HealthLeadersMedia.com - Tech News & Analysis

The future of mHealth: Healthcare apps to lower insurance costs

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:41:00 GMT

Several large U.S. health insurance companies, including Aetna, WellPoint and UnitedHealth Group, currently offer mobile apps that help members find network providers and perform other simple functions. On the surface, these apps strengthen connections with members and providers. However, the mobile health revolution holds deeper implications for the insurance industry, which plans to enhance future mobile offerings to more directly impact patient health, according to the American Medical Association.

What If Your Car Cared About Your Health?

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:18:00 GMT

Will Ford's plan to install health monitoring devices and interfaces in its cars work? Healthcare professionals know how difficult it is to get patients to monitor their health. But this is just the start of a lot of industries imagining how they can gather, use, and communicate health and wellness data back to the consumer.

5010 Deadline Extended, But Threat Remains, Says AMA

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:27:00 GMT

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has extended the 5010 HIPAA transaction standards deadline to March 31. The delay is meant to enable more physician practices to implement the billing coding standard without incurring penalties. But the American Medical Association says CMS should do more.

Health IT managers say tablets can cause problems

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:57:00 GMT

As the popularity of tablet use among physicians continues to grow so too has the challenges that come with integrating these devices into the health IT enterprise. That's what a new study that polled 100 health IT managers reveals, with 74% of respondents saying tablets such as the iPad present challenges for entering data into enterprise healthcare applications and 66% say they believe providing technical support on consumer-grade tablets raises IT costs.

EHR deployment costs approach $30,000 per doctor

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:50:00 GMT

Physicians are starting to embrace electronic health records en masse, according to a new survey by the Medical Group Management Association. The poll found that around half of the EHRs used by their members lacked many key functions. For example, only 56% of MGMA survey respondents with EHRs said their system could generate problem lists; 49% had EHRs that provided drug interaction warnings. However, with the advent of Meaningful Use, many physicians are switching to more capable EHRs to qualify for government financial incentives.

Rutgers, Duke, Horizon form education partnership for nurses

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:48:00 GMT

Horizon Healthcare Innovations announced Wednesday the formation of an educational partnership with Duke University School of Nursing and Rutgers University College of Nursing for a new type of training for nurses. The 12-week course, which involves face-to-face and online sessions, trains nurses to become population-care coordinators, the cornerstone of patient-centered medical homes.

Improved patient problem list enhances diagnoses

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:56:00 GMT

A clinical decision support tool developed by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston can increase the completeness of patient problem lists in electronic health records (EHRs). Having all of a patient's diagnoses on a single list helps physicians provide better care, because they're more likely to treat a condition such as diabetes or hypertension if they're reminded of that problem when a patient visits.

Strategies for Effective Transitions of Care

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:34:00 GMT

Technology, including electronic medical records and health information exchanges, is evolving to support actively managed care transitions. Arien Malec, Vice President of Relay Health Data Platform Solutions, discusses strategies for effective transitions of care to improve patient outcomes and reduce errors and costs across the care continuum. [Sponsored by RelayHealth]

UM patient data stolen

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:42:00 GMT

Limited data on 1,219 University of Miami patients was stolen in November when someone broke the back window of a pathologist's car and took a briefcase that contained a flash drive. The drive contained information on the patients' age, sex, diagnosis and treatment information from 2005 to 2011, UM said in a press release late Friday afternoon. No financial information or Social Security numbers were on the drive, the university said.

Report: Electronic health records still need work

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:50:00 GMT

America may be a technology-driven nation, but the health care system's conversion from paper to computerized records needs lots of work to get the bugs out, according to experts who spent months studying the issue. Hospitals and doctors' offices increasingly are going digital, the Bipartisan Policy Center says in a report released Friday. But there's been little progress getting the computer systems to talk to one another, exchanging data the way financial companies do. "The level of health information exchange in the U.S. is extremely low," the report says.

