Healthcare IT News - March 2008 - (Page 11)

www.HealthcareITNews.com March 2008 ■ Healthcare IT News 11 NEWSBRIEFS TEN HoSpITalS NoW ComplETE WITH Kp HEalTHCoNNECT Kaiser Permanente officials say Kaiser has completed deployments of Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect at 10 of its California hospitals. HealthConnect is the organization’s electronic health record. “With the completion of 10 hospitals, more than 2.4 million Kaiser Permanente members are covered completely by an electronic medical record, which means that their records are instantly available at their hospitals and doctor’s offices, so they can receive the care they need, when and where they need it,” said Andrew Wiesenthal, MD, national physician lead for KP HealthConnect and associate executive director of The Permanente Federation. It helps hospitals tackle bad debt By Molly MerrIll, Associate Editor – EMH Regional He a l t h c a r e S y s t e m a n d Columbus Regional Hospital will tackle their bad debt issues using TransUnion’s Healthcare Revenue Cycle Platform, which will streamline problem areas in registration and collection processes in order to save money. Officials at EMH, a 434-bed ELYRIA, OH non-profit hospital system with campuses in Elyria, Amherst and Avon, Ohio, recently noticed a margin squeeze as a result of increasing patient liability for services. Indiana-based Columbus Regional Hospital, a 325-bed hospital serving a 10-county market area in south central Indiana, felt the pinch in anoth- er area – medical bills sent to the wrong address. TransUnion’s HRCP is a Webbased solution that is designed to streamline hospital systems’ admission processes by helping staff verify patient identities, make objective payment determinations and match patients with assistance programs and charity care. sTreaMlINe see page 14 Columbus Regional Hospital in Indiana has streamlined its admissions process to verify patient identities. Cleveland Clinic, Google team up on PHR pilot By Molly MerrIll, Associate Editor CLEVELAND KENTuCKy HEalTH SySTEm SpEEdS INFo To poINT oF CaRE Norton Healthcare, the largest healthcare system in Kentucky and one of the top 100 integrated healthcare delivery systems in the country, has deployed EMC information storage and software to help manage an explosive growth of electronic health records. “Nearly every level of care and administration in our healthcare delivery system is dependent on immediate access to patient information,” said Sean O’Mahoney, Norton’s manager of Client/Server Information Systems. Norton has cut backup windows by 50 percent (to 24 hours) and is experiencing 75 percent faster restore times. Medical Missions for Children, based at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Paterson, N.J., is linking St. Joseph’s with St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. for consultations on diagnoses and treatment protocols. Collaborating on cancer By BerNIe MoNegaIN, Editor PATERSON, NJ – Clinicians at St. oHSu goES lIvE WITH NEW RadIology INFo SySTEm Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) went live last month with its newly installed IMPAX Radiology Information System from Agfa HealthCare. “We chose Agfa HealthCare’s solutions IMPAX RIS and IMPAX Scheduling because of the tight integration between the RIS and our current IMPAX PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications System),” said Erwin Schwarz, director of OHSU Diagnostic Imaging Services. “We expect to see increased workflow efficiencies as a result.” Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Paterson, N.J., and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., say they are confident their new collaboration on pediatric cancer cases will save more lives. The two hospitals began their videoconferencing project about a year ago, spurred by Medical Missions for Children, a worldwide nonprofit organization that makes St. Joseph’s its home base. Founded in 1999, MMC focuses on catastrophically ill children in underserved areas of the world – in the United States and in places such as Lebanon, Jordan, Chili, Russia and Ireland. Frank J. Brady, chairman of MMC, figures the organization has helped 30,000 in 108 countries. T he oncolog y projec t between St. Jude’s and St. Joseph’s is making it possible for clinicians at the two hospitals to share pediatric cancer research. The clinicians are sharing treatment protocols – discussing the best approaches CaNCer see page 13 – The Cleveland Clinic is partnering with Google to launch a pilot program that will use Google’s new services to provide patients with greater control and access to medical records. The Cleveland Clinic, a not-forprofit, academic medical insti- C. Martin Harris, tution in Ohio, MD integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. eCleveland Clinic MyChart, the clinic’s electronic personal health record system, serves more than 100,000 patients. The invitation-only pilot will be offered to a group of the clinic’s PHR users and will enroll 1,500 to 10,000 patients. The pilot will test the secure exchange of patients’ medical record data, including prescriptions, conditions and allergies, between the clinic’s PHR and a secure Google profile in a live google see page 13 Texas hospital signs $41M IT deal support services. Parkland will HealTHCare IT News DALLAS - The Parkland Health & Hospital System has inked a seven-year, $41 million contract with Affiliated Computer Services for information technology outsourcing. Under terms of the agreement, ACS will supply Parkland with comprehensive infrastructure services, including data center operations, network monitoring and management, asset tracking and help desk CONSUMER interest in online tools provided by hospitals Web site providing information on quality of hospital care 6% 62% 10% 11% 64% 11% mouNT SINaI oF QuEENS To BooST REvENuE maNagEmENT Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens, part of New York-based Mount Sinai Medical Center, will install Keane’s EZ-Access Patcom and new revenue cycle management and clinical applications to streamline the hospital’s operations and billing. The installation is expected to be complete by the third quarter of 2008. More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: HoSPItaLS 0308 also implement a disaster recovery platform from ACS. Parkland, based in Dallas, is the primary teaching hospital for The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and is considered one of the largest public hospital systems in the country, offering 968 licensed beds and employing 8,000 people. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: ParKLaND 0308 l Web site providing information about prices of services Have used Interested in using Willing to pay extra e l Connect: GraPHS 0308 N- 3,031 adults 18 years and older l DElOITTE 2008 SURvEY OF HEAlTH CARE CONSUMERS http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8870 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8869

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Healthcare IT News - March 2008 Contents No. 1 E-prescribing ‘Quite Bright’ Bill Frist on IT Google Connection Poised for P4P ‘Smashing Success’ Tough On Fraud It's Analytics Getting Rid of the Pain Stuck In Neutral

Healthcare IT News - March 2008

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