Beacon Communities will offer lessons for all
HHS this week announced its choice of 15 Beacon Communities from Maine to Hawaii, which were selected from scores of competitors. These innovators will use their awards, which total $220 million in ARRA funding, for a variety of initiatives, including chronic disease management efforts and better coordination of care.
These communities are charged with wide-scale use of health IT to tackle some troublesome issues in new ways. Whether these programs succeed or fail, the nation stands to learn from them.
Other Healthcare IT stories are making their way into mainstream news. This wasn’t a slow week for other stories, given the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the botched car bomb in New York and the severe flooding in several southern states—and yet, a couple of health IT stories made to the local news media, at least in our area. One of these was a study that showed a bar-code-enabled electronic medication administration records can reduce medication administration and transcription errors.
The other was a newspaper story about many physicians’ continuing reluctance to move to electronic patient records. Doubts linger about the efficacy of EMRs, and research may add to their reluctance: One study found that advanced EMR applications may increase hospital costs as well as increase complications. The authors wrote: “Contrary to expectation, we found little support for the proposition that EMRs generate significant cost savings to hospitals through reductions in length of stay....”
Another study found that implementation of a CPOE system was associated with a statistically significant reduction in the hospital-wide mortality rate at a quaternary care academic children’s hospital. Researchers at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH), in Palo Alto, Calif., showed for the first time that a significant decrease in hospital-wide mortality rates can be associated with implementation of a CPOE system. CPOE is a cornerstone of federal health IT efforts, and this study is good news for anyone who’s looking for evidence that CPOE implementation will improve care.
Beyond research is testing, which plays a major role in interoperability efforts. The 10th Annual European IHE Connectathon was held in Bordeaux, France. Eighty profiles and 94 systems were tested in radiology, cardiology, IT infrastructure, laboratory and patient care coordination domains by 66 companies, bringing together over 250 engineers. Clearly, interoperability is going global.
Mary Stevens, editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com
These communities are charged with wide-scale use of health IT to tackle some troublesome issues in new ways. Whether these programs succeed or fail, the nation stands to learn from them.
Other Healthcare IT stories are making their way into mainstream news. This wasn’t a slow week for other stories, given the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the botched car bomb in New York and the severe flooding in several southern states—and yet, a couple of health IT stories made to the local news media, at least in our area. One of these was a study that showed a bar-code-enabled electronic medication administration records can reduce medication administration and transcription errors.
The other was a newspaper story about many physicians’ continuing reluctance to move to electronic patient records. Doubts linger about the efficacy of EMRs, and research may add to their reluctance: One study found that advanced EMR applications may increase hospital costs as well as increase complications. The authors wrote: “Contrary to expectation, we found little support for the proposition that EMRs generate significant cost savings to hospitals through reductions in length of stay....”
Another study found that implementation of a CPOE system was associated with a statistically significant reduction in the hospital-wide mortality rate at a quaternary care academic children’s hospital. Researchers at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH), in Palo Alto, Calif., showed for the first time that a significant decrease in hospital-wide mortality rates can be associated with implementation of a CPOE system. CPOE is a cornerstone of federal health IT efforts, and this study is good news for anyone who’s looking for evidence that CPOE implementation will improve care.
Beyond research is testing, which plays a major role in interoperability efforts. The 10th Annual European IHE Connectathon was held in Bordeaux, France. Eighty profiles and 94 systems were tested in radiology, cardiology, IT infrastructure, laboratory and patient care coordination domains by 66 companies, bringing together over 250 engineers. Clearly, interoperability is going global.
Mary Stevens, editor
mstevens@trimedmedia.com