Informatics-Review > Vol. 6 No. 15 - Aug 1 2003 -- Current Reviews in Clinical Informatics 








Moving
Toward Electronic Health Information Exchange: Interim Report on the
Santa Barbara County Data Exchange

The Santa
Barbara County Care Data Exchange (SBCCDE) is demonstrating how a
patient's clinical information can be readily accessible by any
authorized person, including the patient, at the place and time it is
needed. The organizational model for the SBCCDE has been in place for 18
months, and the technical model is now in the final phase of pilot
testing



Leadership in Health Information Technology 

Rep. Nancy Johnson Introduces the "National Health Information
Infrastructure Act of 2003"  The Act starts in motion the
development of information technology that is comprehensive and
interoperable across the country -- something that is not possible now.



The Alzheimer’s Association, Intel Team Up
To Expand Home Care Technology Research

The formation of this consortium is the first of its kind between a
leader in Alzheimer research and a leader in the computing technology
industry. It is hoped that through this effort they will improve the
quality of life for millions of people with Alzheimer’s disease, their
families, friends and professional health care partners.



Speech Recognition 

The long-term vision of applying speech recognition in health care is
still some years away, but promises to save time and money, and improve
medical quality. In 8-10 years -- once electronic medical records have
reached substantial market penetration and have some commonly-used
underlying data standards--speech recognition will provide an
easy-to-use, intuitive interface for data entry into, and complex
querying of, the medical record. That tight integration, probably
mediated through XML (an Internet standard that describes how data
elements are encoded), will give physicians better access to critical
information about their patients.



Delaware has one word for health care:
plastic

Delaware this month embarked on a project to develop a statewide
electronic access system for health care. The health care access system
will work much like a credit card. A patient would give the card to a
health care provider, who could access information about the patient’s
history and health care. 



Information Technology Enabling Clinical
Research

Findings and Recommendations from a Conference Sponsored by the
Association of American Medical Colleges with Funding from the National
Science Foundation

While clinical research is a defining characteristic of medical schools
and teaching hospitals, for the most part these institutions have not
focused their information technology (IT) development efforts to meet
clinical research needs. Rather, like other healthcare institutions,
they have applied IT to financial reporting and payer requirements. More
recently they have targeted clinical care for IT enhancements that
enable them to comply with new federal regulations, specifically the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and to
respond to national initiatives in the areas of patient safety,
healthcare quality, and biosurveilance.



VA’s health services portal to launch in
September

Through a contract VA awarded last week for $921,500, HealthGate Data
Corp. of Burlington, Mass., and PlanetGov Inc. of Chantilly, Va., will
provide health care information and integration services for the
system.  The Veterans Health Administration developed a HealtheVet
pilot, working with EDS Corp. and Microsoft Corp. But when it fields the
live portal, VA will switch to a Java platform and Oracle Corp.
database and back-end applications.



EHR: Developing a Functional Model and
Standard

FREE audio conferences Thursday, Aug. 7 and Aug. 14, from 2:00 - 3:00
p.m. (CST). Each audio conference covers the same information but with
different speakers.  The hour-long program will offer information
on the proposed definitional standard for the EHR and will provide a
process for input to the definition through a document that is currently
under review by Health Level 7 (HL7) and the Institute of Medicine
(IOM) for submission to the federal government.



Impact of Hospital Computer Systems on
Resident Work Hours

A total of 2,096 respondents from 263 medical centers in 47 states and
the District of Columbia submitted a survey. Of all surveyed residents,
78.9% used Palm OS devices and 4.2% used Pocket PC OS devices. In total,
84.7% of all respondents owned a PDA. Most respondents “Agreed or
Strongly Agreed” that mobile technologies would improve patient care
(88.0%), reduce medical errors (74.3%), and improve resident
productivity (91.5%). Over a quarter of the respondents (27.7%) agreed
that mobile technologies would decrease length of stay. Of the residents
preferring to “download and view patient data from the hospital
computer systems,” 73.3% agreed that this functionality would reduce
resident work hours. In contrast, only 37.1% of those selecting to
access “clinical reference guides” agreed that this functionality would
reduce resident work hours.



Nation's 100 Most Wired hospitals and
health systems

H&HN asked the 100 Most Wired to identify their three priorities.
Virtually every hospital has at least one clinical project in process,
including picture archiving and communication systems (PACs),
computerized physician order entry (CPOE), clinical decision-support,
targeted medication administration projects and specific departmental
systems.



 

Other issues from
Volume 6 -- 2001


  
    

      
      
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©  2003 The  Informatics     Review



  
    

      
      
 Informatics-Review  >  Vol. 6  No. 15  - Aug 1 2003 --  Current    Reviews in Clinical
Informatics 

      		
    

  



7/31/03 dfs