December 12, 2012 Mark Hagland
As the healthcare industry moves forward to meet the demands of purchasers and payers for higher-quality, more effective, more cost-effective patient care with fewer errors and better care coordination, it is sobering to read the results of recent studies that show that improving clinical performance does not necessarily lead to the prevention of avoidable readmissions.
December 7, 2012 Mark Hagland
The October issue of The American Journal of Managed Care included a fascinating article, "Implementation of EHR-Based Strategies to Improve outpatient CAD Care," in which a group of researchers documented how EHR-facilitated physician alerts alone aren’t enough to improve outcomes for patients with such chronic illnesses as coronary artery disease. It turns out, success requires a savvy combination of financial incentives, IT alerts, and good data analysis.
November 29, 2012 Mark Hagland
As RSNA 2012 wound toward its close at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center, the atmosphere this year seemed to be one of nervous anticipation, with many attendees looking for signs and signals of all kinds. For many in radiology and imaging informatics, the challenges seemed daunting. But could new technologies, intelligently implemented, be a part of a broader solution?
November 26, 2012 Mark Hagland
Meeting this morning during RSNA 2012 with executives from the Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare, one thing was clear: those patient care organizations with an imaging informatics strategy—perhaps almost any imaging informatics strategy??—are already light years ahead of their peer organizations whose senior executives have no such strategy.
November 22, 2012 Mark Hagland
What seems obvious, on both the macro and micro levels, is that physicians can no longer practice medicine effectively without strong, effective clinical decision support tools at the point of care. Case in point: a close friend’s holiday emergency room experience.
November 17, 2012 Mark Hagland
I found the Nov. 13 InformationWeek commentary by Mathew J. Schwartz, titled “Petraeus Fallout: 5 Gmail Security Facts,” to be both entertaining and instructive. As Schwartz puts it simply and eloquently, “Want to avoid a fall from grace? Then ensure you’re not the chief of a spy agency who coordinates your extramarital affairs using a free webmail service. That’s one information security takeaway from the ongoing probe into the former director of the CIA, David Petraeus, who resigned after 14 months on the job.”
November 14, 2012 Mark Hagland
One thing seemed clear last week at the AMIA 2012 Conference: physician informaticists are helping to move the discussion—and the solutions—forward towards new solutions in the physician documentation arena
October 24, 2012 Mark Hagland
As Medicare reimbursement issues create gloom for physicians nationwide, medical group leaders nationwide are facing profound 'chicken-or-egg' questions around how and even whether to invest in the critical IT investments, especially clinical ones, that will be needed to forge the new healthcare.
October 24, 2012 Mark Hagland
Healthcare Informatics has opened its annual Innovator Awards program to submissions from leaders at hospitals, medical groups, health systems, and health information exchanges: it’s time to make sure your outstanding teams get recognized for their groundbreaking work
October 17, 2012 Mark Hagland
Perhaps the thought was inescapable in the context of the current presidential election campaign going on right now; after all, the second presidential debate, in which a very engaged pair of presidential candidates had sparred very intensely over a wide range of topics, had just taken place the night before. But I couldn't help thinking about Farzad Mostashari, M.D., as speaking like a political leader when he appeared at the CHIME Fall forum on Wednesday, Oct. 17-and I mean that in a good way.
