The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology will put its 2009-2010 programs on hold and update its certification policies in light of guidance contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. CCHIT said it will defer the launch of its latest certification programs until it has reviewed the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's forthcoming standards and certification criteria. ONC will deliver a draft rule containing those items to the Health and Human Services Department by Aug. 26. CCHIT's certification cycle was set to begin July 1.
UnitedHealthcare is the first national health plan to partner with the California Regional Health Information Organization and agree to pay for electronic health information services statewide. As part of the initiative, the exchange will deliver secure patient information to hospital emergency departments for UnitedHealthcare and PacifiCare of California private-sector HMO members.
The Children's Hospitals developed a mobile pediatric simulation training unit—the first of its kind in the nation—after receiving a donation from Kohl's Department Stores in 2006. It cost about $750,000 to build and initially stock the training van, and additional funds to maintain it.
"I can't tell you there's a huge return on the actual investment other than training," says Phillip Kibort, MD, MBA, chief medical officer and vice president of medical affairs at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. However, good clinical training is priceless. "If CEOs have a basic understanding of quality and safety principles, they know simulation is important and the better your simulation the better, probably, your outcomes are going to be," he says.
The mobile simulation unit is housed in an RV that can train teams of up to eight people at a time. Teams may consist of physicians, nurses, respiratory care practitioners, paramedics, and pharmacists.
"That's really one of the benefits of simulation training, you can train in teams the way you really work," says Karen Mathias, RN, MSN, APRN, BC, director of Children's Simulation Center. "In the past, I think most healthcare professionals trained in silos, physicians would go to physician training, nurses would go to nurse training."
Last year, the mobile unit trained 240 practitioners at 30 hospitals in Minnesota and Wisconsin. "We charge our hospital clients $2,300 per day, plus mileage," says Mathias. Mobile training is a great option, especially for rural facilities that can't spare practitioners for days of off-site training. Additionally, the hospitals don't have to pay hotel fees and travel costs that come with off-site training.
Advances in hospital simulation training are similar to the life-like training methods used by the airline industry. In the past, medical staffs would simulate patient care training by talking through a situation.
"But without the physical manikin where you can change the heart rate, the breathing, the temperature, the color, it doesn't quite do as well as when you have the actual manikin," says Kibort. "I think as the technology gets better, there'll be better and better simulation."
Emily Berry is an associate editor for Briefings on Credentialing and Credentialing Resource Center Connection, and manages the Credentialing Resource Center. You can reach her at eberry@hcpro.com.
A health technology trade association has asked the Obama administration to require that any electronic health-record equipment receiving stimulus funding be certified by a group the association helped to start and run, documents show. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, which represents 350 technology vendors and 20,000 members, was a key force behind the decision to include $36.5 billion in the stimulus package to create a nationwide network for medical records.
An increasing number of doctors are using smartphones to look up drug-to-drug interactions, to view X-rays and MRI scans, and even to stream music from the Internet during surgery. Nationally, about 64% of doctors are now using smartphones, according to a recent report by the market research company Manhattan Research.
When President Obama won approval for his $787 billion stimulus package, large sections of the 407-page bill focused spending to create a nationwide network of electronic health records to launch the reform of America's costly healthcare system. But it also represented a triumph for an influential trade group whose members now stand to gain billions in taxpayer dollars. A review found that the trade group, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, had worked closely with technology vendors, researchers, and other allies in a sophisticated, decade-long campaign to shape public opinion and win over Washington, DC.