Observations 23 June 2009: Declaration
“It had to happen. After weeks of following the discussion “meaningful use” it became obvious that the patient should be part of the equation. And it did happen.
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ICMCC@WC2009 Ontology Session
“Ontologies, Semantic Interoperability and Electronic Health Records - Standards for Patient Empowerment”
Chaired by Prof. Dr. Bernd Blobel, this session will take place on 10 September.
This ICMCC session has been supported by the Working Group “Electronic Health Records” of the European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) and the Working Group “Standards for Interoperability and EHR” of the German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS).
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News
Last 2 Days
The state of electronic health records across Canada
Source: Peter Hadzipetros, CBC News
“If the health records of Canadians were a music collection, we’d still be dealing with vinyl.
According to Canada Health Infoway — the not-for-profit organization funded by the federal government to move health records into the digital age — every year, Canadians visit doctors’ offices 322 million times.
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Internet used to help young smokers quit
Source: Reuters
“The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is leading a $2.9 million National Cancer Institute project to increase demand for evidence-based, Internet-based smoking cessation treatment for young adults aged 18 to 24 years.
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Survey Shows CPOE Lay of the Land
Source: Joseph Goedert, HDM Breaking News
“A new survey of health care CIOs shows adoption, “at some level,” of computerized physician order entry systems is becoming widespread.
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EMR Systems Overtake Traditional Paper Records
Source: Brigette Botkin, ABC Article Directory
“Many medical information record systems were initially designed as financial systems with patient information added later, many times as an afterthought.
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Mobile Medicine and EMR Companies Team Up
Source: theMobileHealthCrowd
“With the goal of improving safety for patients and strengthening communication among healthcare providers, AirStrip Technologies and CliniComp have announced an agreement that will begin pairing both companies’ product offerings at hospitals nationwide.
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Health Care IT: 10 Must-See iPhone Apps for Doctors and Patients
Source: eWeek
“Since Apple launched the App Store in July 2008, users have downloaded more than 1 billion iPhone Apps with a variety of uses (or non-uses, if you consider all the games and procrastination tools currently on the market for the device).
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Physician Resistance Remains a Stumbling Block to EHRs
Source: Lisa Eramo, HealthLeaders Media
“What can make or break an EHR implementation? Two words: physician buy-in, says Mike Davis, executive vice president of Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) Analytics in Chicago.
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Electronic health records: A checkup
Source: David Goldman, CNNMoney.com
“It may seem obvious, but qualifying physicians will have to prove they are putting certified digital health technology to good use, not just that they are in possession of the system.
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Health-e-Child Network: Better care for little kids
Source: HealthTech Wire
“What is the best way to operate on a child with a particular congenital heart disease? How are certain brain tumours that occur at a very early age best dealt with?
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Tips for Ensuring Successful EHR Adoption
Source: Don A. Solberg, Kathryn L Houck and Jim Roberts, Advance
“Successful electronic health record (EHR) adoption not only improves quality of care by making patient information easily accessible, it also provides valuable clinical decision support. In addition, organizations benefit from streamlined operations — enabling physicians to spend less time on charting and documentation, and more time engaging in face-to-face interactions with patients.
Despite these obvious advantages, however, many physicians are resistant to adopting EHR systems.
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Phased EHR Implementations
Source: Robert N. Mitchell, Advance
“Mike McCurry and Mike Paasch are both vice presidents/CIOs at midwestern health systems.
McCurry is executive vice president and COO at Mercy Health System in Chesterfield, Mo., and describes his organization’s corporate landscape this way: Historically, Mercy Health System was a series of traditional hospital-oriented, provider-based operations. Today, Mercy is a physician practice-oriented hospital operations organization serving populations in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. And, because of this approach, his organization has taken a different approach to deploying an electronic health record (EHR).
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Philippines urged to use international telehealth standards
Source: Tom Noda, The Industry Standard
“With the current population increase outgrowing the local healthcare resources, lawmakers and doctors in the Philippines are calling for the immediate adoption of international telehealth standards or E-health — the practice of applying ICT for healthcare delivery and education for the underserved.
