Happy Holidays
Lodewijk Bos, ICMCC
I would like to wish all the visitors of the ICMCC News and Science Pages Happy Holidays, a merry Christmas and a prosperous 2012 (Please click the BALL to see a musical Christmas wish).
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Articles
Ex-Health IT Czar Sees Docs Warming to EHRs
Emily P. Walker, MedPage Today
“While many challenges remain in pushing the U.S. healthcare system into the electronic age, the former head of health information technology (IT) under the Obama administration said he’s confident it will happen — eventually.
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Preparing for the Telehealth World: Navigating Legal, Regulatory, Reimbursement, and Ethical Issues in an Electronic Age
Baker DC, Bufka LF. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 42(6)
As technology advances, psychologists increasingly have the opportunity to engage with patients or other users of psychological services via less traditional methods. However, little guidance exists to prepare psychologists to navigate the legal, regulatory, reimbursement, and ethical issues that can arise when providing psychological services via technology.
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An Approach to Improve LOINC Mapping through Augmentation of Local Test Names
Kim H et al, Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 2011
Mapping medical test names into a standardized vocabulary is a prerequisite to sharing test-related data between healthcare entities. One major barrier in this process is the inability to describe tests in sufficient detail to assign the appropriate name in Logical Observation Identifiers, Names, and Codes (LOINC®). Approaches to address mapping of test names with incomplete information have not been well described.
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Patients should have online access to medical records, says report
Denis Campbell, The Guardian
“NHS patients will be allowed to see and edit their medical records under proposals in a government-commissioned report.
The plan is contained in a report that an expert advisory group, headed by Professor Steve Field, the coalition’s NHS troubleshooter, is finalising before handing it to the Department of Health.
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The status of IT service management in health care – ITIL in selected European countries
BACKGROUND:
Due to the strained financial situation in the healthcare sector, hospitals and other healthcare providers are facing an increasing pressure to improve their efficiency and to reduce costs. These trends challenge health care organizations to introduce innovative information technology (IT) based supportive processes. To guarantee that IT supports the clinical processes perfectly, IT must be managed proactively. However, until now, there is only very few research on IT service management especially on ITIL(R) implementations in the health care context.
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Healthcare professionals’ adoption and use of a clinical information system (CIS) in primary care: Insights from the Da Vinci study
Vedel I et al, International Journal of Medical Informatics, 2011
Given the increasing prevalence of multimorbidity in primary care (PC), interdisciplinary PC teams supported by appropriate clinical information systems (CIS) are needed in order to deal with the complexity of multimorbid patients’ care. Our team has developed such a system, called the Da Vinci system. However, despite the expected benefits, evidence suggests generally low rates of CIS adoption. To optimize adoption in PC settings, a better understanding of the implementation process of such systems is crucial.
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Implementation of the Federal Health Information Technology Initiative
Blumenthal D. N Engl J Med, 365(25)
In the spring of 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) faced a daunting project: to lead the creation of a nationwide, interoperable, private, and secure electronic health information system. The DHHS and its two key agencies that were responsible for this task — the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) — were in many ways unprepared to undertake it.
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Wiring the Health System — Origins and Provisions of a New Federal Program
Blumenthal D. N Engl J Med, 365(24)
In February 2009, the U.S. government launched an unprecedented effort to reengineer the way the country collects, stores, and uses health information. This effort was embodied in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which was part of a much larger piece of legislation, the so-called stimulus bill. The purpose of the stimulus bill, also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), was to stimulate the economy and prevent one of the worst economic recessions in modern history from becoming a full-fledged depression.
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A service model for improving healthcare delivery in rural developing communities
Leach RJ et al, International Journal of Services, Economics and Management, 4(1)
The infrastructure needed in developing countries, especially in rural areas, often makes providing state-of-the-art healthcare cost prohibitive. We describe a highly asynchronous service model for healthcare delivery that is inexpensive, at least compared to the usual implementation of telemedicine, and involves technical service, public health, training and political aspects.
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Rookie e-patient @Xeni helps the docs view her data
e-Patient Dave, e-patients.net
“What a rocket ride it’s been for Xeni. Tuesday morning we reported on the BoingBoing co-editor’s unexpected breast cancer diagnosis 12/9, and her odyssey reading her scan data. (CDs didn’t come with software; in a few hours with Twitter help she’d downloaded OsiriX and was pushing her way through it.)
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Everything old is new again: Telehealth brings care delivery back to the patient
Andrew R. Watson, mHIMSS
“Our industry has been deeply engaged in spirited debate, dialogue and discussion these past several years – most of it centered on the future of healthcare.
And if there’s anything this discourse has revealed it’s that everything old is new again.
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To make physicians more productive, focus on IT and tools for their supporting staff first
Shahid Shah, Healthcare IT News
“Productivity loss and workflow disruptions are commonplace as our industry gets on the Meaningful Use bandwagon and is starting to adopt EHR systems at a slightly more rapid pace than in previous years (things aren’t really as rosy as many think, but the pace is picking up).
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Year in review: Top 10 trends in healthcare data privacy and security
Rick Kam, Government Health IT
“Forget the hospital dramas on TV. Our top 10 list of this year’s trends in healthcare privacy and security has excitement to rival any show.
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Survey: Patients want more open medical records
Marla Durben Hirsch, FierceEMR
“A striking majority of patients would like to share information in their electronic records and see what their physicians are saying about them, according to a pair of studies published in the Dec. 20 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
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ICD-10 Transition: Choose Your Partners Wisely
Kim Felix, Becker's Hospital Review
“In regards to ICD-10 readiness, the good news is that 85 percent of organizations have begun either ICD-10 transition planning or implementation. This is up from 62 percent a year ago, per an August 2011 survey by the American Health Information Management Association. The bad news is that ICD-10 readiness assessments conducted at these sites uncovered a very large scope of work ahead. There is much to be accomplished before the Oct. 1, 2013, deadline.
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EHR: A ‘one-stop shop’ for patients’ medical records
Evan Tuchinsky, Newsreview
“As a document-heavy enterprise, the health-care industry has an addiction to paper. Medical records, not to mention bills and correspondence, require reams and reams of printouts—stored in thick manila folders, collected in huge filing cabinets.
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L’ASIP Santé publie l’étude sur les systèmes d’Information des maisons, pôles et centres de santé polyvalents
Esante.gouv.fr
“A la demande de la Direction de la Sécurité Sociale (DSS) et de la Direction Générale de l’Offre de Soins (DGOS), l’ASIP Santé a mené une étude visant à caractériser le système d’information des maisons et pôles de santé ainsi que des centres de santé polyvalents.
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Internet-Plattform: Hilfe für Patienten mit seltenen Krankheiten
e-Health-com News
“Für chronisch kranke Menschen kann das Leben vielfältige Herausforderungen bereithalten – ganz besonders dann, wenn die Patienten an so genannten „seltenen Erkrankungen“ leiden, über die oftmals sogar Fachleute nur wenig wissen.
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Even limited telemedicine could improve developing health
EurekAlert!
“A lack of infrastructure in developing countries, and particularly in rural areas, often ensures that healthcare provision is absent. Research published in the International Journal of Services, Economics and Management by a team at Howard University in Washington DC suggests a solution to this insidious problem involving the development of telemedicine.
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