Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Health Informatics News

Health Informatics News

Intuit to Acquire Medfusion

Posted: 11 May 2010 08:41 AM PDT

Intuit Inc., based in Mountain View, Calif., and provider of business and financial management solutions Quickbooks, Quicken, and TurboTax, has signed an agreement to acquire Medfusion , a Cary, N.C.-based patient-to-provider communications company. The cash transaction is valued at approximately $91 million. Medfusion is the creator of an online solution to help patients better communicate with their providers to schedule appointments, pay bills, request prescription refills, complete medical forms, review lab results and clinical summaries, receive reminders and exchange secure messages for related care and administrative issues. Intuit plans to build upon its existing Quicken Health programs, combining Intuit’s user interface and design with Medfusion’s portal offering and bill presentment and payment solutions. Medfusion’s patient-to-provider communication solution, combined with an electronic health record, allows patients to electronically access their health information in a timely manner, which is a current requirement for eligible providers to receive $44,000 per provider under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus bill. Under the terms of the transaction, Stephen Malik, Medfusion’s founder and chief executive officer, will become a senior vice president and general manager reporting to Brad Smith, Intuit president and chief executive officer. The transaction is expected to close during the fourth quarter of Intuit’s fiscal year 2010, which ends July 31st.

Hunterdon Utilizes InterSystems Ensemble

Posted: 11 May 2010 07:54 AM PDT

InterSystems Corporation , a producer of software for connected healthcare based in Cambridge, Mass., has announced that the Hunterdon Healthcare System (Flemington, N.J.) is using the InterSystems Ensemble rapid integration and development platform to integrate the electronic medical records (EMR) systems at their 15 affiliated physician groups with the EMR and other systems at Hunterdon Healthcare Medical Center. Hunterdon Healthcare most recently is using Ensemble to connect the medical center’s  QuadraMed Affinity hospital information system and laboratory system with the physician groups’ Electronic Health Record and Enterprise Practice Management systems from NextGen Healthcare Information Systems . Communication enhancements that have resulted include automated primary care physician notification, where a patient’s primary care provider is notified when that patient is admitted to the hospital, and employee utilization notice alerts, which integrates separate payroll systems. Hunterdon plans to follow up their internal integration projects with joining an health information exchange in northern central New Jersey.

NQF Forms New Health IT Advisory Committee

Posted: 11 May 2010 07:46 AM PDT

Paul Tang, M.D., vice president and chief medical director at Palo Alto Medical Foundation, is one of 25 people who have been selected to serve on the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC) for the Washington-based National Quality Forum (NQF). Tang will serve as chair on the committee, which is being formed to help guide NQF in its ongoing work in health IT efforts. Other nominees include: Christoph U. Lehmann, M.D., Director, Clinical Information Technology, Johns Hopkins University and Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Shannon Sims, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Health Informatics in Performance Improvement, Rush University Medical Center Christopher S. Snyder, D.O., Chief Medical Information Officer, Peninsula Regional Medical Center The NQF Board of Directors approved the creation of HITAC, and is charging the body with developing a strategic plan and providing ongoing guidance for NQF’s HIT portfolio; offering input on HIT projects, such as maintenance of the Quality Data Set and specification of testing requirements for eMeasures; reviewing electronic specifications for NQF-endorsed and candidate standards; and making recommendations on the endorsement and maintenance of HIT-related consensus standards. For a full roster of HITAC members, please click here . HITAC is a standing committee of the NQF Board of Directors and includes non-voting federal liaisons from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Indian Health Service, the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT, and the Veterans Health Administration. Members of HITAC are eligible to serve three-year terms.

HHS Awards ARRA Funds for Disability Research Center

Posted: 11 May 2010 06:54 AM PDT

The Health and Human Services Office on Disability is awarding more than $6 million in ARRA funding to establish a Center of Excellence in Research on Disability Services, Care Coordination and Integration. The contract has been awarded to the Princeton, N.J.-based Mathematica Policy Research, Inc for a two-year period and is aimed at building the infrastructure necessary to support and conduct research on the effectiveness and comparative effectiveness of systems of care for people with disabilities. According to HHS, the center will identify data sources, evaluate the usability of data, conduct research, and disseminate scientifically and clinically relevant information to help patients, providers, policy makers, consumers, caregivers, and family members make decisions on health care. As part of the effort, HHS is collaborating with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Chronic Conditions Warehouse (CCW) to link data and increase its usability, it says.