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Previous 5 Days
Personal Health Record is the foundation
Source: ICD-10 Extension and more
Elektronische Gesundheitskarte: Regierungsberater fordert Verzicht auf Rollout
Source: Detlef Borchers, Heise Online
Using The Internet To Help Young Smokers Quit
Source: ZAMP Bionews
GE Healthcare, InterComponentWare to expand HIE services
Source: Kyle Hardy, Healthcare IT News
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta promotes healthy lifestyles with new Web site
Source: Kyle Hardy, Healthcare IT News
Leading French hospital gets HIS to support patient records
Source: Sam Collins, Healthcare IT News
The PHR as a Tool to Enable Consumers to Take Responsibility for Their Own Health
Source: Bruce Friedman, Lab Soft News
The Council of Australian Governments Might Be About to Make a Big Mistake Funding e-Health at the Meeting Tomorrow!
Source: David More, Australian Health Information Technology
iSoft Synergy to start GP2GP testing
Source: Linda Davidson, e-Health Insider IPrimary Care
Telemedicine lets patients tune in to specialized care
Source: Joe Goldeen, RecordNet
Consultation en ligne : ce n’est plus anecdotique aux Etats-Unis
Source: Denise Silber, Silber's Blog
Electronic Health Records (EHR) & the Need for Cross-Browser Compatibility
Source: Marcia Gulesian, The Information Technology Forum
World Internet Project and Health
Source: Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, ICTconsequences
Pentucket Medical uses Virtualization to Run GE’s Centricty EMR
Source: EMR Daily News
AeroScout Sees Exploding Health Care Channel
Source: Chad Berndtson, ChannelWeb
Open-source advocates praise CCHIT’s changes
Source: Fred Pennic, Healthcare IT Consultant Blog
Canada Far Behind in EHR Goal
Source: Joseph Goedert, HDM Breaking News
“Participatory Medicine” and Its Relationship to Clinical Lab Testing
Source: Bruce Friedman, Lab Soft News
Medical smartphone use in other countries
Source: Dr. Joseph Kim, Medical Smartphones
The Doctor Will Text You Now
Source: Anna Wilde Mathews, The Wall Street Journal
Meer dan de helft van de artsen gebruikt elektronisch medisch dossier
Source: De Standaard
Survey: Hong Kong private docs not ready for e-health record
Source: Computerworld Hong Kong staff, The Industry Standard
A ‘Chewing Robot’ which mimics the human jaw and teeth could revolutionise dental research, it has emerged.
Source: The Telegraph
Sevocity Launches EHR (Electronic Health Record) Interface With Austin Radiological Association
Source: RedOrbit
Government IT to be key election battlegound
Source: Leo King, Computerworld UK
Health IT coordinator to harmonize record standards, network
Source: Alice Lipowicz, FederalComputerWeek
Will New Certification Criteria Fuel Open Source E-Health Records?
Source: Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek
E-Medicine: Its time is coming
Source: Stephen Schimpff, mobihealthnews
CCHIT Seeing the Light?
Source: Ryan Ricks, EHR Blog Scope
Semantic interoperability - Dream or reality?
