Healthcare IT News - May 2008 - (Page 11)

www.HealthcareITNews.com May 2008 ■ Healthcare IT News 11 NEWSBRIEFS ARdENt hoSpItAlS AutomAtE RElEASE oF INFoRmAtIoN Three Ardent Health Services facilities in Tulsa, Okla. have added new technology to speed up their turnaround time on release of information. The hospitals implemented software developed by Burlington, Mass.based ChartOne. All three facilities had been experiencing an increasing number of customer complaints, said Julia Kendrick, health information management director at Ardent. The facilities transitioning to ChartOne include Hillcrest Medical Center, a 511bed acute care hospital; Oklahoma State University Medical Center, a 345-bed acute care hospital; and Hillcrest Specialty Hospital, a 100-bed facility. Hospitals feel privacy pressures Employee training critical to improved security, experts say. By DIana Manos, Senior Editor CHICAGO – New study shows security ‘blind spot’ By BernIe MonegaIn, Editor CHICAGO – A report on hospital security poli- GEISINGER AddS chEck-IN kIoSk FRom d2 SAlES Geisinger Medical System in Danville, Pa. will add a kiosk for patients to check in for future appointments and to update their medical history. Also, patients can use their credit card to make co-pay payments and sign documents using the integrated electronic signature pad. D2 Sales LLC, based in Mequon, Wis., designed and built the kiosk, called My Patient Passport Express. Employee training is critical for keeping records safe, and a lack of training may be a cause of the recent rash of celebrity health record breaches, according to a new report released by the American Health Information Management Association. The report, titled “Online, on Message, on Duty: Privacy Experts Share Their Challenges,” highlights the opinions of four health information management privacy experts. Dan Icenogle, MD, medical director and health law attorney, said the biggest problem with the advent of electronic health record systems is the failure of entities to understand and implement proper controls. “In the case of Britney Dan Icenogle, MD Spears’ records, the 13 people who accessed them inappropriately were fired,” Icenogle said. “That shows two Hospitals across the nation are wrestling with how best to protect patients’ privacy. things: One, that the records were easy to access, and two, that it was easy to find out who accessed them.” “It illustrates both sides of the issue,” he added. “On the one hand, it’s easier to access an EHR than paper records (if access security is not in place). On the other hand, because of log-in and audit features, seCurITy see page 13 cies reveals a “significant blind spot” when it comes to hospitals’ capability of keeping patient data secure. The healthcare industry’s focus on medical privacy and compliance has fostered a lack of awareness around the frequency, cause and seriousness of patient identity theft, according to the “2008 HIMSS Analytics Report: Security of Patient Data,” commissioned by Kroll Fraud Solutions, a risk consulting company. The report follows recent security breaches involving the accidental posting of sensitive medical and personal information of 75,000 members of the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield dental HMO and news of a stolen National Institutes of Health laptop containing 2,500 study participants’ information. A total of 263 healthcare industry professionals participated in the poll, conducted in January. They included IT professionals sTuDy see page 14 Internal breaches top concern phIlAdElphIA hoSpItAl upGRAdES EmERGENcY It St. Joseph’s Hospital, a 146-bed acute care hospital, is upgrading the information technology system in its emergency department. St. Joseph’s treats more than 25,000 patients a year in its ED. The hospital will roll out technology developed by Somerset, N.J.-based Wellsoft Corp. The implementation will lead to more complete documentation and more efficient processes giving clinicians more time at patient bedsides, hospital officials said. h VANdERBIlt AddS tEchNoloGY to hElp mANAGE dAtA cENtER Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. has installed Aperture VISTA 500 to increase its visibility into the physical aspects of its critical data center operations. Vanderbilt executives say the software will provide in-depth visibility into the physical status of data center equipment, space, power, cooling and overall capacity. It gives data center managers a complete view of power consumption, enabling them to better manage the provisioning of blade servers. Vanderbilt has implemented the technology across 12,000 square feet of its data center. More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: HoSPItaLS 0508 professionals queried about security issues say they worry most about an internal breach of security, according to the 2008 HIMSS Leadership Survey. Eighty-six percent of the 307 respondents reported their organizations actively assess and manage security risk. Yet 24 percent reported they had a security breach at their organization in the past year, and 16 percent indicated they had a security breach in the last eAlTHCAre IT six months. The data was collected via a Web survey between Nov. 20, 2007, and Jan. 20, 2008. All respondents indicated security technologies have been installed at their organization. Firewalls (98 percent), user access controls (83 percent) and audit logs of each access to patient health records (81 percent) were most frequently identified as the security technologies currently in place. ■ It security top concerns - security of computerized medical information Internal breach of security Inadequate support for security process HIPAA compliance Data leakage Limits of existing technology 20% 18% 17% 16% 16% 13% 12% 51% Connecting IT at hospital/ remote locations Unauthorized use of data External breach of security e l Connect: GraPHS 0508 More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: SUrVeY 0508 l SOUrCE: 19TH ANNUAL 2008 HIMSS LEADErSHIP SUrVEry SPONSOrED By CISCO CISCO 19TH ANNUAL 2008 HIMSS LEADErSHIP SUrVEy, SPONSOrED By - CIO Cancer center goes to digital charge capture M.D. Anderson to record infusion services at bedside. By erIC WICklunD, Managing Editor HOUSTON – The processes of coding and charge capture are often complicated, time-consuming, paper-intensive tasks more suited to administrators than clinicians. To make those tasks easier for everyone involved, the University l of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is implementing the Infusion Services Model from MedAptus, a Boston-based provider of point-of-care charge capture technologies. The automated system allows nurses to enter infusion services delivered, after which the software translates the input into compliant codes. Lori English, associate director of patient business services at M.D. Anderson, said the pro- cess now – in which nurses charge infusion services rendered and determine codes – is complicated, confusing and inconsistent, leading to inaccurate results and lost time and money. The Infusion An aerial view of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Services Module, she “We’re a huge installation and said, “allows for a much greater have so many varieties (of healthdegree of accuracy (and) consis- care delivery). Everybody does tency in interpretation.” CapTure see page 14 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITnews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9160 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9162 http://HealthcareITnews.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare IT News - May 2008

Healthcare IT News - May 2008 Contents Help Wanted Speeding Up Government Silos Privacy Pressures Tracking Disease Rah Rah Health! TriZetto Suit Outcomes Watch Ambulatory EHRs

Healthcare IT News - May 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.