February 15, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
article
Many OBs and delivery room nurses can benefit greatly from having access to an “expert opinion” right at the bedside to help them make crucial decisions. Yoni Barnhard, M.D., points to a technology that he says every labor and delivery unit in America should have.
February 12, 2013 Joe Marion
blog
A lot is being written on Interoperability lately. Achieving it depends not only on vendor cooperation but also on facility insistence.
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 8, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
news
Citing needs for more time and to cut costs, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Eric Shinseki announced they would forgo plans to build a new health records system to be used jointly by the departments and instead pursue less expensive technologies to make their respective systems more interoperable.
February 7, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
article
On Feb. 7, public officials and healthcare IT leaders gathered in Manhattan to celebrate the ongoing success of a New York City IT initiative. Among those speaking were New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, M.D., and CDC Director Thomas Frieden, M.D.
February 6, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
news
A new report from the American Medical Association (AMA) outlines a list of five responsibilities physicians in outpatient settings should consider when caring for patients who have recently completed a hospital stay.
February 5, 2013 Rajiv Leventhal
news
On Feb.1, the American Hospital Association (AHA) sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) stating that electronic health record (EHR) systems are not yet capable of meeting the requirements of the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program.
January 31, 2013 Gabriel Perna
news
Recently, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) announced they are teaming up to improve data collection in electronic health records (EHRs) through a set of standardized data elements and definitions for the clinical management of patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and coronary artery disease (CAD).
January 28, 2013 Mark Hagland
article
The Louisiana Public Health Institute, the animating organization behind the Crescent City Beacon Community, has leveraged the power of EHRs to facilitate a metropolitan area-wide patient-centered model of care.
January 28, 2013 Gabriel Perna
article
From the minute any clinician steps into their professional environment, they know the importance of hand hygiene. Yet, for some reason, gaps in hygiene compliance remain a problem at many medical facilities across the country, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting that 90,000 die in the U.S. each year from hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). For this reason, Shannon Medical Center, a 400-bed hospital in San Angelo, Texas, implemented an automated radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based hand-hygiene monitoring system.
January 25, 2013 Gabriel Perna
article
Leaders at MD Anderson, a Houston-based cancer treatment and research center, went the unconventional route in getting a meaningful use certified EMR. They self-developed one. Thanks to a simulation tool that visualized clinical applications, they were able to do this in a way that made life easier for the development team and the clinician stakeholders.