Source: Octavian Purcarea, Microsoft EMEA Health Blog
Meaningful Use Organisational Responses
Source: Healthcare Informatics; Joseph Goedert, HDM Breaking News
Technology and Health Care in BC
Source: yvrbybne's Channel, Youtube
Meaningful Use Timeline Issues
Source: Joseph Goedert, HDM Breaking News
Guidelines For Use Of Patient Records In Medical Research
Source: RedOrbit
AMA approves policies on security breaches, EHRs
Source: Andis Robeznieks, EMR Specialists
Orange Austria targets mobile e-health
Source: Jon Hoeksma, e-Health Europe
University of Houston team working on home patient monitoring technology
Source: Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News
Texas radiologists’ group implements free EMR interface
Source: Kyle Hardy, Healthcare IT News
EMIS to launch its own shared record system
Source: Pulse
No. 5: UAB Health System
Source: Joan Hicks, Modern Healthcare
No. 4: Northwest Healthcare
Source: Candy Deruchia Bunten, Modern Healthcare
No. 3: Banner Health
Source: Mike Warden and Judy Van Norman
No. 2: Avera Health
Source: James Veline, Modern Healthcare
No. 1: Medical University of South Carolina
Source: Frank C. Clark, Modern Healthcare
Law means rethinking how you protect patient data
Source: Steven M. Harris, AMNews
First draft of EHR “meaningful use” definition unveiled
Source: Chris Silva, AMNews
GP leaders endorse advice on safety of patient records
Source: Sanjay Tanday, Healthcare Republic News
Technical Interoperability of Disparate Systems - An Electronic Health Record (EHR)-Centric System Implemented with a Service-Oriented Architecture
Source: Marcia Gulesian, The Information Technology Forum
Overcoming the challenges to eHealth
Source: Octavian Purcarea, Microsoft EMEA Health Blog
Electronic monitors provide care without doctor
Source: Benny Evangelista, San Francisco Chronicle
Wireless Changing Medicine
Source: Carolyn Bloch, Federal Telemedicine News
Smaller medical practices get help with electronic records
Source: Fred Pennic, Healthcare IT Consultant Blog
Successful Demonstration of Health Information Exchange Opens ARRA Stimulus Options for California
Source: PRWeb
“Shared Decision-Making Is Highest Level of Informed Consent,” Says State of Washington
Source: Cheree Cleghorn, The Patient Report
My Right to Data, Happiness, and a Long and Healthy Life
Source: Sarah Greene, e-patients.net
Our Meaningful Use Comments
Source: John Moore, Chilmark Research
How did New Zealand achieve 100% EMR Adoption in Primary Care?
Source: Alan Brookstone, CanadianEMR
Some Thoughts, and a Question, on the Declaration of Health Data Rights
Source: Bradley Kreit, Health Horizons
Science
Last 7 Days
Evaluation of a flowchart-based EHR query system: a case study of RetroGuide
Source: Huser, Vojtech et al, Journal of Biomedical Informatics, Article in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Provision of query systems which are intuitive for non-experts has been recognized as an important informatics challenge. We developed a prototype of a flowchart-based analytical framework called RetroGuide that enables non-experts to formulate query tasks using a step-based, patient-centered paradigm inspired by workflow technology. We present results of the evaluation of RetroGuide in comparison to Structured Query Language (SQL) in laboratory settings using a mixed method design.
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Understanding workflow in telehealth video visits: Observations from the IDEATel project
Source: Kaufman, David R. et al, Journal of Biomedical Informatics, Volume 42, Issue 4
Home telemedicine is an emerging healthcare paradigm that has the potential to transform the treatment of chronic illness. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) develop a theoretical and methodological framework for studying workflow in telemediated clinician-patient encounters drawing on a distributed cognition approach and (2) employ the framework in an in-depth analysis of workflow in the IDEATel project, a telemedicine program for older adults with diabetes.
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Defining and Testing EMR Usability: Principles and Proposed Methods of EMR Usability Evaluation and Rating
Source: HIMSS EHR Usability Task Force
“Electronic medical record (EMR) adoption rates have been slower than expected in the United States, especially in comparison to other industry sectors and other developed countries. A key reason, aside from initial costs and lost productivity during EMR implementation, is lack of efficiency and usability of EMRs currently available. Achieving the healthcare reform goals of broad EMR adoption and “meaningful use” will require that efficiency and usability be effectively addressed at a fundamental level.
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Managing the Integrity of Patient Identity in Health Information Exchange
Source: AHIMA, Journal of AHIMA 80, no.7
“Over the past decade, multiple studies have documented the value of health information exchange (HIE). eHealth Initiative’s recent “Fifth Annual Survey of Health Information Exchange at the State and Local Levels” found that 69 percent of fully operational exchange efforts reported reductions in healthcare costs.
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Archetype-based conversion of EHR content models: pilot experience with a regional EHR system
Source: Chen, Rong et al, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 9(1)
Background
Exchange of Electronic Health Record (EHR) data between systems from different suppliers is a major challenge. EHR communication based on archetype methodology has been developed by openEHR and CEN/ISO. The experience of using archetypes in deployed EHR systems is quite limited today. Currently deployed EHR systems with large user bases have their own proprietary way of representing clinical content using various models. This study was designed to investigate the feasibility of representing EHR content models from a regional EHR system as openEHR archetypes and inversely to convert archetypes to the proprietary format.
