Patients can now make an appointment online for eight University Hospitals emergency rooms and wait their turn in the comfort of their home. The service started a few weeks ago and is for people with non-life-threatening conditions, said Richard Hanson, president of UH community hospitals and ambulatory network. Those with life-threatening emergencies should call 911 or immediately head to a hospital. Patients waiting at home will get email and automated phone status updates from the InQuicker online system in case of delays, Hanson said, and generally the wait should be only about 15 minutes once they arrive at the emergency room.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has dropped pursuit of a regulation for establishing "rules of the road" for the nationwide health information network (NwHIN) based on feedback it has received. Commenters from industry and the public made it clear that federal regulation could slow development of health information exchange just as those activities are starting to emerge and pick up steam, "perhaps more than is widely appreciated," according to Dr. Farzad Mostashari, national coordinator for health IT.
At Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, since mid-July, Dr. George Branovacki, an orthopedic surgeon, has performed more than a dozen knee-replacement operations with the iPod, which he said gives much more precise measurements in making incisions and placing the replacement knee. The result, he said, is less pain and swelling for patients, better range of motion and a longer life for the artificial knee. What he's using at Christ Medical Center is called Dash navigational software. The federal Food and Drug Administration approved the iPod-based technology in 2011, and Christ is the only U.S. hospital using the system, according to the company.
Two University of Miami Hospital employees may have stolen and sold information from thousands of patients who visited the facility over a 22-month period, the medical school announced late Friday afternoon. A press release stated UM learned of the breach from Miami-Dade police on July 18. "The two employees were terminated immediately," the release stated, "and the university has taken steps to help patients who could be affected safeguard their personal information." A UM website said the employees "admitted improper conduct" and that the investigation is continuing.
Given that between 33% and 96% of medical alerts are ignored, there's little doubt that providers need help in this regard. A good place to start is with a core set of critically important drug/drug interactions (DDIs) that everyone in your healthcare system needs to watch. With that in mind, researcher Shobba Phansalkar, from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, along with colleagues from Harvard, Rand Corp., and UCLA, did an exhaustive review of medication databases to compile a must-have list of severe DDIs. They came up with 15 essential interactions that all your clinicians should probably have access to in a clinical decision support system (CDSS).
The Veterans Affairs and Defense departments are ready to expand 16 pilot programs and offer veterans' health information exchanges nationwide. The new exchanges will build on the success of the pilots, where VA and DoD physicians in Indianapolis, Richmond, Va., San Diego and other cities share veterans’ health data with each other and the private sector. The move is a major step toward fulfilling an administration initiative called the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER), which requires VA and DoD to provide service members and veterans with seamless health care and online access to their health and other personal data throughout their lifetimes.