Healthcare IT News - June 2008 - (Page 3)

www.HealthcareITNews.com industry news June 2008 ■ Healthcare IT News industry news Google Health goes public By BernIe MonegaIn, Editor Healthcare IT News posts original news stories on its Web site daily. Here are recent top stories, as selected by the editors. OregOn clinic bOOsts netwOrk capability The Oregon Clinic, one of the largest private multi-specialty physician practices in Oregon, has completed installation of metro Ethernet connectivity to two sites. With the addition of connectivity at two medical offices, in West Portland and Beaverton, the Oregon Clinic now has 12 locations with Ethernet access - all connected to one another. Together, the locations provide more than 120,000 patient appointments annually. The physician practice tapped Time Warner Telecom for the networking solution. Date: 5/23/08 – Google has launched its much-anticipated Google Health platform for storing and managing personal medical data. Users can access the service at google.com/health. The new product is designed to make it possible for patients and physicians to collaborate more closely, Google executives said. We b M D , M i c r o s o f t a n d Revolution Health offer simiMarissa Mayer lar services. “How many of us have touched, or even seen, our medical records?” Marissa Mayer, vice president of search and user products at Google, asked in her blog on May 19, the same day Google announced the new serMOUNTAINVIEW, CA vice. “In this day and age of dards for the security of mediGoogle Health information, isn’t it crazy cal records. Partners that you don’t have a copy Speaking at the annual ■ Allscripts of your medical records Healthcare Information and ■ Beth Israel Deaconess under your control?” Management Systems Society Google execconference last February, Medical Center ■ Cleveland Clinic utives stressed Google Inc. chairman and ■ CVS Caremark Group that the inforCEO Eric Schmidt repeat■ Longs Drug Stores mation entered edly deflected questions about ■ Walgreens into Google security and privacy concerns, ■ Quest Diagnostics arguing that Google was not Health would engaged in any remain private activities that and secure, would require but privacy advocates note that unlike hospitals, pharmacies and other HIPAA-related regulation. “Google Health healthcare organizations, external services, is probably more secure,” he said, “because it such as Google Health, are not bound by requires explicit permission to access data.” Google tested its online service by storing the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which sets strict stansearCH see page 5 cbO raises dOubt Over pOtential it savings The Congressional Budget Office is raising questions about the projected $77 billion savings the RAND Corp. says can be achieved by using healthcare information technology. The 48-page CBO report “Evidence on the Costs and Benefits of Health Information Technology” was prepared at the request of Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) The CBO is a bi-partisan group charged with assessing the cost of legislation. Date: 5/22/08 dc health centers launch new rhiO fOr underserved The DC Primary Care Association will join six community health centers in launching a Regional Health Information Organization to serve the area’s most medically vulnerable. The new RHIO will serve as a national model for using healthcare IT to help those in need, its leaders said. The RHIO will make medical health records interoperable among six health centers, including: the Whitman-Walker HIV/AIDS Clinic; So Others Might Eat (SOME); Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care; La ClÌnica del Pueblo; Family and Medical Counseling Service; and Bread for the City. Date: 5/21/08 air fOrce Medical services beefs up rfid The Air Force Surgeon General’s Office has selected Shipcom Wireless, Inc., a Houston, Texas-based provider of enterprise and healthcare solutions, to review the current uses of RFID technology across the Air Force Medical Service. The wireless company will also pilot RFID systems to improve clinical operations at the medical center at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. Shipcom’s Hospital Operational & Clinical Assessment Model or HOCAM will provide a baseline assessment of the existing implementations of RFID at Air Force medical centers. Date: 5/20/08 More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: WeBBrIeFS 0608 ● Marty Prahl, a contractor with the Social Security Administration, said more than 5 million people file for disability benefits each year. The agency seeks about 15 million to 20 million medical records and spends about half a billion dollars gathering medical information. By BernIe MonegaIn, Editor “If we could exchange information in a dAllAs – With about three months left to go before a public demonstration in September standardized way,..” he said. “Ultimately, of how a Nationwide Health Information we’ll see public benefit from this.” Mary Jo Deering, director for informatNetwork would work, officials from the five federal healthcare agencies participating in the ics dissemination at the NCI’s Center for Bioinformatics stressed the complexity of trial run say they are kicking into high gear. They spoke last month at a meeting of cancer and its treatment. “We need to personalize the treatment,” three organizations working to build the network. To them it seemed obvious from she said. “There’s a need for genomic and the get-go that they would participate in the proteomics and bio-specimen data – a need to merge this data and a need for continuity trial implementations. of care,” she added. Of the $3.1 trillion the “My mother-in-law The Indian Health country spends on healthcare today, 40 percent can should not be the health Service provides care for 2 be attributed to federal information exchange million Native Americans at 500 facilities, most in health agencies, said Vish for my father-in-law.” rural settings, said Mike Sankaran, program direc– Tim Cromwell Danielson, chief technoltor for Federal Health ogy officer. Architecture, part of the Obtaining and transferring information Office of the National Coordinator for Health on wounded soldiers whose care moves to Information Technology – ONC. The federal government is one of 10 NHIN the VA, could be almost immediate with trial implementations. The other nine are electronic exchange, said Steve Steffensen, health information exchanges across the coun- MD, a clinical neurologist, and deputy chief try – Tennessee, Virginia, Delaware, Indiana, of informatics with the military’s Advanced California, New Mexico, New York, North Information Technology Group. Tim Cromwell from the Veterans Health Carolina and West Virginia. Recently, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt named six more par- Affairs told about his father-in-law, a Korean War veteran, who receives his primary care ticipants, including the Cleveland Clinic. There are 26 federal health agencies, said from the VHA, but chooses to see a cardiSankaran. Eventually, all will connect to the ologist, ophthalmologist and oncologist outnationwide network. “The mandate,” he said, side. Cromwell’s mother-in-law keeps all the records in order in a cardboard box. “is for focus on the citizen.” “My mother-in-law shouldn’t be the health The five agencies participating in the NHIN trial are the Social Security Administration, information exchange for my father-in-law,” the National Cancer Institute, Indian Cromwell said. “We have to do better. This is Health Services, the Department of Defense a national challenge.” ■ Military Health Services and the Veterans More at HealthcareITnews.com Health Administration. e ●Connect: NHIN 0608 Government gears up for Change is nationwide data exchange in the works Five of 26 federal healthcare agencies part of September NHIN trial. By DIana Manos, Senior Editor May 16 by the Government Accountability Office regarding America’s long-term fiscal outlook was no surprise. GAO called the nation’s healthcare spending unsustainable. “The question is how and when the nation’s current imprudent and unsustainable path will end,” GAO said. It seems everyone is asking that same question, but no one answer is forthcoming. Change is the battle cry in this presidential election, wa shi ngtOn with all candidates agreeing healthcare is in need of reform. Maybe because it is an election year, there is the sensation that there should be one answer, like one new president, who can embody every solution America needs. The reality is, change is happening all around, even now, if you look. At a press briefing last month, when asked who would pay for healthcare IT, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said, what we have is a transition problem, a macroeconomics problem. Doctors aren’t getting enough benefit from healthcare IT to motivate a change. However, Leavitt did not say the government should step in to provide that incentive. The government didn’t pay for the Internet to be advanced; the market called for it and everyone adopted it, he said. Leavitt predicted it would be the same for healthcare IT. Manos see page 4 rEpOrT rElEAsEd Watch www.HealthcareITNews.com google.com/health HealthcareITnews.com HealthcareITnews.com

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Healthcare IT News - June 2008

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