February 12, 2013 Mark Hagland
blog
Dr. Jim Levin was both a clinical informatics pioneer and a true mensch. Well do I remember the first time I met him, four years ago, when in the spring of 2009, as I was meeting with executives and leaders from across the UPMC health system in Pittsburgh, to find out what UPMC leaders were doing to leverage information technology for systemic performance improvement.
February 11, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
James E. Levin, M.D., Ph.D., CMIO at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, died unexpectedly on Feb. 10 while traveling on business. Dr. Levin, 55, was a nationally recognized pioneer in medical informatics, and had helped guide his colleagues at Children’s of Pittsburgh, part of the vast 20-plus-hospital University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) health system, through industry-leading innovations in clinical innovation and electronic health record (EHR)-driven clinical performance improvement.
February 3, 2013 Mark Hagland
blog
CIOs, CMIOs and other healthcare leaders have a real opportunity to help shape community-wide healthcare delivery performance improvement initiatives: just ask Jane Brock, M.D., of the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care, that state's QIO.
February 3, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
Jane Brock, M.D., the chief medical officer of the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care, that state's Medicare quality improvement organization, discusses recent research-driven learnings around what makes for successful forays into improving care transitions-and the IT leveraging that will need to take place in communities nationwide.
January 30, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
Leaders at the American Health Quality Association recently showcased the release of an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that documented an impressive decline in avoidable hospitalizations and readmissions among Medicare patients in communities in which Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) have coordinated interventions that engaged whole communities in care improvement.
January 28, 2013 John DeGaspari
article
An interdisciplinary team of clinicians, informaticists, and quality experts at NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, Ill., has taken a major step in controlling this disease in its outpatient population, by harnessing its electronic health record (EHR) to screen for and evaluate individuals with previously undetected hypertension in its multi-specialty medical group. The system, which went live in January 2011, has helped the integrated health system make significant progress in eliminating undiagnosed hypertension among its patients receiving care within its primary care network.
January 28, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
Leaders at the Colorado Beacon Consortium are leveraging powerful analytics and health information exchange tools to support region-wide, physician practice-based population health tools, for the benefit of patients scattered across the Rocky Mountain west.
January 22, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
news
Providers are looking to third-party vendors to keep pace with clinical evidence, but many struggle to embed that content into their electronic medical record (EMR) and clinical workflow, according to a new report from Orem, Ut.-based KLAS Research.
January 19, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
David Wennberg, M.D., M.P.H., CEO of the Northern New England Accountable Care Collaborative, a Portland, Maine-based collaborative organization founded by four integrated health systems in New England, shares his perspectives on the challenges and opportunities involved in laying the IT foundations for accountable care
January 16, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
Kenneth Bertka, M.D. has been helping to lead his colleagues at Mercy Health Partners, and its parent health system, Catholic Health Partners, forward on data-driven population health management. A key lesson learned? Take everything one step at a time.
January 13, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
As the vast UPMC health system in Pittsburgh moves forward on its big-data journey, senior vice president and CIO Dan Drawbaugh shares his perspectives on that journey exclusively with HCI’s Mark Hagland. Among the top learnings so far: the level of collaboration between and among senior clinician, administrative, and IT leaders required to achieve big-data breakthroughs will be exceptional.
December 7, 2012 Mark Hagland
blog
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.
