Healthcare IT News - June 2008 - (Page 4)

Healthcare IT News ■ June 2008 industry news www.HealthcareITNews.com tEPR wraps up 24th conference, goes for the silver By erIC WICklunD, Managing Editor FOrT lAUdErdAlE, Fl – With the 24th Annual Towards the Electronic Patient Record Conference and Exhibition under its belt, the Medical Records Institute will now turn its attention to planning for its silver anniversary 2009 conference in Palm Springs, Calif. More than 2,000 people attended last month’s event, which was billed as the “best ever.” It was held at the Greater Fort Lauderdale Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The focus, as always, was on the electronic health record – a record that can boost continuity of care because it will follow the patient everywhere. One of the first sessions highlighted physician uptake of the EHR. C. Peter Waegemann, CEO of the Medical Records Institute, worked the audience of about 300 attendees to collect suggestions on how to improve adoption of EHRs, how to fund the process and how to guide the ONC – the Office o the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology. His goal was to draft an action plan to send to the next U.S. president. One attendee jokingly suggested that EMRs wouldn’t be generally accepted until the older generation “I think physicians are of physicians dies off and the first to use technology the next generation, which when it’s shown very clearly has grown up in a world of that it improves the quality video games, You Tube and of care,” one attendee said. sophisticated computers, Among suggestions that takes over. the government has to set Embedded in that opinthe groundwork for EMR ion, and evident in many c. Peter Waegemann standards, bypassing a others, was the root of patchwork of state initiatives and the issue: Make EMRS attractive recommendations, Barry Hieb, of to physicians, and they will use the Gartner consulting firm, said them. the ONC has to set the baseline technology for healthcare information exchange, particularly in large endeavors like RHIOs. Echoing another common theme, he said the ONC has to figure out a sustainable financial model for RHIOs and HIEs and stick to that plan. A few physicians said it was critical to keep the “eye-to-eye” contact between a doctor and his or her patient. ■ More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: tePr 0608 ● Manos Continued from page 3 The wireless demands of highly mobile clinicians are growing. InnerWireless can help by delivering everything from WWAN to WLAN voice, data, multimedia and location services… with mission- and life-critical performance. The Horizon™ Converged Wireless Platform provides guaranteed coverage and signal strength, optimized traffic management for next-generation Wi-Fi and ultimate reliability with an industry-leading warranty. To learn more about how InnerWireless can help your wireless become everything it needs to be and more, visit us at www.innerwireless.com, or call 214.242.7777. e ● Connect: INNerWIreleSS 0608 If that’s the case, then signs are everywhere. For example, a report released in May by the Aberdeen Group put 40 healthcare IT vendors in the top 100 tech companies having the greatest impact over the past five years. The report was based on more than 2.5 million interviews. Google came in near the top of the list and with its strong brand name will be capable of driving a lot of change. Google launched May 19 its partnership with diagnostic testing and information service, Quest Diagnostics, to populate patients’ personal health records with test results online. A patient’s Google health account can be maintained and controlled online by the patient. Quest Diagnostics currently serves half a million patients a day and can populate a patient’s record with critical diagnostic information readily accessible to the patient’s doctors. Better, faster information sharing between patients and their doctors will not be the only byproduct of this union. According to Stephen Suffin, MD, corporate medical director for Quest Diagnostics, as patients become better informed and proactive in managing their healthcare, they may be more likely to practice preventative care. These are the kinds of things that are blooming up all around and will one day explode into color, with or without the federal government. At that same press briefing last month, Leavitt said, as soon as enough customers ask for personal health records to be populated, then doctors will adopt healthcare IT. ■ More at HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: MaNoS 0608 ● www.HealthcareITNews.com HealthcareITnews.com www.innerwireless.com, HealthcareITnews.com

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Healthcare IT News - June 2008

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