Healthcare IT News - December 2008 - (Page 19)

www.HealthcareITNews.com PHySICIaN PRaCtICES & aMBUlatoRy CaRE at Lake Pointe, says they use SOC about four to five times a month and can get a specialist to the patient’s bedside within 15 minutes. “Like any technology it is not 100 percent immune to failure,” said Colin McDonald, MD, founder of SOC. “We have to protect against failure, and we do this through redundancy of the physician staff.” Peterson says the redundancy plan consists of “two layers” of back-up physicians. When a patient has a stroke, an important, quick decision ER physicians must consider is whether to administer a clot-busting drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). This drug is given to treat patients with an ischemic stroke and must be Joe Peterson, administered withMD in the first three hours after the start of symptoms. Kestler says SOC has helped them to administer tPA in two cases. December 2008 ■ Healthcare IT News 19 TeleHeAlTH Continued from page 17 Tandberg’s equipment serves to “bring the right person to the right place at the right time,” says Joe D’lorio, government, educational and medical manager for healthcare at TANDBERG. Lake Pointe Medical Center, a full-service 112-bed hospital in Rowlett, Texas, began using SOC’s services in its ED in April 2008. Joanna Kestler, RN, director of emergency and outpatient services “It’s always a concern that patients may be skeptical (of videoconferencing), but once they see it, folks have been very receptive because of quality of feed and interactiveness,” said David French, MD. “It’s a benefit to the community, especially as our area continues to grow,” he says. The on call neurologist will have a phone conversation with the ER physician and review the patient’s medical history and CT scan before using videoconferencing to perform a nurse-assisted exam of the patient, Kestler says. Doctors in the ER use a secure portal, which is part of SOC’s infrastructure, to send patient information to the neurologists on call. A spokesman for the company says the infrastructure is known as “IronWorks” and it includes a 24/7 call center, a real time PACS, a clinical information and electronic medical records system, and the videoconferencing equipment. ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: teLeHeaLtH 1208 ● MoDel Continued from page 1 Walt Zwiak, principal researcher in Emerging Practices, the applied research arm of CSC’s Global Healthcare Sector and one of the authors of the study, says we need to slow the physician shortage. The study says physicians will be motivated to use innovative processes for delivering and managing patient care, such as open access scheduling – but only if reimbursed. Open access scheduling is a model for providing faster, more convenient care, including same day access to care. ThedaCare, a health system in northeast Wisconsin consisting of four hospitals, has an open access program. “Open access scheduling requires doing a lot of data analysis on patient demand and then designing the capacity around that demand,” says John Toussaint, MD, president and CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value and CEO of Emeritus ThedaCare Inc. He says it is predictable as to where the peak in demand is, even to the day. “Once you have this data you can redesign processes to manage those peak demand times,” he says. An initiative the study says bears watching as a trend to support the new model is the patient-centered medical home (PCMH). The National Committee for Quality Assurance defines PCMH as a healthcare setting that facilitates partnerships between individual patients Melissa Harmon and physicians. Michael S. Barr, vice president of practice advocacy and improvement for the American College of Physicians, says PCMH is “only part of a larger healthcare reform agenda” and is “not by itself the answer to our problems.” Melissa Harmon, research analyst in the Emerging Practices group at CSC and co-author of the study, says “there is still a very long ways to go when it comes to a new ambulatory care delivery model, but we are moving in the right direction.” ■ More at HealthcareITNews.com e Connect: MoDeL 1208 Easy. Ergonomic. Economic. Carstens redesigned WALKaroo III™ now features an easy-lift cylinder with hand lever control for smooth adjustment to sitting or standing positions. WALKaroo III also features: Options: For more information www.carstensEHR.com 1.800.621.5051. ● © Copyright 2008 Carstens e ● Connect: CarSteNS 1208 Your Partner in the Evolution of Charting http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=10532 http://www.carstensEHR.com http://www.carstensEHR.com http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=10492 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=10559

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Healthcare IT News - December 2008

Healthcare IT News - December 2008 Contents AHIC 2.0 Debuts See How It Works Monitored to Health Right Decisions Neurologist Needed HiMSS Insider: Four to the Board Heartened Generation Next Clinical Toolkit: Inpatient EMRs Management Solutions: Asset Tracking

Healthcare IT News - December 2008

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