Healthcare IT News - August 2008 - (Page 10)

10 Healthcare IT News ■ August 2008 www.HealthcareITNews.com Let’s talk about the good and the bad i now and again. Last month I made it to Boston to the 3rd Annual World Congress Leadership Summit on the Road to Interoperability. As conferences go, it was a small one – perhaps 100 or so attendees, counting the presenters. But it was an eye opener. I admit to being swayed by the IT cheerleaders from time to time – the people who want to tell you about what they can do now that they could not do before rolling out this or that technology. Those stories are always attractive. Who is not susceptible to good news during these tough economic times and rising healthcare costs? Good news is certainly as legitit’s Good to Get out “We must consider the disappointing as well as the heartening when it comes to it and its promise.” mate as bad news. But without some skepticism, some mention of what went wrong with an implementation or with training or what is not happening with a government program, for instance, we risk shutting out some telling details. We threaten balance, and everyone is ill served. We must consider the disappointing as well as the heartening when it comes to IT and its promise. So it was refreshing to hear people – like those at the interoperability summit – who, though they are champions of an electronic and interoperable healthcare system – are not afraid to point to some of the barriers along the road and to factors that might have been overlooked. One of my favorite speakers was Donald W. Simborg, MD. He had something new to say. Simborg bemoaned the fact that the most recent government plan for achieving an interoperable healthcare system failed to mention healthcare fraud. It’s an issue that Simborg had worked on. His panel came up with 14 specific recommen- dations it presented to the Office of the National Coordinator. But Simborg and his panel heard nary a word from the ONC. “What I didn’t expect was that (the Office of the National Coordinator) would totally drop fraud management from its plan,” Simborg said. “What I can’t understand is why we don’t try to solve this problem.” Indeed. Simborg h a d Bernie monegain, editor another critical point to make that should be given attention. He contends that unless the focus changes on EHR adoption, an electronic system could end up costing more than paper because much of the savings from going digital are derived from more accurate coding, which in most cases leads to higher bills. In Simborg’s view, “We need to have fundamental changes in how we pay physicians.” MY TWO CENTS By the way, Simborg also mentioned he supports the changeover of the healthcare system from paper to digital. “There’s no question in my mind that EHRs could lower costs and improve quality,” he said. It was the government’s focus he criticized. Other speakers noted the adoption rate among physicians - those in solo or small practices – is at 4 percent. Almost every other industrialized country is at 90 percent adoption, David Bates, MD, said after Simborg’s talk. One problem, he said, is that electronic health records do not include registry tools, tools for team care or clinical decision support. Bates says he leans toward providing physicians with incentives for quality. There is one thing he knows for sure. “I want to go back to delivering medical care,” he said. Bates expressed some of the frustration that is often overlooked in the cheerleading mode. But what he, Simborg and others have to say should be heard as a call to action. ■ More at healthcareITnews.com e Connect: MoNeGaiN 0808 www.HealthcareITNews.com Published in partnership with 71 Pineland Drive, Suite 203 New Gloucester, ME 04260 T (207) 688-6270 F (207) 688-6273 Neil Rouda neil.rouda@medtechpublishing.com MedTech Publishing Company PUBLISHER EDITORIAL ● Jack Beaudoin, Editorial Director jack.beaudoin@medtechpublishing.com Patty Enrado, Contributing Editor patty.enrado@medtechpublishing.com Diana Manos, Senior Editor diana.manos@medtechpublishing.com Molly Merrill, Associate Editor molly.merrill@medtechpublishing.com Bernie Monegain, Editor bernie.monegain@medtechpublishing.com Richard Pizzi, Associate Editor richard.pizzi@medtechpublishing.com Eric Wicklund, Managing Editor eric.wicklund@medtechpublishing.com Nancy Vitucci, nvitucci@himss.org For advertising contacts, see page 37 or visit http://www.healthcareitnews.com/ page.cms?pageId=3 Karen Diekmann, Production Manager