Healthcare It News - February 2008 - (Page 21)

www.HealthcareITNews.com February 2008 ■ Healthcare IT News 21 o m m n T r y ronment. no one wants to see harm done to anyone. each of us needs to keep in mind how attendance With that in mind, we need to help alter the landscape at this year’s conference will benefit our individu- of the healthcare industry and revolutionize our delival organizations when we return to our jobs. ery systems through the rapid adoption of healthcare IT While seeking out ideas, be looking for how informa- solutions that will prevent injury or death. at the current pace, there is little likelihood that this tion from this conference can support our individual organization’s quest for an all electronic patient record. country will meet the goal set by President Bush durask yourself, “Will my attendance at this year’s confering his 2004 State of the Union ence provide the needed ‘spark’ for my organization’s speech that advocated a personal health record (PHr) for each U.S. commitment to achieving electronic patient records in resident by 2014. It’s amazing to me the next year?” We need to carry home the messages from this that President Kennedy set a 10-year year’s Interoperability Showcase…interoperabilgoal of putting a person on the moon in may 1961. This country beat that ity is achievable and electronic patient records can be realized in both inpatient and outpatient settings. goal in July 1969 in a technology era We need to help ‘light the torch’ that will lead our orgathat many would consider archaic by John Wade today’s standards. nizations to achieve an all-electronic environment on behalf of all patients. How can we, as a nation, risk not How can we, as That message of emr implementaachieving the goal of automating all a nation, risk not tion needs to be brought to our hospipatient information by 2014? Is it tals, our clinics, our physicians and, as because ‘we’ as a nation haven’t made achieving the goal of importantly, to area employers and poliautomating all patient healthcare IT a national priority? ticians Health IT can provide caregivers with information by 2014? We need to help alter – in a safe and immediate access to patient health cost-effective way – the incremental information, a step that could reduce approach that has defined the current healthcare delivery those 100,000 annual deaths and the consequences of system. We also need to point out the benefits in quality, these medical errors. each of us, as members of HImSS, and attendees at patient safety, and yes – in efficiencies that lead to cost savings through the use of healthcare IT. this annual conference, can help bring back this message I state this, not just as a long-term member of HImSS – to our organizations and communities. currently, as reported by HImSS analytics in 2007, and its current chairman, but also as someone who remembers the impact of To Err is Human. only 67 percent of the U.S.-based hospitals reporting This 1999 publication from the Institute of medicine indicated they have implemented an emr. The report highlighted the almost 100,000 deaths annually from highlights even lower levels of automation adoption in medical errors. Just think, in just nine years, almost key patient support processes. There continues to be significant work for us as HImSS 800,000 lives have been lost in our healthcare systems. none of us attending this conference want our loved ones members, and for the HImSS organization, to deliver this to be among the casualties of our paper healthcare enviwade see page 22 Can we speed up this process? A s the 2008 hIMss annual conference commences, Patient care mission deserves talent, time George T. Hickman is HIMSS’ choice for CIO Of The Year. Hickman is senior vice presdident and chief information officer for Albany Medical Center in New York’s capital region. Healthcare IT News asked him to reflct on his role as CIO today and in the future. What do you view as the primary mission of today’s healthcare CIO? George T. Hickman To give our talent and time to the patient care mission of our industry, first and always. What do you see as the greatest opportunity for healthcare IT today? To truly influence the transformation that IT brings to our industry and our organizations. With the technologies available and those on the horizon, we are endlessly supplied with opportunities to improve day-to-day care delivery, medical education, research and supporting commerce. What is the greatest challenge? There are two: Time and money. There never seems to be quite enough of either. Which one of your achievements as CIO gives you the most pride and satisfaction? STATS Seeing personal growth ■ Four years in the position in the professionals I work ■ 25 years in healthcare with daily. ■ BS, MS in engineering What is your best advice from University of to other CIOs in the field Tennessee. today? ■ HIMSS board chair (2006Don’t lose touch with how 2007) and HIMSS Fellow you got here or where you ■ CHIME charter member came from. HICKMaN see page 22 leTTer Continued from page 20 interests. rather it only denotes companies and organizations that stand to make a buck off this medical and IT industry fad. But this is business as usual in a healthcare system that relies on market mechanisms controlled by private interests. For the naive such technology has become a dues ex machina to allay the inequities and soaring costs of american healthcare without goring medical stakeholders and providing a new market for high tech. This would certainly help the high tech industry recover from the crash of 2000. The problem is that most such solutions will only add to runaway healthcare costs, which are to a large degree driven by technologies and products, limited, so far, only by imagination and profit while holding no hostages to affordability. There are clear benefits to well designed national electronic prescribing system and discrete DSS systems would improve quality but these don’t receive nearly the attention they merit because they do not tap the rich medical industry vein. We’ve all got plenty of wind in our sails will, by all accounts, be the largest ever – a sign that despite the nation’s economic woes and uncertainty about how a new administration in Washington might affect healthcare policy, there is still plenty of wind in our sails. Four years have passed since President Bush ushered in the modern era of healthcare IT with a proclamation that 90 percent of americans would have eHrs in ten years, by 2014, and created the office of the national coordinator for Health Information Technology (oncHIT) to help integrate scores of healthcare IT initiatives at all levels of government. By all accounts, we are nowhere near 40 percent of the way towards the President’s goal. It’s also highly unlikely that sweeping healthcare reform will be an election result no matter who will be in the White House one year from today. If it’s coming, it will be hard-fought, evolutionary, and, without doubt, positive for healthcare IT. That’s because no matter what the proposal, healthcare IT is a key part of the program. When the staff of Healthcare IT News joins the throngs in orlando, we will be T hIs year’s hIMss annual conference Tom Shillock, President M2 Consulting 4726 NE Ainsworth Street Portland, OR 97218 tomsh@easystreet.net readers – and new ones – online every day with a steady stream of news, information and industry resources continually updated at www.healthcareitnews.com. We provide more original daily news content, more robust search technology, more related stories and When the staff of Healthcare links, more educational IT News joins the throngs in Web seminars. We are more connected with industry Orlando, we will be making our fifth trip as the official publisher thought leaders than ever before. But just as it was five of HIMSS, and our team will once years ago, our mission today again produce daily HIMSS remains clear. Where other publications newspapers, which will be may try to teach, we seek distributed at the annual simply to inform. In a rapconference itself, and, indeed, all idly changing environment, our reporters spend the time over town. – so you don’t have to – fer– Neil Rouda, Publisher reting out the stories, and compiling the analysis, about what’s new, pers are in our Dna. But while five years ago our work at what’s changing, and what’s on the horizon. HImSS put our team of newspaper-honed In particular, we look for stories about how journalists to the test, we now pass that test others are addressing problems you face. each and every day. Trade journalism is no By being better informed, you’ll make longer just a print-driven medium, and while better decisions. That, in the end, is the this newspaper’s circulation, readership, goal of all that we do. advertising revenues and editorial staff have More at HealthcareITNews.com all grown steadily, we also now reach these ●Connect: rouda 0208 e making our fifth trip as the official publisher of HImSS, and our team will once again produce HImSS daily newspapers which will be distributed at the annual conference itself, and, indeed, all over town. It’s a job we particularly enjoy, since daily newspa- http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8602 http://www.healthcareitnews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8605

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare It News - February 2008

Healthcare It News - February 2008 Contents Hot Potato Wal-Mart Focus CIO Role Wasteland Linking Docs Katrina Work P4P Team Fire Sale? Emergency Systems Beyond Business

Healthcare It News - February 2008

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