted: 14 Apr 2010 08:01 AM PDT

St. Joseph Health System – Humboldt County (SJHS-HC), a member of St. Joseph Health System based in Orange, Calif., implemented the SafetySurveillor solution from Premier healthcare alliance (Charlotte, N.C.) to track potential influenza cases. According to Premier, St. Joseph deployed the tool after California health officials released new requirements regarding influenza reporting. With SafetySurveillor, real-time alerts are set up at St. Joseph Hospital (Eureka, Calif.) and Redwood Memorial Hospital (Fortuna, Calif.) to enable more rapid reporting of positive flu cases in both children and adults, it says. In addition, the emergency department can access SafetySurveillor online. Founded in 1920, SJHS-HC is part of St. Joseph Health System, an integrated healthcare delivery organization that provides a broad range of medical services across Northern California, Southern California and West Texas/Eastern New Mexico.  

Catholic Health Initiatives Taps RCM Solution

Posted: 14 Apr 2010 07:59 AM PDT

Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), a 72-hospital system headquartered in Denver, is rolling out Atlanta-based RelayHealth ’s RevRunner to improve its revenue cycle services. The tool will be used to identify healthcare benefits and verify patient eligibility, particularly in CHI’s small, critical-access hospitals, says the company. CHI is a faith-based, nonprofit health system operating in 18 states. In addition to its hospitals, the system includes 40 long-term care, assisted- and residential-living facilities and two community health-services organizations. With annual revenues of $8.6 billion, CHI ranks as the nation's second-largest Catholic health care system.  

Oregon Network Upgrades EMR

Posted: 13 Apr 2010 07:21 AM PDT

Providence Health & Services ’ Oregon-based health system is upgrading to U.K.-based GE Healthcare ’s Centricity EMR platform in all seven of its hospitals and clinics. According to the company, the Centricity EMR software provides workflow-based interoperability by creating a single record of problems, allergies, and medications across disparate applications. By embedding standards-based protocols, Centricity EMR aggregates and translates information from disparate systems to form a complete patient picture, it touts. Providence’s Oregon-based facilities, as well as outside local clinicians using Centricity EMR, will continue to collect, share and access patient data through a standards-based health information exchange that can be used across the system. Providence Health & Services is a not-for-profit health system serving communities in Alaska, Washington, Montana, Oregon and California. The system includes 27 hospitals, more than 35 non-acute facilities, physician clinics, a health plan, a liberal arts university, a high school, approximately 49,000 employees and numerous other health, housing and educational services.  

Summit Health Deploys ICD-10 Simulator

Posted: 13 Apr 2010 07:20 AM PDT

Summit Health (Chambersburg, Pa.), the non-profit parent organization of Chambersburg Hospital and Waynesboro Hospital, is implementing Reston, Va.-based QuadraMed Corp. ’s Quantim ICD-10 Coding Simulator to help coders prepare for the transition to ICD-10. Quantim ICD-10 is a component of the ICD-10 Countdown Program, a solution that duplicates the ICD-10 coding environment for accelerated training and practice purposes, according to the company. The Countdown Program includes an avatar-based, e-Learning tutorial that provides real-world scenarios to help coders get up to speed on the application. The Simulator comes with embedded coding guidelines, ICD-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS code books, and general equivalence mapping bi-directional translation capabilities, it says. Summit Health is the south-central Pennsylvania region’s primary healthcare provider and largest non-governmental employer. Its services include family physicians, surgeons, specialists, diagnostic services, a women’s health center, a fitness center, and two hospitals.  
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