Patient Safety is the key reason for the adoption of electronic medical records.  Even though the health care industry has been able to raise considerable doubts about the cost savings and efficiency gains of EMRs, the patient safety components of EMRs have stayed a very powerful argument in support of their adoption.

101 tips for purchasing an EMR is just a scratch of the surface. Purchasing a new EMR can be very complicated and will have a long lasting effect on the service, quality, safety, efficiency, and finances of your practice. This table shows you the first segment of tips and questions to think about when you engage an EMR vendor.

The 101 tips are broken down into Support, Quality, Safety, Finance, and Efficiency. Some questions will have more or less relevance to your practice based on the size and electronic maturity of your environment. …click here to read more

Rural grocery stores contribute to the overall health of hundreds of thousands of people around America. Even so, most rural stores find it very hard to compete in today’s marketplace.

In this episode of Health Connections, I talk with the owner of a Red Owl Grocery Store (1 of only 2 remaining in America). She talks about the challenges and trials of staying in business in modern America.

The Webinar, “Meaningful Use and Its Implications For Your Practice,” is now available for free viewing at AmericanEHR Partners. This event was originally presented by ACP and AmericanEHR Partners on August 4, 2010, and featured Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Dr. Michael Zaroukian, FACP, Chief Medical Information Officer for Michigan State University. Dr. Blumenthal leads the federal government’s programs on health IT adoption including Meaningful Use.

Click here to view the Webinar.

Many state governments are piloting E-Health and Patient Centered Medical Home initiatives. In this vid, Iowa is engaging in this new discussion. Iowa e-Health: A public-private collaboration to promote health information technology (health IT) Tom Newton, Director, Iowa Department of Public Health

When your health reform sucks, you gotta get two beers and jump!

When your insurance won’t cover the bill, you gotta get two beers and jump!

When your patient comes in and has his 5th name in 3 days, you gotta get two beers and jump!

When your jokes really aren’t that funny and health care has no sense of humor anyway, you gotta get two beers and jump!

I just saw an article on the Running A Hospital blog that reminds me of a constant battle I keep fighting.

I have talked with numerous health care CIO and CMIO types across the planet (mostly via social media) about their organizations constant wish to block the horribly evil Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.   They always site the same things.  Basically their reasoning boils down to individual staff productivity, intellectual property rights, and confidentiality.  These points come across much stronger from the health care field as the field has massive regulation around the areas of privacy and confidentiality.  This regulation often breeds a significant amount of fear of social media (and sometimes the internet in general).

After hearing these same arguments over and over I have to just stop and say “really? seriously folks?”.  Do leaders really believe that none of our problems around productivity, retaining organizational secrets, and  keeping the confidence of our patients existed before the Internet came around?  I know they don’t.

As leaders, we are aware that if we fail to properly manage staff, they will be less productive.  In the most simple description for a non-motivated employee:

if you take away Facebook, they will go to MySpace;
if you take away the Internet, they will play solitaire;
if you take away the computer, they will bring a magazine;
if you take away the magazine, they will nap.

I really look at this as a process problem.  (Remember?? Process first!)  Let us look at the root cause of the issue.  The root cause is that the employee is not motivated to accomplish their job.  Social Media is just an escape route for keeping their mind busy. This isn’t something that can be fixed by taking away the Internet.  It needs to be handled by a diligent and concerted effort to engage the employee.  This may be in a change of tasks, a change in direction, or may result simply in that the staff member is not a good fit for the organization.

What about intellectual property and confidentiality?  “OH MY… they could share pictures of a patient or a discovery on Facebook!”….  Again, I go right back to the root cause.  …click here to read more

Servant Leadership is a major part of teachings in health care organizations all across America.  This second part of the Health Connections series on Servant Leadership is a great talk to internalize.  If you missed Part 1, you can find it here

Tanner Health System physicians talk about the technology that’s available at Tanner, a regional healthcare system located in west Georgia.

The geographically dispersed employees of a Santa Barbara-based hospital chain rely on GoToMyPC® to stay connected while working at home or traveling, cutting costs while enjoying a high level of security. “If I had to summarize the value of GoToMyPC to this organization from senior management on down, I would have to say that they wouldn’t do without it. They would not live without it,” says Alberto Kywi, vice president for information technology and chief information officer at Cottage Health System. “It is a tool that is very well accepted and liked and well used. If I took it away . . . I would have a revolution on my hands.”

Dr. Mike discusses opportunities with biometric registration in his clinic.

Medical homes (or patient-centered medical home – PCMH), also known as, Connected Care, is designed to provide more comprehensive and personalized care coordination for patients to increase the access and quality of health care.