Johns Hopkins unveils new hospital

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:13:00 GMT

At the new $1.1 billion Johns Hopkins Hospital there will be Xboxes and a basketball court for kids, sleeper-sofas for families, single rooms for all patients, an improved dining menu and extensive soundproofing. Health care is a dominant industry in Maryland, responsible for about 11 percent of all jobs in the state, and it is growing, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Hopkins joins Mercy Medical Center, the University of Maryland Medical Center and other area hospitals in replacing buildings and adding the most modern equipment and amenities to lure patients, keep doctors and expand business.

GE to fold Web-based EHR

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:06:00 GMT

GE Healthcare is discontinuing a Web-based ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) product it purchased less than two years ago. This week the company informed customers of the GE Centricity Advance EHR that it will no longer support the product after June 30. GE Healthcare instead will offer upgrades to its flagship GE Centricity Practice Solution, a combined EHR and practice management system, for approximately the same price as Centricity Advance.

Robot cleaner a 'game changer' for hospital infection epidemic

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:03:00 GMT

At any given time, 1 in 20 hospital patients is battling an infection that they got on site, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Hospitals now pay greater attention to hand hygiene—Purell dispensers have become ubiquitous—but their main infection control methods haven't changed much for decades. Most rooms are still disinfected by housekeepers armed with chemical cleaners. Enter the Xenex, a mobile, robotic device that combats germs with blasts of light.

Highmark to spend $500M on care network

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:49:00 GMT

Health insurance giant Highmark Inc. will spend up to $500 million to develop a new network of doctors, community hospitals and outpatient locations in Western Pennsylvania in addition to the $475 million it has promised to prop up West Penn Allegheny Health System, the Tribune-Review has learned. The network will include medical malls, ambulatory care centers, a health information exchange, partnerships with community hospitals and primary and specialty care centers, officials with the insurer said.

US health breach tally hits 19M

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:33:00 GMT

With the tardy addition of the Sutter Health breach, the U.S. tally of major healthcare information breaches now includes 385 incidents affecting more than 19 million individuals since September 2009. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights recently added the Sutter Health breach, which occurred in October, to its official tally of breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. It adds incidents once it confirms the details.

Cost still blocks HIE adoption, health execs say

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:15:00 GMT

While healthcare executive applaud the benefits that health information exchanges (HIEs) can provide—such as improving the quality of clinical reporting and the coordination of care among physicians—the high costs of participating in an HIE is still an impediment, according to a study from healthcare management consulting firm Beacon Partners.

Dealing with Data Breaches

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Data loss prevention technology can help track access to records, but a hard line on violations is needed to create a culture of compliance.

AG sues healthcare service firm for alleged patient privacy violations

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:14:00 GMT

Personal health data on thousands of Minnesota patients was shared with a debt collection company that shouldn't have access to such information, Attorney General Lori Swanson said Thursday. Swanson filed a lawsuit against the company, Chicago-based Accretive Health, alleging that it failed to protect patient healthcare records and failed to disclose to patients how their records are used. The lawsuit stems from the theft last year in Minneapolis of a laptop belonging to an Accretive Health employee. The laptop contained unencrypted health data of about 23,500 Fairview Health Services and North Memorial Health Care patients.

'Medical arms race' spurs massive health development on NYC's East Side

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:17:00 GMT

At a time when the city's public hospitals are struggling and Brooklyn hospitals are facing possible closures, top-tier East Side institutions—including the Hospital for Special Surgery, NYU Langone Medical Center, Lenox Hill Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical College and Mount Sinai Medical Center—could dramatically reshape the city's landscape over the next five years as they expand their footprints, modernize and adapt to upcoming health care reforms.

American docs question health IT's benefits

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:07:00 GMT

U.S. physicians are less likely than doctors in other countries to think that healthcare IT can improve diagnostic decisions, according to a survey of 3,700 doctors in eight countries. Additionally, only 47% of U.S. doctors report that healthcare technology has helped improve the quality of treatment decisions, compared to 61% of the other physicians interviewed. Only 45% think that technology leads to improved health outcomes for patients, against a survey average of 59%.