EMRAnswers #HITSM

Help advance Regina Holliday's the Walking Gallery and the ePatient movement at Health DataPalooza 2013. (BECOMING SOMEBODY: @ReginaHolliday DOESN’T GIVE UP...

Mobile’s “anywhere, anytime” capabilities are quickly becoming the preferred way for people to connect with health content, their personal biometric data, health guidance, and even their clinician.

Six GOP Senators called for review of the Meaningful Use EHR incentive program claiming not enough emphasis on interoperability. Keith Boone calls B.S.

Via Chad Johnson

In my last post, I talked about the concept of slacktivism in the era of social media. Slacktivism is sort of a pseudo-activism , where participants takes part

Via Chad Johnson

Hands-only CPR (CPR without mouth-to-mouth resuscitation), may not be the best method for rural or remote areas or for anyone who has to wait more than a few minutes for an ambulance, a new study suggests.

.@athenahealth @ONC_HealthIT I hope you can join our walk http://t.co/BxBkxIHj3M #theWalkingGallery #HealthdataPalooza

It was time for the FDA to step up and represent the very loud voice of e-patients as well. The FDA Patient Network was just launched to educate patients and advocates about FDA; recruit patients a...

With the quick advancement of remote access technologies showing no end in sight, it's time for healthcare organizations to get on board the mobile technology train or risk getting run over, iHealthBeat reported.

Startup companies are coming up with new technologies aimed at getting people to take medicine only as directed.

 

Taking medication haphazardly—skipping doses, lapsing between refills or taking pills beyond their expiration date—has been linked to health complications and hundreds of millions of wasted dollars for insurers and hospitals.

 "After six months' time, only half of people taking prescription medicines are taking them as directed," said Troyen Brennan, chief medical officer of drug retailer CVS Caremark Corp. 

Health insurers and pharmacy-benefits managers like CVS have long relied on robo-calls, mailers and face-to-face meetings with pharmacists to keep patients on their dosing schedule.

 

Now they are evaluating a range of more cost-effective technologies, from pills and bottles with digital sensors, to data analytics software and social games that offer patients rewards.

 

Insurers and pharmacies are motivated in part by Medicare, which offers financial rewards for proving their members have improved their overall adherence to medication schedules.

 

They also stand to benefit if their members are healthier. The New England Healthcare Institute estimates that some $290 billion in costs is wasted each year on unnecessary hospital and doctor visits by people who failed to comply with their medication schedule.

 

CVS is pilot-testing technology from Virginia-based RxAnte Inc., which sells an analytics platform that looks at millions of patients' claims data and clinical data to identify people at highest risk of failing to comply with doctors' orders.

 

These patients include people with a spotty track record of adherence, those who take several different medicines or those facing unwanted side effects, Chief Executive Josh Benner said.

 

"It's all a targeting game," Mr. Benner said. "We predict individual behaviors, and suggest interventions."

 

Via nrip

There are plenty of conventions, conferences, symposiums, forums, and expos coming up this spring in the Health IT space. Here are some speaker highlights.

In 2012, more than 3 million people had stents inserted in their coronary arteries. These tiny mesh tubes prop open blood vessels healing from procedures like a balloon angioplasty, which widens arteries blocked by clots or plaque deposits.

1. The integration must take into account each user’s day-to-day life and workflow, including patients, providers, IT staff, and additional caregivers. Some users will need access to a greater depth of information, while for others design and usability will be paramount.

 

2. The design should be interoperable and support the integration of multiple MITs into a single EHR. In particular, developers should make sure to eliminate redundancies between the systems, where app users and EHR users might enter the same data into different fields.

 

3. Multiple environments have to be secure, but their security can’t keep them from interacting with each other. Stakeholders WellDoc interviewed reported problems with competing firewalls in implementing the integration.

 

4. Both halves of the integration, but especially the patient-facing app, should work natively on as many mobile devices as possible. Patients are most likely to use a system that allows them to continue using their device.

 

5. The mobile health offering is subject to a limitation already standard for EHR apps: it must be able to run even when network connectivity is sparse or intermittent, as is sometimes the case in large hospital complexes.

 

6. It’s crucial to have a support team in place familiar with the technology  to help acquaint users with it.

 

7. Make sure the two systems adhere to common standards. Not only data interchange standards like HL7, but also making sure that measurements in both systems use the same units. If lab-collected blood glucose data in the EHR and patient-collected blood glucose data have the same unit, but one is potentially more accurate, the integrated system should easily identify and distinguish the two.

 

8. The team working on an integration should be ready for a more complex process than anticipated. A clear vision, good communication, and a steering committee are important for anyone attempting to integrate a mobile heath offering and an EHR.

Via nrip

CNN's Leading Women wins social media award
CNN International
(CNN) -- Leading Women has won the silver award in the Social Media category at the inaugural WAN-IFRA European Digital Media Awards last Monday night.

ElationEMR Founders Kyna And Conan Fong In the heart of San Francisco’s design district, siblings Kyna and Conan Fong are polishing the contours of a digital patient record.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The HIV Outpatient Study (HOPS), supported by Cerner's Infectious Disease Insights group, HIV clinic researchers, and the dedicated project team from the Centers for Disease Control ...

ONC has released a white paper giving details on Meaningful Use Core Measure 3: Maintain Problem List and a brief on health IT in long-term/post-acute care, (ONC Issues New Whitepaper on Meaningful Use Core Measure 3