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Content and Frequency of Writing on Diabetes Bulletin Boards: Does Race Make a Difference?
Source: Case, Siobhan et al, J Med Internet Res, 11(2)
Background:
Diabetes-related disparities are well documented among racial minority groups in the United States. Online programs hold great potential for reducing these disparities. However, little is known about how people of different races utilize and communicate in such groups. This type of research is necessary to ensure that online programs respond to the needs of diverse populations.
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Rural eHealth Nutrition Education for Limited-Income Families: An Iterative and User-Centered Design Approach
Source: Atkinson, Nancy L. et al, J Med Internet Res, 11(2)
Background:
Adult women living in rural areas have high rates of obesity. Although rural populations have been deemed hard to reach, Internet-based programming is becoming a viable strategy as rural Internet access increases. However, when people are able to get online, they may not find information designed for them and their needs, especially harder to reach populations. This results in a “content gap” for many users.
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Industry Raises its Voice on ‘Meaningful’ EHR Use
Source: Anderson, Howard J., and Joseph Goedert, Health Data Management, Vol. 17, no. 7
The Department of Health and Human Services by year-end must define “meaningful use” of electronic health records. The definition will be a key benchmark for providers to meet to qualify for the Medicare and Medicaid financial incentives under the economic stimulus law. In recent weeks, numerous industry organizations have made their views on the topic known to federal officials.
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Remotely Hosted EHRs: The Pros and Cons for Clinics
Source: Anderson, Howard J., Health Data Management, Vol. 17, no. 7
Before implementing electronic health records, physician group practice administrators invariably hit a significant fork in the road. One path they can choose is the longstanding “do-it-yourself” approach of licensing and installing the application locally. The other path involves relying on a vendor to remotely host the software and provide related services.
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Building a Healthy Legacy Together
Source: Canada Health Infoway
Someone once quipped that legacy systems are ones that actually work. Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) and our jurisdictional partners are now delivering electronic health record (EHR) systems that will provide a much broader legacy than implied in the pure systems definition.
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Speed of telemedicine vs ophthalmoscopy for retinopathy of prematurity diagnosis
Source: Richter, Grace M. et al, American Journal of Ophthalmology, 148(1)
Purpose
To compare the speed of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) diagnosis using standard indirect ophthalmoscopy with that of telemedicine.
Design
Prospective, comparative study.
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Essential health information available for India in the public domain on the internet
Source: Raban, Magdalena et al, BMC Public Health, 9(1)
Background
Health information and statistics are important for planning, monitoring and improvement of the health of populations. However, the availability of health information in developing countries is often inadequate. This paper reviews the essential health information available readily in the public domain on the Internet for India in order to broadly assess its adequacy and inform further development.
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HIMSS Analytics 2009 ICT Study: The State of E-Health in British Columbia
Source: Powers, Patrick, ElectronicHealthcare, 8(1)
In recent years, rhetorical and real support for e-health innovation has grown in Canada and elsewhere. Increasingly, healthcare stakeholders are impressed by positive healthcare outcomes from advanced clinical applications and new technologies, including hand-held devices.
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Leadership for the Information Age: The Time for Action is Now
Source: Pringle, Dorothy, and Lynn Nagle, ElectronicHealthcare, 8(1)
Dr. Lynn Nagle, the senior nursing advisor for Canada Health Infoway, writes the column on nursing informatics for CJNL (Canadian Journal of Nursing Leadership). She and I have both been involved in the development and now the implementation of HOBIC (Health Outcomes for Better Information and Care), a province-wide initiative funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care: I am the executive lead and Lynn is the informatics lead. HOBIC seeks to bring online functionality to nurses that supports systematic assessment of patients on eight outcomes upon admission and discharge in acute care, chronic hospital care, long-term care and home care, and quarterly for people in residential settings.
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A Review of General Practice System Certification Programs in Seven Countries and Five Canadian Provinces
Source: Ludwick, Dave A., and John Doucette, ElectronicHealthcare, 8(1)
Introduction:
Health information technology can improve quality of care, reduce medical errors and increase health system efficiency. Certification programs facilitate adoption by regulating the general practice (GP) systems market against functionality and interoperability standards, thereby reducing liability risk due to functional deficiency.
