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The days of associating small hospitals with low-tech facilities are slowly fading in the past. One reason is that the small, including critical access, hospitals (CAHs) are not exempt from the HITECH programs carrots … or sticks. But sometimes being small does mean being resource constrained and, in that environment, doing any kind of rip [...]

I expected this past weekend to be devoted to thinking about final MU changes, however my attention was drawn to the announcement about Verizon’s entry into the HIE arena. It appears Verizon has launched a Web-based health exchange, something of which I have been advocating for the past year or so, and teamed up with several other players to make it work. MedVirginia, a private health exchange operated in Virginia; Medfx, a company knowledgeable in cloud based health care and practice management solutions; and Oracle for its transaction systems, databases and indices. It’s a good model, as it provides knowledge in the practical operation of an exchange and technology necessary to power it across the Web. But it seems to me the new offering — as bold as it is — has missed a critical component. All of this effort is aimed at moving data from one point to another, but where is the skill set to use that data to transform the way providers deliver care, and what metrics will be used to assess quality?

Though HITECH may have some questioning their physician integration strategy — especially the part about underwriting EMRs using the Stark relaxations — it hasn’t deterred Inova Health and its CIO Geoff Brown one bit. In fact, Brown thinks strengthening those key relationships is more important than ever. Heartened by the industry’s move towards standards and [...]

 

 PODCAST: One-on-One w/Inova Health System SVP & CIO Geoff Brown, Chapter 2 [12:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (137)

The field of biomedical is full of acronyms — CPOE, HIE, EMR, HL7 — that may be interesting to IT professionals, but merely connote longer days, multiple logins and frustration for clinicians. While people in “healthcare” love it concept of CPOE, physicians feel it slow them down and turns them from docs into secretaries. I recently gave a ground rounds to our large children’s hospital to explain how biomedical informatics is evolving. There is a plan in my mind of how CPOE, HIE, etc., can come together leveraging bar code medication administration and actionable alerts, to prevent beside safety issues and improve care. What will also emerge is quality reporting which can provide data for large scale research.

After 14 years with St. Claire Regional Medical Center, you might think Randy McCleese has done it all, but you’d be wrong. That’s because the CIO is just now embarking on a new core clinical install with a vendor he hasn’t worked with before — Meditech. And McCleese isn’t dipping his toe into the Meditech [...]

 

 PODCAST: One-on-One w/St. Claire Regional Medical Center VP of IS & CIO Randy McCleese, Chapter 3 [12:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (81)

Though HITECH may have some questioning their physician integration strategy — especially the part about underwriting EMRs using the Stark relaxations — it hasn’t deterred Inova Health and its CIO Geoff Brown one bit. In fact, Brown thinks strengthening those key relationships is more important than ever. Heartened by the industry’s move towards standards and [...]

 

 PODCAST: One-on-One w/Inova Health System SVP & CIO Geoff Brown, Chapter 1 [17:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (246)

Managing 512 interfaces isn’t easy. That’s why Daniel Barchi, SVP and CIO with Carilion Health System, was more than happy to embark on the search for a single integrated EMR a few years ago. After an intensive selection process — which included copious input from clinicians — the health system selected Epic. And from that [...]

 

 PODCAST: One-on-One-w/Carilion Health System SVP and CIO Daniel Barchi, Chapter 3 [11:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (120)

Among 38 potential service providers, only five were considered in more than 10 percent of buying decisions, according to a new KLAS report “Health Information Exchanges: Perception in an Expanding Frontier.” Medicity was considered in 23 percent of HIE buying decisions, followed by Axolotl (22 percent), RelayHealth (16 percent), ICA (11 percent) and Epic (11 percent) — though at this point Epic is strongly considered only for Epic-to-Epic connections, according to KLAS.

 

 KLAS Says Vendors Grappling in Wild HIE Landscape [24:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (456)

“When exploring uncharted waters or embarking on a great adventure often the final destination is not necessarily that which was first envisioned. An adventure, by definition is a venture or gamble. Christopher Columbus did not expect to discover a new world; his intended adventure upon embarkation is not why he is remembered today. The same [...]

