Thursday, April 29, 2010

Health Informatics News

Health Informatics News

HIMSS Interoperability Showcase Gets New Home

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 08:15 AM PDT

Market Center Management Company announced today an alliance with the Chicago-based Healthcare Information and Management System Society (HIMSS) that will establish a flexible but permanent home for the HIMSS Interoperability Showcase. The alliance also includes an agreement for exclusive education partnership programming, creation of new trade events, and broad-based opportunities to showcase HIMSS partners. The HIMSS Interoperability Showcase will be located on the premier healthcare information technology (HIT) floor of the Nashville Medical Trade Center, opening in 2013. The showcase, a state-of-the-art, interactive demonstration highlighting how health IT applications share patient data across a range of settings, will be one component of a healthcare marketplace that will feature permanent showrooms, temporary exhibition space, and education and training facilities. Market Center Management Company is an international wholesale trade center and tradeshow management company based in Dallas.

KLAS: Global Solutions Dominate BI Market

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 08:07 AM PDT

Unlike most segments of healthcare IT, which are dominated by a handful of healthcare-focused vendors, the enterprise business intelligence (BI) solutions deployed at hospitals are more likely to come from general software companies like SAP and IBM, according to a report from Orem, Utah-based KLAS . According to the report, 10 of the top 13 most-considered solutions in BI purchases come from industry-agnostic vendors, widely eclipsing interest in solutions from Cerner, Eclipsys, Epic, GE and Siemens. Though enterprise BI adoption is still relatively rare, Dimensional Insight, IBM, Information Builders and SAP all had enough validated deployments to be ranked in the KLAS report. In general, these vendors earned high marks for delivering powerful and flexible tools that offered a wide variety of data options. However, KLAS found that extensive flexibility often brings with it significant complexity. Among the core hospital vendors, the only company to be ranked in the report was McKesson, with its Horizon Business Insight product. Cerner has had some success extending its BI capabilities beyond clinical analytics and into the financial realm, but its reach is still very limited, it says. The KLAS report also found that 69 percent of respondents believe BI solutions will play an important or critical role in meaningful use. Among the enterprise BI vendors ranked in the KLAS report, Dimensional Insight was rated number one, with an overall KLAS performance score of 84.1 out of 100. Information Builders (80.1) and McKesson (77.6) were second and third, respectively. Other vendors highlighted in the KLAS report include Cerner, IBM, Lawson, Microsoft, Oracle, Precision.BI, SAP, SAS and Siemens. To learn more or to purchase the full report, healthcare providers and vendors can visit www.KLASresearch/reports.com .

Thomas Jefferson Goes Live with EDIS

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 07:56 AM PDT

The first of three Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals (TJUH, Philadelphia) is live with its Emergency Department Information System (EDIS) from Somerset, N.J.-based Wellsoft . Since going live in March, the Center City Campus of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital has realized several benefits, including: “at a glance” patient status, risk management alerts and threshold notifications, real-time graphical ED status “dashboard,” automated data collection, reporting and simultaneous access to electronic patient charts by clinicians and consulting specialists. The facility provides emergency care for over 59,000 patients each year. TJUH plans to rollout Wellsoft’s EDIS to its other two locations, Methodist Hospital and Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience. The Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals now have 957 licensed acute care beds, with major programs in a wide range of clinical specialties.

GE-Ascom Partnering on Mobile Solution

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 07:55 AM PDT

U.K.-based GE Healthcare and Ascom Wireless Solutions (Sweden) announced plans to launch a wireless hospital-wide messaging system to improve workflow and communications for healthcare providers. According to the companies, the agreement aligns the GE Healthcare patient monitoring platform with Ascom’s wireless communication solutions. The companies say the partnership will enable hospitals to customize, filter and send secondary alarms to clinicians’ Ascom Voice over IP phones, pagers and Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications handsets. By interfacing wireless hardware and middleware with patient monitoring devices, GE Healthcare and Ascom offer hospitals a “one-stop” solution for wireless secondary alarm management, they tout.

Premier Investing $86 Million to Expand Data Foundation

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 07:49 AM PDT

As part of a new plan to help hospitals leverage performance improvement and knowledge sharing under healthcare reform, Premier Healthcare Alliance is investing more than $86 million over the next three years to expand the data foundation needed to support new models of healthcare delivery that include both acute and non-acute care settings, including Accountable Care Organizations. In addition to including new measures in informatics products to assist hospitals predict reform impact, automate measures reporting and sustain quality and cost improvements, Premier is also integrating intelligence from existing products to help hospitals with cost containment, care quality, and patient safety. Leading the initiative is Premier’s Senior Vice President of Healthcare Informatics, Keith J. Figlioli, who cited the current lack of a “single, strategic look into performance data” incorporating “safety, productivity, utilization, supply chain efficiency and reimbursement,” which are “interrelated” under reform. He said that by using Premier’s data and collaborative capabilities, healthcare providers will be able to “gain actionable insights [using] integrated information from disparate sources.” Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, the Premier Healthcare Alliance maintains the nation’s most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has offices in San Diego, Philadelphia and Washington.

Could vaccine forms spook parents?

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By Jim Saunders 2/17/2010 © Health News Florida State Rep. Kevin Ambler says he wants to make sure parents have adequate information about vaccinations that children need to enroll in school. But doctors say it could scare parents away, leaving kids unprotected.

Over-billing: just FL culture?

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By Cynthia Washam 2/16/2010 © Health News Florida Brevard County’s largest medical group is close to settling a complaint that it overbilled Medicare $8 million by giving cancer patients more expensive treatments than they needed. Is this a case of fraud, as the Justice Department maintains, or an example of Florida's overheated style of medical treatment?

Patients decry C-section rate

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2/12/2010 © Health News Florida Advocates for women's health are hosting a seminar today and Saturday on the alarming rate of unnecessary Cesarean sections in Miami, where the surgery accounts for more than half of births. Meanwhile, the Orlando Sentinel reports on another patient-education effort: on the dangers of MRIs for pacemaker patients.

State agencies on trial today

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By Sammy Mack 2/9/2010 © Health News Florida A landmark lawsuit that seeks to rewrite Florida's Medicaid policy resumed today in Miami, with plaintiffs charging that state agencies' low pay for doctors and dentists and tendency to switch plans without notice often leave children with no access to care. A related story in Florida Today shows the struggle of dentists who take Medicaid. 

Some defend DOH secrecy

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By Carol Gentry 2/8/2010 © Health News Florida  The state Department of Health's decision to withhold information on its consumer web site about pending actions against health professionals -- including arrests --- is entirely appropriate, say attorneys who defend doctors. The public's reaction was different. As one woman said, "I was horrified."

Uninsured Mexicans find care

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2/2/2010 © Orlando Sentinel When Josefina de la Rosa was diagnosed with cancer in 2007, she could not afford treatment. In stepped nonprofit Casa de Mexico, which finds doctors to help.
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