Healthcare IT News - December 2007 - (Page 8)

8 Healthcare IT News My Two CenTS ■ December 2007 www.HealthcareITNews.com excellence made easier with It in place this year for some of the healthcare organizations we know. Surprise gifts earlier this month came in the form of awards – prestigious ones with the name Baldrige attached – for Sharp Healthcare in San Diego and mercy Health System in Janesville, Wis. In Louisiana, the gift came as cash – $13 million from the state supplemental budget that will help buy and maintain information technology for community hospitals in rural Louisiana. twenty-four hospitals will benefit from the five-year project aimed at linking the hospitals in the central and northern parts of the state. Sharp and mercy are big healthcare systems with what might seem to other, smaller organizations, not lacking for resources. the Louisiana facilities are small, community hospitals, lucky to operate at a 1 percent margin. as Lonnie Dufour, coo of 25-bed Bunkie General Hospital in Bunkie, La. put it, the award of funds to roll out an electronic health record system at Bunkie General, until now, had been just “a pipe dream.” Doug efferson, administrator at Homer memorial Hospital in Homer, La., still marvels at the good fortune. “you always think nothing good will ever happen to you.” It did. and, It, which efferson said had always been on the back burner, is now top priority. at Sharp and mercy, the Baldrige awards came after years of focused attention to doing everything well. Both mike murphy, ceo of Sharp, and Javon Bea, ceo of mercy credited their organizations’ relentless pursuit of excellence in every aspect of their work as key to providing the best care possible. Information technology plays a role, of course. Sharp Healthcare cIo William Spooner, who is a member of the Healthcare IT News editorial board, told us he didn’t know how the It program weighed into the Baldrige HrIstMas caMe earlY award examiners’ overall evaluation, but he hoped several factors impressed them favorably. “We held out a lot of our technology as bringing great value from quality, customer Bernie Monegain, Editor experience and financial perspectives. Web-based vehicles for gathering customer and clinician feedback, tools to help us repatriate patients admitted to hospitals outside our system, online monitoring of conditions suggesting early intervention to protect a patient condition from deteriorating, etc. all were highlighted.” you might describe the Baldrige winners as “the haves,” and the Louisiana hospitals as the “have-nots.” the Baldrige winners have technology. the Louisiana hospitals have none to speak of – yet. the haves and have-nots have something in common – the pursuit of excellence. It’s not that It alone guarantees quality care, but it makes it easier to achieve. as efferson figures, technology will enable clinicians to www.HealthcareITNews.com Published in partnership with The haves and have-nots have something in common the pursuit of excellence. be more focused on the patient and less on the paperwork. the industry and professional groups like the american Hospital association, the american medical association and the like have to continue to lobby for a combination of private and public assistance with healthcare It at both the state and federal levels. the healthcare system, by the current administration’s own assessment, is hardly a system. Shouldn’t we be asking lawmakers and presidential candidates what they plan to do about it? What role will It play? If it were not for a state appropriation of supplemental funds, 24 Louisiana hospitals might still be in pursuit of excellence, but that quest would be all the harder without It. ■ More at healthcareITNews.com e connect: MoNeGaIN 1207 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, Editorial Assistant 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 45 or visit http://www.healthcareitnews.com/ page.cms?pageId=3 Karen Diekmann, Production Manager karen.diekmann@medtechpublishing.com Danielle Hartley, Director, Marketing danielle.hartley@medtechpublishing.com EDITOR, HIMSS INSIDER EDITORIAL STAFF ● ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MARKETING READER SERVICES T (978) 671-0449 or cs-hitn@e-circ.net F (978)671-0460 Online: www.myHITN.com Postal mail: PO Box 9369 Lowell, MA 01853 Nicole Carter nicole.carter@medtechpublishing.com SUBSCRIPTION FULFILLMENT MANAGER CIRCULATION MANAGER CUSTOMER SERVICE Peggy Tashjian cs-hitn@e-circ.net REPRINTS Reprint Management Services T (717) 399-1900, ext. 139 HITN@reprintbuyer.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 EDITORIAL BOARD S is an eHr? a PHr? an emr? What does “Health Information exchange” or “rHIo” mean to you or your organization? Well, thanks to the office of the national coordinator and the national alliance for Health Information technology, all of these terms should soon mean the same things to all of us. the two organizations are spearheading an initiative to develop standardized definitions for these increasingly popular health information technology terms in the hope that doing so will help advance the proliferation of healthcare It. It certainly couldn’t hurt. It seems rather simplistic and perhaps even trivial, but one of the things muddling up progress in healthcare It is the fact that these terms and phrases often mean different things to different entities. I think it’s an excellent idea to standardize their definitions so we can all be sure we’re talking about the same thing. I agree with the onc and the alliance that some uniformity in o, WHat eXactlY an eMr by any other name would . . . CorreCTionS Healthcare IT News is published by MedTech Publishing Company, LLC, which is solely responsible for its editorial content. Editors are expected to meet the highest professional standards for accuracy, objectivity, fairness and independence. Errors of fact are corrected as soon as the error is established and corrections are published in the medium in which the error appeared. Inquiries or disputes about the factual accuracy of the record should be directed to the editor. terminology will streamline communications and put us all on the same page as we move forward. at the same time, we can’t let peripheral issues like these distract us from the larger goal of advancing health information exchange on a wide scale. as I’ve indicated, I can fully see the importance and value of adopting some uniformity in system naming conventions and terminology, but it is an issue we can, and must, address while we pursue the larger goal, not in place of it. too much momentum has been painstakingly built behind health information exchange to risk it slipping away while we debate what we should call various system components. one of the nice things about the onc and naHIt effort is that industry folks and the general public alike are being solicity for input and comment. ■ – David St. clair, meDecision founder and ceo. Wayne, Pa. ediToriaL indePendenCe Healthcare IT News is published in partnership with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). HIMSS members are eligible to receive Healthcare IT News and related publications – both in print and online – as a beneﬁt of membership. With the exception of the HIMSS Insider, which is produced by the staff of HIMSS and appears within the pages of Healthcare IT News every month, HIMSS and its leadership exercise no control over the editorial content of the newspaper and related publications. Neil Rouda VICE PRESIDENTS PRESIDENT Jack Beaudoin John D. Payne Neil Rouda PRESIDENT VICE PRESIDENTS Jack Beaudoin John D. Payne 2005 JESSE NEAL AWARD WINNER http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8222 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/page.cms?pageId=3 http://www.myHITN.com

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Healthcare IT News - December 2007 Contents Paying Docs Seal of Approval Key to Success Stage 4 Stark Payoff New Kids on the Block Real-time Trend On the Block Picture Perfect Head of the Class

Healthcare IT News - December 2007

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