Healthcare IT News - October 2007 - (Page 55)

www.HealthcareITNews.com ManageMent SolutionS October 2007 ■ Healthcare IT News 55 HHS report zeroes in on use of IT, genetic data to target care on in his report – is under way at institutions such as Partners HealthCare System in Boston, a teaching affiliate of Harvard By BErnIE MonEgaIn, Editor Medical School, the Mayo Clinic and other WashingTon – Health and Human Services academic and medical institutions across Secretary Mike Leavitt has released the first the country. department-wide The Mayo “Health care professionals have Clinic is workreport on the goal of personalized always aimed at MaKing MediCal ing with IBM healthcare. on a data wareCare aS indiVidualiZed aS The report, house that con“ P e r s o n a l i z e d PoSSiBle. But in truth, our ability tains clinical and Health Care: to deliver the right care for each genomic data. Opportunities, A Web-enabled person has been limited.” Pathways, user inter face – Mike Leavitt Resources,” presallows authoents a long-range rized clinicians plan for achieving more individualized treat- and researchers to access unprecedented ment for patients, especially by using genet- amounts of patient information including ic information and healthcare information demographic, diagnostic, physiological and technology. genomic data. Last April, Leavitt announced HHS’ plans Leavitt said work in biomedical science, to promote personalized care by combin- healthcare information technology and ing genetic information with healthcare IT healthcare delivery should be aligned to protechnology. He listed government initiatives duce “the right treatment, at the right time” already under way, such as efforts by the for each individual patient. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “Healthcare professionals have always aimed (CDC) to describe population-wide genomic at making medical care as individualized as characteristics and to help lay the ground- possible. But in truth, our ability to deliver the work for using genomic elements in health- right care for each person has been limited,” care. He writes in a foreword to the report. Some of the research that will lead to the The report describes how the explodpersonalized care – which Leavitt focuses ing knowledge of the human genome will Leavitt outlines plan to promote personalized care. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, shown here during a during press conference, recently released “Personalized Health Care: Opportunities, Pathways, Resources,” the first department-wide report on a project launched last April by HHS to promote personalized healthcare. increase the capacity to predict, detect, preempt and treat disease by enabling physicians to “look beneath” visible symptoms and see signs and causes of disease at the molecular level. Healthcare IT can help clinicians and researchers ascertain which treatments are most effective and for whom by using broadscale data derived from day-to-day medical practice, Leavitt said. He said the combination of genomic medicine, healthcare IT and better use of medical evidence will make possible much more effective health care – such as learning which medicines, at what dosages, work best for which patients. n MoRE AT HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: PERSoNAl 1007 Cincinnati-area health information exchange spawns 2 more By PaTTy Enrado, Contributing Editor cincinnaTi – ● Bloomington, Ind. and Clark and Champaign Counties in Ohio are launching their own community health information exchanges, or HIEs, by leveraging an existing HIE’s technology infrastructure. HealthBridge, the largest HIE in the country, serving the greater Cincinnati tri-state area, will share its data centers and suppliers, clinical messaging system, services and staff and manage all resources for the two HIEs for a monthly fee. “We are all independent collaborating exchanges,” said Keith Hepp, CFO and vice president of business development for HealthBridge. “It’s like a utility – one power plant for as many people. There are significant economies of scale that accrue to all parties.” Two years ago, Jim Gravell, CFO of Catholic Health Partners, brought the local physicians of Clark and Champaign counties together to create a physician-driven vision for a community-wide HIE. By plugging into HealthBridge’s infrastructure, the Clark and Champaign Counties HIE, or CCHIE, will be able to achieve critical mass rapidly. At least half of all local physicians will be connected by the end of 2008. “The goal is to get everybody off of paper,” said Camilla Hull Brown, CCHIE’s interim executive director. With the infrastructure in place, workflow will become more efficient. “The next level is clinical care and quality,” she said. With access to HealthBridge’s data suppliers, CCHIE will be able to use those resources creatively for such projects as a community repository, chronic disease management, personal health record, e-prescribing and automated disease reporting. Thanks to a Health Resources and Services Administration grant to rural safety-net pro- viders, the nine-county region comprising the Bloomington area has a 38 percent penetration rate of electronic medical record, or EMR, systems. Despite the impressive rate, Todd Rowland, MD, of Bloomington Hospital and executive director of e-Health Collaborative, said, “Communities of 800,000 or less can’t afford the technology for a health information exchange.” The community also wanted to collaborate with a more experienced organization. Bloomington’s e-Health Collaborative will go live with HealthBridge’s clinical messaging system, developed by Axolotl, in midOctober. The HIE expects 100 percent penetration by the end of 2008. The HIE’s goals include increasing the number of practices that use the clinical messaging system’s electronic inbox and the percentage of EMRs, and aggressively decreasing auto-fax delivery. “We’re one of the first doing an HIE as a community,” said Rowland. “We joined as an organized medical community with trusted relations to become data centers.” n MoRE AT HealthcareITnews.com e Connect: CINCINNATI 1007 ● Leading Health Information Technology experts agree that Electronic Document Management (EDM) is a key foundation for the EHR. Combining electronically generated data with scanned records provides an organized, centrally located, legally compliant medical record which is critical to improve efficiencies, patient care and cash flow. Let Alpha Systems help guide you with our safe and trustworthy EDM solutions. The nation's leading healthcare providers trust Alpha Systems for rock solid EDM software and award winning scanning services. Our EDM solutions efficiently manage over 500 million electronic documents with another 1 million added each day. Proven. Secure. Compliant. www.alphaemr.com • 800.732.9644 VISIT US AT AHIMA BOOTH 1117 e ● Connect: AlPHASySTEMS 1007 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=7867 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=7868 http://www.alphaemr.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=7922

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Healthcare IT News - October 2007 Contents Global Harmony Telegrowth New Rules Keeping Tabs What's Free? PHR of Its Own Intelligent Closing Practice Management Paper Tiger

Healthcare IT News - October 2007

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