Healthcare IT News - April 2009 - (Page 29) www.HealthcareITNews.com April 2009 ■ Healthcare IT News 29 NEWSBRIEFS DERmatology EHR cRItERIa IN tHE WoRkS FoR 2010 The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) is developing a dermatology-specific electronic health records certification program for 2010. CCHIT officials say dermatology-specific criteria can facilitate EHR care coordination between and among dermatologists and non-dermatologist physicians. Leadership key to Davies win By Molly MerrIll, Associate Editor LAKE WORTH, FL Docs use ‘green’ IT By BerNIe MoNegaIN, Editor HOUSTON PEDIatRIc aSSocIatES BooStS INtERoPERaBIlIty WItH EHR Pediatric Associates of Washington State is implementing an electronic health record for its 70 physicians. Officials say an EHR will streamline the practice’s clinical, financial and administrative workflows while creating an interoperable system where patient information can be shared seamlessly in the organization. Pediatric Associate’s seven facilities in Bellevue, Factoria, Pine Lake, Redmond, Sammamish, Totem Lake and Redmond Ridge, as well as an administrative office in the greater Puget Sound region, will use an EHR from Carrollton, Ga.-based Greenway Medical Technologies. coNNEctIcut HomE caRE agENcy automatES VNA HealthCare, a home healthcare, hospice and independent living service in Connecticut, is moving to automation. VNA HealthCare will use Chicago-based Allscripts Homecare technology to connect providers in 60 communities in the reater Hartford and greater Waterbury areas. Providers will be able to use the ome care software system to perform scheduling, administrative and clinical tasks. VNA HealthCare also will implement Allscripts Referral Management, which is designed to allow home health, hospice and private duty agencies to track patient referrals in a single system and respond to them faster. Provider-related Internet content gains more trust Doctors can view Internet as source of help or nuisance. By Molly MerrIll, Associate Editor PHILADELPHIA – The Internet has grown as a resource for information about healthcare, but its trustworthiness is often questioned. Research indicates that content posted by a medical consultant is viewed as more trustworthy. A recently launched Web site for insomnia has this in its favor, with all of its content being provided by a physician and being evidence-based. HouseCall123, a privately funded company designed to tHE NEWS: Palm Beach Obstetrics – The 2008 ➔ & Gynecology PA is a HIMSS Davies HIMSS Nicholas E. Davies Award winner in the ambulatory care Award of Excellence recognized category. three practices in its ambulatory WHat It mEaNS: The practice is ➔ category for their achievements helping others by showing the “how using electronic health records. to’s” of implementing. Palm Beach Obstetrics & Gynecology PA, Cardiology computer science major in colConsultants of Philadelphia, and lege he had the necessary skill the Oklahoma Arthritis Center, set for choosing an EHR that P.C. stood out to the judges would work for the practice. Collins also recognized among the 20 applications that were submitted for this catego- Lederman’s role in converting people over to using the ry, said David A. Collins, technology, which he said is director, Healthcare a huge hurdle to overcome. Information Systems, “First we had to get HIMSS. everyone to buy into to Palm Beach Obstetrics this idea. You can’t have & Gynecology, a fourresistance,” Lederman physician practice in said. “Participation is the Lake Worth, Fla., imple- Samuel key.” mented an EHR from Lederman, MD Lederman said he and his colCarrolton, Ga.-based Greenway leagues learned three lessons Medical Technologies in 2006. Collins said Palm Beach stood during the implementation. 1) Hold daily meetings that out to because of the leadership of Samuel Lederman, MD, man- tackle one or two problems people are experiencing and try to aging partner of the practice. “Samuel Lederman is a cham- solve them. 2) Hold weekly meetings with pion and believer in health information technology,” said staff to allow them to vent and Collins. ““The vision, leadership talk about their frustrations. 3) Create deadlines to prevent and dedication that the practice had was what Palm Beach really stall out during implementation. had going for them.” Lederman said thanks to a leaderSHIp see page 31 – There’s more than one way to go green. Kevin HOUSTON – There’s more than one way to go green. Kevin Harris, director of IT at KSF Orthopaedics Center in Houston, picked virtualization. With technology from Microsoft, he reduced from 12 to three the number of servers the 13-physician, 160-employee practice uses at its two offices and surgery center. For the practice it means a smaller carbon footprint and yet undetermined cost savings. It also means greater flexibility. Creating a virtual machine enables organizations like KSF to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single physical server, explains Chris Sullivan, industry solutions director, Microsoft U.S. Health and Life Sciences Group. It makes it possible for organizations big and small to eliminate underused physical servers and save the energy costs they would otherwise consume. Virtualization also gives clinicians more mobility, notes Sullivan. The virtual server project at KSF Orthopaedics was slated for the end of 2008. But with Hurricane Ike headed for Galveston last September, Harris had to put on the fast track. Andrew Kant, MD, an orthopedic surgeon and founding partner of KSF, also happens to be among the first responders for the Galveston area. Kant wanted to ensure the center would be up and running at its best to handle KSF Orthopaedics is using virtual IT to reduce its carbon footprint. emergency cases. “It put the onus on us to make sure we could respond, Harris said. “We had no real-time disaster recovery in place other than slow tape restore. Doctors that were going to handle any first responder cases had to have all of our patients’ records available if needed. This required access to data at both of our locations in case there was lost communications between the two.” Harris said virtualization allowed KSF to have a duplicate environment up and running with minimum amount of effort. It also enabled Harris and his team to create additional servers that may have been needed in the event of an extended outage, and keep them all in very small footprint because KSF’s second location was very limited on cooling and power. When Ike made its final landfall in Galveston on Sept. 13 at greeN see page 32 PHySIcIaN quERy SoFtWaRE PRovIDES RoI Beth Israel Medical Center, part of Bostonbased Continuum Health Partners, is using physician query software to improve clinical documentation. Hospital officials say the software, from New York-based Meta Health Technology, is already generating a return on investment. Meta’s Electronic Physician Query will close the loop between the coder or CDI (clinical documentation improvement) specialist and the physician and automate and expedite the physician query process. HealthcareITNews.com e ●Connect: PHYSICIaNS 0409 More at help patients take greater con- founder of HouseCall123. “In a trol in managing their health recent poll 30 percent of those conditions, launched the Web who had said they were dissatisfied with their insomnia-related site Insomnia123. doctor’s visit.” The site is based on A survey of more than a three-step model of 500 individuals with education, preparation insomnia found that 80 for medical consult, and percent indicated they managing the condition. did not think insomnia “Insomnia is one of the was important enough most frequently searched to make the appointtopics on Google,” says Christine ment and that they Mike Steinberg, MD, MacAdams host of the Web site. “But people could deal with their insomnia are not satisfied with the results on their own. Seventy-two percent indicated they are finding.” “Seven out of 10 people they did not want to take mediwith sleep problems never cation. A smaller, but notable talk to their doctors about it,” proportion had doubts about says Christine MacAdams, co- their doctor and 39 percent Have you ever doubted a medical provider’s opinion when it conflicted with your research on the Internet ? N = 1,000 38% 62% yeS No ENVISION SOLuTIONS, LLC 2008 e ● Connect: GraPHS 0409 believed their doctor couldn’t do anything to make it better, and INSoMNIa see page 30 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/physician-news-briefs-30
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