HIT Policy Committee Approves Certification Recommendations

Posted: 10 May 2010 10:52 AM PDT

Last week, the Health IT Policy Committee unanimously approved recommendations from its adoption and certification work group and its privacy and security work group on the proposed rule for EHR certification programs. In the first letter to David Blumenthal, M.D., National Coordinator for Health IT, the panel approved 12 recommendations from the certification/adoption work group , including the following: The surveillance process used to evaluate certified products to ensure they adhere to adopted standards should be in compliance with testing criteria and certification criteria, and should maintain the effectiveness of systems and implementations. ONC should have the authority to de-certify EHRs or EHR modules if a pattern of unsatisfactory surveillance results emerges or if patient-safety concerns emerge. For certification and testing for stages 2 and 3, differential testing and certification should be allowed if: an applicant has already passed a specific test in a prior stage, there has been no change in the criteria for that specific test in a subsequent stage, and there has been no change in the applicant’s software version. It should be required that certified EHR modules are sold with a label indicating that the module has not been tested for interoperability with other modules. The ONC-Authorized Certification Body (ACB) should be permitted to test at its own facility, remotely, and at the site of a healthcare organization. ONC, as well as each ONC-ACB, should maintain a Website that clearly identifies the names of vendors and the vendor version numbers that have received certification and which shows which Meaningful Use stage has been tested and certified. Future flexibility should be allowed to certify other HIT systems, such as PHRs. The committee also approved recommendations from its privacy work group related to the testing and certification of the modular components of EHR systems. The group advised that vendors be required to label the modules to identify the extent of the privacy and security components. “We are pleased with ONC’s structural approach to certification,” says the committee. “By separating the certification process from the testing process, and by utilizing existing international testing, accreditation, and certification standards, ONC is improving the objectivity and transparency of the certification and testing processes.”

IBM Launches Health Research Project

Posted: 10 May 2010 10:20 AM PDT

IBM  (Armonk, N.Y.) launched a multi-year research effort to connect and analyze data from disparate sources to enable individuals, governments, and businesses to better understand cause and effect relationships between agriculture, transportation, city planning, eating and exercise habits, socio-economic status, family life, and more in order to improve overall human health. The project will initially focus on childhood obesity. In the United States, chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity account for 70 percent of all deaths and more than $1.5 trillion of healthcare spending annually, but factors far outside the traditional healthcare system influence these diseases. By predicting real world reactions that effect human health, the IBM Research project aims to provide fact-based recommendations of actions to take and ones to avoid. The project could, for example, pinpoint incentives governments and businesses might offer or what types of investments to prioritize when considering the location of a new grocery store in relation to a transportation hub for easier accessibility for people without cars, or provide better understanding around the impact of food labels on marketing practices, buying habits, and school lunch quality. IBM intends to partner with public policy and food experts, medical clinicians, economists, simulation experts, industry leaders, universities and others in this collaborative endeavor.

Intelimedix Launches Cost Containment Technology

Posted: 10 May 2010 08:40 AM PDT

Intelimedix , a Lakeland, Fla.-based company focused on multi-relational data mining and predictive healthcare analytics, launched Tru:Beacon, a solution designed to cut medical costs without lowering quality of care. Tru:Beacon utilizes proprietary deterministic algorithms to uncover inappropriate payments, known fraud schemes and treatment variations, as well as other cost-increasing occurrences. By employing predictive modeling, Tru:Beacon profiles and recognizes patterns that identify provider fraud, member misuse, and identity theft. Tru:Beacon is one offering in Intelimedix’s recently rebranded Tru:Solutions suite, powered by the company’s Relational Online Analytical Processing technology, advanced algorithms and its proprietary business intelligence and analytics platform. Intelimedix is a privately held company with investment from a consortium of Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensees known as BP Informatics, LLC.

Aunt Martha's Selects NextGen Platform

Posted: 10 May 2010 08:18 AM PDT

Horsham, Pa.-based NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc. , a provider of healthcare information and connectivity systems, announced that Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center will deploy NextGen Electronic Health Record (EHR), NextGen Practice Management, and electronic dental records in its 17 community health centers (CHC) across suburban Chicago and central and western Illinois. Aunt Martha’s worked with NextGen Healthcare’s Grant Resources Center to identify grant opportunities and help fund the purchase of the technologies. Clinical values are captured in NextGen EHR as discrete data elements, helping CHCs streamline and simplify grant and outcomes reporting. For Aunt Martha’s, this capability can also help the organization compile the necessary data for participation in both regional and national health information exchange (HIE) initiatives, and explore financial incentives for data sharing under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center, headquartered in Olympia Fields, Ill., is a full range provider of primary medical, dental, and behavioral health services to over 80,000 individual clients per year.