Here we are, just 15 months after HITECH’s enactment and the government’s “full court press” to drive HIT adoption is in full swing.  The dizzying pace of events over just these past three months has been enough to take one’s breath away.  So let’s pause for a moment, take a deep breath, recap some relevant [...]

Your local RHIO or HIE should be much more than a check box on your Meaningful Use requirements list, they stand to play an important role in delivering the vision Meaningful Use. Too often RHIOs are discussed as nothing more than repositories of clinical data, but by working with them as a partner they can help organizations and providers address half the Meaningful Use requirements.

Chuck Podesta’s stance on Stage 1 Meaningful Use criteria probably won’t win him any toasts at the next CIO event. That’s because, despite the position of organizations like CHIME (and this journalist), Podesta thinks the criteria aren’t overly onerous. Though he acknowledges the incentive payout structure isn’t perfect, little else about the program disquiets the [...]

After writing public comments on meaningful use, submitting grant proposals and trying to keep pace of healthcare reform, the comment period has just begun.  With the formation of the Regional Extension Centers, State HIT coordinators being nominated, Health Information Exchanges gaining more traction and countless vendors trying to obtain your stimulus money, a CIO’s involvement [...]

Chuck Podesta’s stance on Stage 1 Meaningful Use criteria probably won’t win him any toasts at the next CIO event. That’s because, despite the position of organizations like CHIME (and this journalist), Podesta thinks the criteria aren’t overly onerous. Though he acknowledges the incentive payout structure isn’t perfect, little else about the program disquiets the [...]

A day in the life of a healthcare CIO includes interpreting and responding to new federal regulations for use of clinical systems, managing a widening gap between available, healthcare-experienced IT staff and needs, balancing cooperation and competition in health data sharing initiatives, aligning internal and vendor agendas to assure EHR delivery, and coping with ongoing funding competition which will steepen with health economic reforms. How is he to do it?

Experts from some not-for-profit hospitals have created an EHR Meaningful Use Implementation best-practices library, as part of the Premier healthcare alliance Health Information Technology (HIT) Collaborative. Championed by Bill Spooner, CIO at Sharp HealthCare, and Craig Richardville, CIO for the Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS), the library features specific instruction on ways to speed implementation of [...]

It occurs to me that the development of electronic health or E-Health is much like a dance and we, as leaders in the technology aspects of health, need to learn some new steps. It’s easy to be caught in the technology foxtrot and spend our time on interoperability, data quality, unique identifiers and semantic [...]

News related to the exchange of health information and the entities that facilitate that exchange continue to dominate the headlines. And for good reason. Access to a comprehensive view of a patient’s health information across encounters and providers is widely seen as one of the most important contributors to the Obama administration’s goals of improving [...]

With a healthcare IT career that started in January 1973 — and has since covered the vendor, consultant and provider sides of the business — there isn’t much that’s going to surprise Eastern Connecticut Health Network (ECHN) VP and CIO Charlie Covin. But the HITECH Act, which he describes as close to revolutionary, comes darn [...]

ONC has issued a whitepaper examining whether, to what extent, and how individuals should have the ability to exercise control over their information in an HIE environment. It looks at existing approaches and details policy options, considerations, and analysis. “This whitepaper will serve as input to, and be reviewed by, the HIT Policy Committee’s Privacy and Security [...]

In its final act of largess under the State Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program, HHS has awarded more than $160 million in new grants “to help states advance the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology.” The first wave of 40 awards was released in mid-February. Through this final round of awards, every U.S. [...]

Every year I go to the annual HIMSS conference. It is a wonderful learning opportunity and a great opportunity to exchange ideas with friend and colleagues. I look forward to going each year, but recently I have come back wondering what is it we are doing as an industry, and where is the innovation.
I have [...]

Other than a major focus on Meaningful Use and clinical systems, security concerns are a top priority, with one third of respondents (34 percent) saying an internal breach was their top worry in that area, and nearly one-quarter (23 percent) said their organization had a security breach in the past year, according to 21st Annual [...]