Healthcare IT News - August 2008 - (Page 20)

20 Healthcare IT News August 2008 ■ www.HealthcareITNews.com NewsBRieFs ehR gRaNTs availaBle To FloRida CliNiCs In an effort to assist small to mediumsized physician practices and community health centers in Florida, electronic health record provider Sevocity is offering $50,000 in grants to spur clinics to adopt EHRs. The grants will be available for the first clinics that sign up for the program or until the maximum funds available have been reached. San Antonio, Texas-based Sevocity develops, maintains and supports EHRs for physician practices and community health centers. CDS tools can change medical practice By RIchaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor tools, generally defined as technologies that provide information to aid the diagnosis and treatment of patients, are set to fundamentally change the way medicine is practiced. This according to a recent report from British market analyst Datamonitor, which expects clinical intelligence solutions to be the next major trend in clinical decision support tools, C linical decision support UNC-Chapel hill seleCTs emR FoR CampUs healTh seRviCes The Campus Health Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will implement unified electronic medical record and practice management software, and offer a patient portal to its 28,000 students. UNC’s flagship campus has signed a deal with Westborough, Mass.-based vendor eClinicalWorks. The company will build interfaces between its EMR/PM product and Orchard Software’s Harvest Laboratory Information System, as well as QS/1’s pharmacy system. UNC-Chapel Hill also intends to implement eClinicalWorks Enterprise Business Optimizer. Information technology aids devastated Mississippi clinic Katrina destroyed paper records, but CHC is now digital. By RIchaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor followed by patient-centric and the study. “Without CDS, EHRs are not much more than a comdiagnosis-related CDS. “As more healthcare organi- pilation of paper records in an electronic format.” zations realize the The News: CDS The conclusions value of and need ➔ tools essential to EHRs. for electronic health in the report whaT iT meaNs: records, early adopt- ➔ Clinical Decision A ‘cultural change’ in ers are already movSupport in Healthmedicine on the horizon ing to add more care: One Step Closer as docs see benefits. advanced functo the Omniscient tionalities to their Clinician - have EHRs,” said Christine Chang, a major implications for the way healthcare technology analyst physicians will use CDS tools in with Datamonitor and author of healthcare IT applications, as the report points out that medical culture will be the premier obstacle to overcome in CDS adoption. According to Chang, the idea that a computer could be more accurate than a physician is difChristine Chang ficult for providers to accept despite numerous studies which have shown that cds see page 21 Practice execs stress over EMR, cash – Selecting and implementing an EHR system is among the top concerns physician practice managers list in a new survey by the Medical Group Management Association. According to the research, the top five major challenges of running a group practice are: ■ Maintaining physician compensation in an environment of declining reimbursement; ■ Dealing with operating costs that are rising more rapidly than revenue; ■ Selecting and implementing a new electronic health record system; ■ Recruiting physicians; ■ Managing finances with the uncertainty of Medicare reimbursement rates. enGleWood, co More at aTlaNTa oRThopedisTs adopT eleCTRoNiC mediCal ReCoRd Peachtree Orthopaedic Clinic, a 26-physician orthopedic practice based in Atlanta intends to implement hybrid electronic medical record software at nine locations, including three physical therapy rehabilitation centers, an MRI facility, and a new surgical center. The practice will acquire the technology from Montvale, N.J.-based vendor SRSsoft. Douglas Murray, MD, chairman of Peachtree’s systems committee, said the hybrid EMR model would be a “viable alternative” to the traditional EMR for the north Georgia practice. weB siTe oFFeRs oNliNe ‘viRTUal hoUse Calls’ A new Web site offers patients the ability to talk to local physicians online through text, voice or video. TalktoaDoc.org intends to give patients a more convenient way to communicate with their physicians in realtime. The site offers different departments to help patients direct their questions to an appropriate physician. Physician consultations cost $2.98 per minute after the first minute and can’t be charged to insurance. Physicians receive 55 percent of the fees charged to the patient. More at BiloXi, Ms – Healthcare facilities along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi are still struggling to come to terms with the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. When Katrina roared across Mississippi in August 2005, the Coastal Family Health Center, based in Biloxi, Miss., served a population of more than 30,000 patients. Katrina destroyed two of Coastal’s seven permanent and school-based locations, its entire IT and billing system, two mobile healthcare units, and significantly damaged the buildings and destroyed the contents of almost all other locations. The storm also displaced 60 of Hurricane Katrina caused billions of dollars in damages along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The storm damaged or destroyed many healthcare facilities in the state. Coastal’s 175-person staff. “The mass destruction was overwhelming immediately after Katrina,” said Joe Dawsey, Coastal’s CEO. The storm caused an estimated $81.2 billion in damage across the Gulf Coast region, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. kaTRINa see page 22 healthcareITNews.com e ●connect: StreSS 0808 Why Will Patients Use Self-Monitoring Devices? Percent More physicians join online national drug alert network By RIchaRd PIzzI, Associate Editor WasHinGTon 80 70 60 50 40 30 Eliminate trips to office Doctor recommends To report results via Internet To selfadjust meds Provide data to docs 75% 69% 69% 67% 62% healthcareITNews.com e ●connect: PHYSICIaNS 0808 e ● connect: GraPHS 0808 SOURCE: 2008 DELOITTE SURvEy OF HEALTH CARE CONSUMERS – The American College of Cardiology and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have agreed to participate in the Health Care Notification Network, an online drug alert network that replaces a decadesold system based upon paper and U.S. mail. The HCNN was launched two months ago and the network’s organizers say it currently reaches over 100,000 U.S. physicians. ACC and ACOG members together add more than 50,000 physicians to the HCNN effort. “Rapid delivery of drug safety information is critical in order for us to provide high quality care to our patients based on the latest data,” said Jack Lewin, hcNN see page 22 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9694 http://TalktoaDoc.org http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9696

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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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