The technological advances in medicine and diagnostic tool and devices have made the concept of medical homes a reality. The tools include comprehensive organization of patient data, including personal histories imaging, test results, and other generic and biochemical data; personalized treatments based on the complete data recorded; comparison of sets between different populations; and so on. The basic philosophy of medial homes is to provide patient-centric care to improve both quality and reach out to more people and provide health care for everyone.

Features Of Medical Home

· Availability of a Personal physician at all times.

· Team of medical staff assigned by personal physician that is responsible for not only treating certain illness and conditions, but also managing routinely tests to prevent diseases.

· Integrated records across hospitals and other clinics through electronic medical record (EMR) facility.

· Increased access of patients to healthcare.

· Quality and safety of data.

Basic E-tools Of Medical Home …click here to read more

DNA Electronics Ltd., an innovator of
semiconductor solutions for healthcare, announced today that it has
signed a non-exclusive, worldwide license agreement to provide Ion
Torrent, the semiconductor sequencing company, access to DNA
Electronics’ intellectual property. No further details about the
agreement were disclosed. DNA Electronics Founder and CEO Prof. Chris
Toumazou FRS, an electronic engineer and innovator who has spent his
career working in semiconductor technology, moved into healthcare
because he saw the huge benefits chip technology could offer
clinicians.
For more information read the full news release here:
http://www.neondrum.com/public/public_release.php?id=456

In our second episode with Dr. Mike, he meets the IT guy, Jer.

Our fictional hero, Dr. Mike, is a family practice physician at the small rural facility of Ryker Clinic in Riverside, Iowa.

Dr. Mike has completed an EMR installation and is enjoying the everyday complications of being a physician in America today.

In our first short episode, Dr. Mike recalls his EMR go-Live with a patient / friend.

The Relay for Life is a great non-profit project put together by the American Cancer Society.  They raise awareness and considerable funds for the research of cancer prevention and cures.  I have taken  personal interest in the Relay.  I have walked in multiple Relays for the past 7 years.  In this episode of Health Connections, we discuss one of the events and what happens during the Relay.

The Statewide Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) is a unique project currently running in the state of Minnesota.  Minnesota has engaged dollars and resources to create a culture of wellness.  This two part series walks through the project, its purpose, and the long term perceived benefits of SHIP.

Part 1

Part 2

While on the subject of Imprivata, they have just released the next generation of their SSO (Single Sign On) software.  SSO is a very important consideration for your EMR environments.  SSO can be critical to provider efficiency and adoption.

“Imprivata OneSign has grown to the point that our users see it as another service we offer to make their lives easier,” said Jack Thompson, senior customer support tech, Southwest Washington Medical Center.  “When your product is able to provide security and productivity at the same time, you’re doing something right.”

Imprivata has introduced some new features in OneSign that make it a very interesting application to evaluate.  Their “Automatic Desktop Locking” system is a very interesting item.  RFID vendors have been touting functions like this for products like Xyloc and “Tap and Go”, but each have had little nuances that have been difficult in clinical environments.  I am looking forward to seeing if Imprivata has conquered the challenges.

Full News Release

Imprivata, one of the largest players in the Single Sign On market, has created a new partnership with VMWare.  This is very significant for the future of clinical workstations.  Providers don’t want to sign into 10+ applications per workstation, and they need the flexibility, mobility, and security that VM offers.  This is a great move for Imprivata:

The integration will enable secure and convenient end-point data access and user roaming desktops with location awareness in virtual desktop environments.  Under the partnership, Imprivata and VMware will conduct joint marketing, sales and support initiatives within healthcare and other markets where customers are eager to leverage the value of the combination of virtual desktops with simplified and secure user access to improve user productivity.

Full Article here

One of Minnesota’s largest providers of supportive housing for seniors will begin testing telemedicine and sensor technology to help frail seniors stay healthier and delay institutional care under an $8 million grant announced Wednesday.

It will be the largest project of its kind in the nation, involving about 1,600 clients in 40 rural cities, said David Horazdovsky, president of the Good Samaritan Society, based in Sioux Falls, S.D. Half the sites will be in Minnesota and the rest in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska, he said.

Details on the Star Tribune

Two weeks ago, ACP, in partnership with Cientis Technologies, launched AmericanEHR Partners (www.AmericanEHR.com) – a new online community dedicated to helping health professionals adopt health information technology.  The interest has been great with visits to the site continuing to grow extremely well.

Next week we have our first national webinar:  ”Meaningful Use and Its Implications For Your Practice,” featuring Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Dr. Michael Zaroukian, FACP, Chief Medical Information Officer for Michigan State University. Dr. David Blumenthal directs the federal government’s programs on health IT adoption including Meaningful Use.  The session is on Wednesday, August 4th, 7pm ET.

Free Webinar on Meaningful Use hosted by Dr. Blumenthal