Healthcare IT News - July 2008 - (Page 19)

www.HealthcareITNews.com PhySICIAN PRACtICES & AmBulAtoRy CARE the technology. Blumenthal, DesRoches, and a team at Massachusetts General Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical College and the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services conducted the survey between September 2007 and March 2008. The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the study. According to John Lumpkin, MD, RWJF’s senior vice president, ONC paid $3.6 million over three years for the development of standardized methodology to perform the survey and an upcoming hospital survey. The RWJF also provided a $600,000 grant for the first two years of work on a forthcoming nine-chapter report on healthcare IT, co-authored by the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General and George Washington University. ■ HealthcareITnews.com e ●Connect: eHr 0708 More at July 2008 ■ Healthcare IT News 19 eHr VA to open 44 new clinics, use telehealth WASHINGTON - The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to create 44 new community-based outpatient clinics in 21 states in order to bring more care to veterans. As part of this effort VA officials said some clinics would feature telehealth systems. The clinics will be linked by a national health record system to help veterans in remote areas receive access to VA facilities and prac- Continued from page 1 and co-author of the study. “We need to get moving a lot faster than we have been if we are going to take full advantage of this technology and realize its promise for medicine.” Lead study author Catherine DesRoches, an assistant in health policy at Massachusetts General, said getting more physicians to embrace EHRs is critical to breaking down the resistance to using titioners across the country. The telehealth systems that are frequently featured in the VA’s outpatient clinics allow veterans to maintain regular contact with doctors in specialties from cardiac care to mental health at regional VA hospitals linked for video consultations, coupled with telemetry of health data or images. ■ More at HealthcareITnews.com e ●Connect: VeteraNS 0708 sWITCH Continued from page 17 record makes that possible.” WCHC officials stressed that the most important and valuable result of implementing an EHR system is the shift in the focus of the healthcare delivery system from treatment to prevention, which will improve the quality of care and positively affect community health outcomes. “Medical care has changed dramatically in the years since our health centers first opened their doors,” said Steve Bromer, MD, West County Health Centers’ medical director. “More and more people live with chronic conditions that require ever increasing complicated interventions to control. The sheer number of medications used in our practices has grown exponentially in the last two decades. We also have access to more and more interventions to prevent illness. We are very excited about this transition to EHR and believe it will support us in providing the state-of-the-art healthcare that our communities deserve.” The Occidental Area Health Center was slated to go live with its EHR system on July 9. The newest WCHC satellite site, Sebastopol Community Health Center, opened in January 2008 as a paperless office and has also served as a model and training facility for the EHR implementation. Redwood Community Health Coalition hopes to make particular use of the population management functionality in the EHR system, including the ability to aggregate individual patient information and create reports about the specific health conditions affecting its patient population. Officials said that in the future this information could be used by a variety of agencies to predict health epidemics and the need for medical interventions. Data in the new EHR system is encrypted and stored in an electronic data-storage facility off-site with 24-hour security and also in another similar professional storage facility as a backup. None of the protected data is stored on the computers in the offices nor can it be accessed without proper authorization. ■ More at HealthcareITnews.com e ● Connect: aLLSCrIPtS 0708 e ●Connect: SWItCH 0708 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITnews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9557 http://HealthcareITnews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9501 http://www.allscripts.com http://HealthcareITnews.com http://www.allscripts.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9552 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=9529

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Healthcare IT News - July 2008 Contents IT’s Financial Link eRx Power SOA Q&A Bent on Wireless Digital Switch IT Legacy Change Agent Panasonic 'Book' Taking a Shift Computer Types

Healthcare IT News - July 2008

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