Jackson Clinic Selects Allscripts EHR

Posted: 07 May 2010 08:55 AM PDT

Chicago-based  Allscripts announced that The Jackson Clinic , located in Jackson, Tenn., has selected the Allscripts Electronic Health Record (EHR) for its 120 physicians and 10 mid-level providers who serve patients throughout West Tennessee. The Jackson Clinic will integrate the EHR with its Allscripts Vision Practice Management solution to provide full-spectrum automation of all clinical and financial activities. By upgrading to the Allscripts EHR, The Jackson Clinic expects to qualify for more than $4 million of federal stimulus funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Beginning next year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will pay physicians up to $44,000 for implementing a certified Electronic Health Record and utilizing it in a “meaningful” way. 

Survey: Privacy compliance has declined

Posted: 14 May 2006 01:56 AM PDT

Three years after federal rules governing the privacy of patients' medical records went into effect, compliance seems to have declined for 6 percent, according to an annual survey conducted by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). Read more about this at here.

E-book: Making E-Health Work

Posted: 14 May 2006 01:53 AM PDT

E-Health has become an integral part of present-day healthcare delivery. With healthcare consumers, increasingly the focus of most health systems, the widespread implementation of health information and communications technologies offers cost-effective opportunities to meet their increasingly sophisticated healthcare needs.Bankix Systems Ltd has released its latest e-book. It is a 200-page in-depth analysis of the issues involved in "Making E-Health Work," the e-book's title. Read more about this e-book at here.

Consumer tools: UCompareHealthCare Offers Free Reports on Hospitals, Nursing Homes and Physicians

Posted: 11 Mar 2006 01:01 AM PST

"UCompareHealthCare has just unveiled its Web site, ucomparehealthcare.com, which features free reports on the nation's nursing homes, hospitals and physicians to help consumers make informed healthcare decisions. I checked the web site and found it very informative for health consumers to help them make informed decision about their choices of doctors, hospitals and others." Read more about this at UCompareHealthCare

Articles: Direct to Consumer: Women are a powerful, but untapped, audience

Posted: 03 Feb 2006 12:04 AM PST

"Women influence many family decisions—from choosing what's for dinner to selecting the medications their children take. In fact, nearly two-thirds of women are responsible for family healthcare decisions, according to a 2004 national survey conducted by Plan for Your Health. Many women also assume the care-giving role outside their nuclear families. Today's middle-aged woman may also look after her parents and in-laws too, often determining how long they can live on their own and how to best care for them. In addition, she often influences the important health decisions of grandchildren, co-workers, and friends." Read more at PharmExec.

Consumer tools: Really Personal PHRs

Posted: 27 Jan 2006 01:05 AM PST

"If we're committed to fostering the adoption of personal health records, we should take a page out of the consumer marketing textbooks — not the primers of health IT marketers. This was my conclusion after attending a recent meeting in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Markle Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Quality Research and Quality. " Read more about this at iHealthBeat .

Consumer trends: Manhattan Predicts Online Health Trends

Posted: 27 Jan 2006 12:06 AM PST

"US healthcare specialist Manhattan Research has published a summary of the major trends for health and pharmaceutical marketers to consider in 2006. The trends chart the increased use of the web and other new technologies as a health information and communication tool for both patients and physicians." Read more at Daily Research News Online.

News: Wall Street Journal Looks at Tools That Identify Low-Cost Care Options

Posted: 26 Jan 2006 01:07 AM PST

"The Wall Street Journal on Thursday looked at efforts by insurers to provide patients with tools - including a cell phone Web browsing service - to help them find low-cost treatment options. Lumenos, a unit of WellPoint, in February will launch the cell phone service, which lets patients type drug names into their cell phones' Web browsers and get lists of lower-cost alternatives. The program is designed so that patients can ask their physicians about cost-effective alternatives while they still are at their appointments." Read more at iHealthBeat.

Consumer tools: Consumer Health Complete Now Available from EBSCO Publishing

Posted: 25 Jan 2006 12:09 AM PST

"In continuing with the company's goal of providing the most comprehensive collection of online health and wellness resources, EBSCO Publishing has announced the release of Consumer Health Complete (CHC). This full text database is designed to support consumer and patients' information needs as well as foster an overall
understanding of health-related topics." Read more at Managing Information News.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)