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Genomic Medicine in Healthcare - The Tip of the Iceberg
Source: Pai, Aditya, ElectronicHealthcare, 8(1)
The role of genomic medicine in healthcare is at the tip of the iceberg. Rapid advances in genomics, as demonstrated by the tangible use of gene diagnosis and targeted therapies indicate that the impact of genomics in healthcare is only going to increase. The debate is not “if genomic medicine will impact healthcare” as much as how rapidly it will impact healthcare.
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Encouraging the Use of, and Rethinking Protections for De-Identified (and “Anonymized”) Health Data
Source: Center for Democracy & Technology
“This paper advocates for stronger standards for de-identification of health data. Patient data sets have a
broad variety of useful applications but must be stringently de-identified in order to maintain patient privacy and overall trust in the health care system. However, technological innovations make it increasingly difficult to protect de-identified data against re-identification.
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Previous 7 Days
Frequency of Failure to Inform Patients of Clinically Significant Outpatient Test Results
Source: Casalino, Lawrence P. et al, Arch Intern Med, 169(12)
Background
Failing to inform a patient of an abnormal outpatient test result can be a serious error, but little is known about the frequency of such errors or the processes for managing results that may reduce errors.
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+CLICK: harnessing web-based training to reduce secondary transmission among HIV-positive youth
Source: Markham, Christine Margaret et al, AIDS Care, Volume 21, Issue 5
Adolescents and young adults account for over 10 million HIV infections worldwide. Prevention of secondary transmission is a major concern as many HIV-positive youth continue to engage in risky sexual behavior. This study pilot-tested ” + CLICK”, an innovative, web-based, sexual risk reduction intervention for HIV-positive youth as an adjunct to traditional clinic-based, self-management education. The theory-based application, developed for perinatally and behaviorally infected youth 13-24 years of age, provides tailored activities addressing attitudes, knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy related to sexual risk reduction.
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A case for using grid architecture in state public health informatics: the Utah perspective
Source: Staes, Catherine et al, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 9:32
This paper presents the rationale for designing and implementing the next-generation of public health information systems using grid computing concepts and tools. Our attempt is to evaluate all grid types including data grids for sharing information and computational grids for accessing computational resources on demand. Public health is a broad domain that requires coordinated uses of disparate and heterogeneous information systems. System interoperability in public health is limited.
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A systematic review of the use of telehealth in Asian countries
Source: Durrani, Hammad, and Shariq Khoja, J Telemed Telecare, 15(4)
We conducted a systematic review of the literature on telehealth in Asia. The Medline database was searched, together with three specialist journals, for peer-reviewed articles published in the ten years to June 2007 which were related to any telehealth application involving one or more Asian country. Out of the 1504 abstracts retrieved, 109 articles were selected by two independent reviewers for the final review.
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The development and evaluation of a PDA-based method for public health surveillance data collection in developing countries
Source: Yu, Ping et al, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Volume 78, Issue 8
Background and purpose
EpiData and Epi Info are often used together by public health agencies around the world, particularly in developing countries, to meet their needs of low-cost public health data management; however, the current open source data management technology lacks a mobile component to meet the needs of mobile public health data collectors. The goal of this project is to explore the opportunity of filling this gap through developing and trial of a personal digital assistant (PDA) based data collection/entry system. It evaluated whether such a system could increase efficiency and reduce data transcription errors for public surveillance data collection in developing countries represented by Fiji.
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Health Information Exchange: The Role of Safety-Net Providers
Source: Suzanne Felt-Lisk, Melanie Au, and Patricia Higgins, Mathematica
“In recent years, the federal government and private-sector leaders have accelerated efforts to promote adoption of health information technology, or health IT. Initiatives include development of local efforts to exchange health-related information among providers—called “health information exchange” (HIE).
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Sharing of patients’ data should not be based on implied consent, say GPs’ representatives
Source: Cole, Andrew, BMJ 2009;338:b2441
GPs’ representatives voted overwhelmingly this week for a system in which patients opt in to any sharing of medical data with third parties—rather than one in which their consent is assumed unless they opt out, the system favoured by the Department of Health.