CMIOs: Expect workarounds

Before becoming a medical journalist, I was an amateur guitar technician; emphasis on the word "amateur."

In 2000, when people mainly used landlines for communication, the first guitar amplifier/speaker combination I purchased--and still use--was a 1970's Ampeg V4 amplifier model with a Marshall 4x12. Despite believing I had all the necessary gear to make oceans boil, something was off between the amplifier and the speaker cabinet causing the equipment to not work properly: the impedance, an electrical measure.

The impedance imbalance was solved by purchasing a second speaker cabinet with the same the ohm capabilities as my Marshall and splitting the impedance setting on the amplifier to an appropriate level to channel enough electricity to both speaker cabinets. Through this workaround, the guitar sound not only shattered ear drums, but I ended with a well-functioning set-up.

On the heels of the American Medical Informatics Association crowning clinical informatics a medical subspecialty, healthcare is well on its way entering into unfamiliar territory implementing new IT systems. Much like I was when I began playing guitar, stop-gap solutions and workarounds in healthcare will begin to become familiar topics of discussion, just as innovations and disruptive ideas enter the arena.

For example, a survey of CIOs from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) found that 56 percent of respondents plan on collaborating with other states on health benefit exchange initiatives. Most CMIOs would suggest that these connections do not happen overnight. Rather, successful integration occurs with testing and piloting.

Some are tackling impending integration problems head on. The Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has called for vendor collaboration for a pilot to assess readiness for ICD-10 in hopes of circumventing some initial integration problems between software and providers. The deadline to enroll in the pilot is Nov. 11.

Cloud computing also has been making a lot of headlines and where there are clouds, there are security and privacy issues with regardes to storing and exchanging of health information. An October report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that cloud computing could create security risks for federal agencies as 22 of 24 agencies reported to GAO that they were concerned or very concerned about the potential information security risks associated with the platform. Additionally, a Symantec survey on cloud computing found that out of the 5,300 organizations surveyed that security related to cloud computing was not only a top goal but also top concern moving towards the cloud.

There's a lot of activity in the interoperability space. The question is where does that activity fit into your organization.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me at jbyers@trimedmedia.com.

Jeff Byers
Content Editor