karen.diekmann@medtechpublishing.com EDITOR, HIMSS INSIDER EDITORIAL STAFF ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MARKETING Danielle Hartley, Director, Marketing danielle.hartley@medtechpublishing.com Nicole Carter, Manager, Audience Development nicole.carter@medtechpublishing.com Jenna Perez, Coordinator, Marketing/Circulation jenna.perez@medtechpublishing.com READER SERVICES T (978) 671-0449 Email: cs-hitn@e-circ.net F (978)671-0460 Online: www.myHITN.com P.O. Box 9369, Lowell, MA 01853 The YGS Group T (717) 399-1900, ext. 139 HITN@theygsgroup.com John Glaser, vice president, CIO, Partners HealthCare, Boston Denni McColm, CIO, Citizens Memorial Healthcare, Bolivar, Mo. Jane Olds, COO, Louisiana Health Network, New Orleans Wes Rishel, vice president, Gartner, Inc. William Spooner, senior vice president, CIO, Sharp Healthcare, San Diego Paul Tang, vice president, CMIO, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, California Steven Waldren, director, Center for Health IT, American Academy of Family Physicians REPRINTS CUSTOMER SERVICE the Most Wired Survey for a number of years has seen a difference over the last few. The difference is that the survey asks much more about how the technology is used to improve care, safety and outcomes than just about adoption. Sure, hospitals use these awards for marketing but the process is not an easy one (if done correctly). I have completed this survey for many years at several different hospitals and the process I use is to download and send the survey sections to various operational leaders. Then I call a three-to-four-hour meeting that includes the directors of nursing, lab, radiology, pharmacy, therapies, materials, and others along with my IS analysts and technicians where we walk through each question and agree on the answer. It actually is a great opportunity to get the different clinical areas together to hear what’s been done and being done in each area, and to educate them as to what’s posnyone that has taken readers continue the ‘most wired hospitals’ debate MAILBOX sible so there is value regardless of the outcome. I’ve spoken with Alden and the others about the idea of correlating the survey results to independent quality benchmarking tools like Thomson’s (Solucie nt), HealthGrades, (both of which can be criticized as mostly marketing tools) and even US News & World Reports, or others (or some combination). As I understand, this is being done in some fashion now to better understand if there is a correlation. For me, it’s a natural correlation that investment in technology leads to improved outcomes. So the bottom line is that the Most Wired Survey is certainly not perfect but it’s not pure fluff ’ either. – Vince Vitali VP and CIO BroMenn Healthcare Normal, Ill. Most Wired 2008 Winner Top 25 Most Improved EDITORIAL BOARD i celebrating the “wired hospital” with great interest and some very distinct reservations. It was not completely clear whether or not “wired” to these institutions meant a “widespread use of cable or other “grounded” broadband access versus a situation in which the whole hospital was swimming in a WiFi soup. I’m going to assume that the latter was what they meant. you make an important distinction between the potential value of access to information, and any certainty that it’s the right information, or that those with access to it also know what to do with it. But I think the reason that physicians might be expressing concern, is that the field of Environmental Medicine is beginning to collect some potentially disturbing data on the negative effects of immersion in electromagnetic fields on human beings and other biological systems. So asking those who are trying to heal, and read your artiCle leTTers see page 11 Neil Rouda Jack Beaudoin, John D. Payne Neil Rouda VICE PRESIDENTS PRESIDENT VICE PRESIDENTS PRESIDENT Jack Beaudoin John D. Payne 2005 JESSE NEAL AWARD WINNER http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://healthcareITnews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9675 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/page.cms?pageId=3 http://www.myHITN.com

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Healthcare IT News - August 2008 Contents Closer to IT Bill PHIN or RHIOs? Making Leaps After the Flood Tidal Change Denmark Bound Bridging the Divide Robot That Could Mobile Computing Data Everywhere

Healthcare IT News - August 2008

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