|
The use of secure patient-physician email in context of a comprehensive EHR is associated with the improved care for patients with diabetes and hypertension, according to Kaiser Permanente research published in the July issue of Health Affairs.
Commentary by: Jonathan Leviss, MD President Obama has requested (possibly demanded) that the U.S. healthcare system move into the modern information age with broad implementations of health IT.
As economic conditions deteriorated and unemployment rose from 5.5 percent in June 2008 to 9.5 percent in June 2009, national Medicaid enrollment grew at a rate not seen since the early days of program implementation in the late 1960s, according to a June 2009 data snapshot on Medicaid enrollment recently released from Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente.
Last month an external electronic data storage device containing patient health information for approximately 15,500 Northern California members of health insurance company Kaiser Permanente was stolen from an employee’s car at the employee’s home in Sacramento, Calif.
Ellen Makar of Yale-New Haven Health System, Conn., and Sandra Ng of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center were both selected by the Alliance for Nursing Informatics to participate in a two-year Nursing Informatics Emerging Leaders Program.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente recently launched a pilot medical data exchange program in San Diego enabling clinicians from VA and Kaiser Permanente to obtain views of a patient's health using EHR information through the National Health Information Network.
Kaiser Permanente has received 22 grants worth more than $54 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.
The recession has put more people on Medicaid and sharply increased state spending on the program, forcing state officials to cut costs even with help coming from the federal government through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
A report by California’s Integrated Healthcare Association found that a Pay-for-Performance (P4P) program has shown improvement in the areas of clinical quality and patient experience, as well as IT infrastructure and processes during 2008.
An EHR program cut cardiac deaths by 73 percent through linking coronary artery disease patients and teams of pharmacists, nurses, primary care doctors and cardiologists with an EHR. It also kept the patients healthy two years after they left the program by keeping them in touch with their caregivers electronically, according to a randomized trial published in this month's American Journal of Managed Care.
|
A program aimed at screening for breast cancer when it is most treatable boosted mammography rates by more than 17 percentage points, according to research by Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The program used an EHR to identify women who would be due for a mammogram and contacted them via postcards, automated voice messages and personal phone calls.
Specialty care physicians can improve the health of high-risk patients by reviewing EHRs and proactively providing e-consultations and treatment plan recommendations with primary care physicians, according to the results of a Kaiser Permanente pilot project published online July 9 in the British Medical Journal.
Physicians Medical Group of Santa Cruz County, Calif., a founding member of the Santa Cruz Health Information Exchange (HIE), and Axolotl, a provider of HIE solutions and related services, have demonstrated a clinical HIE with multiple communities using Axolotl's Elysium Exchange.
Kaiser Permanente has improved the heart attack survival rate for its members in Colorado through a program that links coronary artery disease patients and teams of pharmacists, nurses, primary care doctors and cardiologists, with an EHR and advanced clinical care registry.
Healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente has signed a $500 million data-center management contract with IBM, which could put as many as 860 IT jobs in jeopardy as part of the strategic realignment.
Friday, July 30 2010
Friday, July 30 2010
Friday, July 30 2010
Friday, July 30 2010
Friday, July 30 2010
|
RSS 
“We’re beginning a revolution the way information is collected, managed, used and purposed for patients in the U.S. healthcare system,” said David Blumenthal, MD, chair of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, in opening remarks at an audioconference training session on meaningful use and EHR certification last week.
In Part 1 of our closer look at the final rules for meaningful use and EHR certification standards, CMIO’s Jeff Byers spoke with David Blumenthal, MD, chair of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. In Part 2, CMIOs weigh in with mixed reviews.
The framework for meaningful use is “something that had to be done and has been started intelligently,” John P. Glaser, PhD, vice president and CIO of Partners HealthCare System told CMIO. However, the challenges of becoming meaningful users and optimizing health information exchange will require unprecedented levels of communication within organizations and among healthcare systems, he said.
The contractual obligations in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on modifications to the HIPAA privacy, security and enforcement rules under the HITECH Act for business associates and downstream entities are game changers, according to Amy S. Leopard, JD, from Walter and Haverfield, during a webinar sponsored by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Standardizing performance measures, with the help of health IT, will make it possible to collect the right data at the right time to support performance measurement, clinical decision support, clinical research and quality improvement, said Janet M. Corrigan, PhD, president and CEO of the National Quality Forum (NQF) during a webinar hosted by the forum on June 17.