May 23, 2013 David Raths
Once MemorialCare's hospitalists started drilling down into their own data, they realized their group was an outlier in terms of keeping patients in the hospital longer and ordering more tests than peers in other hospitals.
May 20, 2013 David Raths
An informatics research team finds that although the technology exists to build a robust national learning health system, a multitude of business, political and social roadblocks stand in the way.
May 16, 2013 David Raths
Baylor Quality Alliance, an affiliate of Baylor Health Care System, is creating its own health information exchange and will use Humedica's MinedShare to extract and normalize clinical and administrative data and provide detailed analytics. BQA will also participate in the American Medical Group Association’s (AMGA) Anceta Collaborative to enhance shared learning with other AMGA members.
May 6, 2013 David Raths
Sepsis, a dangerous condition caused by the immune system’s response to a serious infection, is one of the toughest challenges hospitals face. It causes 17 percent of all hospital deaths and is the leading cause of death in non-cardiac intensive-care units. Additionally, the incidence of sepsis is increasing in the United States. But healthcare informatics researchers at two Philadelphia hospitals are working on ways to quicken response times and improve outcomes.
May 2, 2013 David Raths
Like country singer Willie Nelson, regional extension centers (RECs) in rural states are on the road again. Several RECs, which are helping primary care physicians achieve meaningful use, are undertaking statewide road shows to explain the benefits of connecting with health information exchanges to help meet Stage 2 of meaningful use.
April 28, 2013 David Raths
Judy Murphy, R.N., deputy national coordinator for programs and policy at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, said criticisms of the EHR incentive program because it hasn’t yet led to widespread interoperability are misguided. Interoperability “is going to be a progression, a journey," she said.
April 25, 2013 David Raths
Although there is strong interest in leveraging clinical data to supplement data collected for other purposes, including research, patient safety, and public health reporting, the use of EHR data for supplemental purposes has been limited due to a lack of uniformity in the terminology and definitions of data elements across EHRs. An ONC work group hopes to change that.
April 14, 2013 David Raths
“The biggest waste in the healthcare system is not unnecessary treatment or duplicated test results; it is that we collect data and never use it again.”
That was just one of several thought-provoking comments from Chris Lehmann, M.D., a biomedical informatics professor who recently gave a presentation at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Center for Biomedical Informatics on some new ideas about secondary uses of data.
April 11, 2013 David Raths
AHA expresses concern about "significant burden placed on providers who are trying to meet multiple, often non-aligned quality measurement and reporting requirements."
April 2, 2013 David Raths
The April 3 Health IT Policy Committee meeting promises to be interesting. The committee will hear presentations from two subgroups of the meaningful use workgroup, one dealing with the potential consolidation of meaningful use measures for Stage 3 and the other with the concept of “deeming” for eligible hospitals.
