Tag: John Halamka

Unconscious in the Emergency Department

Sep 29, 2010• 9

By JOHN HALAMKA, MD

As State Health Information Exchanges and Federal efforts (NHIN Connect/NHIN Direct) implement the data sharing technology that will enable all providers in the country to achieve Meaningful Use Stage 1, I’m often asked “but when will this healthcare information exchange technology be able to retrieve all my records from everywhere when I’m lying unconscious in the Emergency Department and cannot give a history?”

Here are my thoughts about the trajectory we’re on and how it will lead us to supporting the “Unconscious in the ED” use case.

Meaningful Use Stage 1 is about capturing data electronically in EHRs. Getting healthcare data in electronic form is foundational to any data exchanges. By 2011 we should have medication lists, problem lists, allergies, and summaries available from EHRs.

The data exchanges in Stage 1 are simple pushes of data from point A to point B – from provider to public health, from provider to provider, and from provider to pharmacy. There is no master patient index, no record locator service, and no centralized database containing everyone’s lifetime health record.

A Meaningful Use and Standards Rule FAQ Part II

Aug 30, 2010• 2

By JOHN HALAMKA

As a followup to the HIMSS Webinar I gave last week, here’s an FAQ in the spirit of last month’s Meaningful Use and Standards Rule FAQ.

1. The Emergency Department is mentioned in 9 Core Measures and 3 Menu Measures, yet industry discussions seem to focus on the ED for CPOE and Discharge instructions. What functions do ED Information Systems need to support? Are these functions for just admitted patients or all ED Patients?

In my conversations with CMS, I believe that CMS will be issuing a corrections notice to clarify the role of the ED in the rule.Continue reading…

In ONC I Trust …

Mar 16, 2010• 13

By JOHN HALAMKA

It’s my nature to question authority.

Whether it’s religion, politics, or even my local administrative leadership, authority figures must earn my trust.

Earning that trust is not easy. As folks who work closest with me know, I believe that much of Dilbert is based on true case studies.

Over the past year, I’ve worked very closely with many people at ONC – David Blumenthal, John Glaser, Judy Sparrow, Farzad Mostashari, Chuck Friedman, Carol Bean, Doug Fridsma, Chris Brancato, Jonathan Ishee, Arien Malec (on loan to ONC for 8 months), and Jodi Daniel. I’ve worked with HHS CTO Todd Park. I’ve worked with US CTO Aneesh Chopra.Continue reading…

Dispatch from HIMSS

Mar 4, 2010• 6

By JOHN HALAMKA

I’ve just finished my day in Atlanta and am beginning a commute to Tokyo.

Every year, I describe my top 10 impressions from HIMSS. Here’s my summary of the event for 2010

I’ve just finished my day in Atlanta and am beginning a commute to Tokyo.

Every year, I describe my top 10 impressions from HIMSS. Here’s my summary of the event for 2010Continue reading…

Cool Technology of the Week

Dec 19, 2009• 8

By JOHN HALAMKA

John Halamka is the CIO at Beth Israel Deconess Medical Center and the author of the popular “Life as a Healthcare CIO” blog, where he writes about technology, the business of healthcare and the issues he faces as the leader of the IT department of a major hospital system. He is a frequent contributor to THCB.

I recently wrote a Computerworld Column about Email Overload.

I’m a data oriented guy and was curious to learn detailed statistics about my own Blackberry use. I found a great Blackberry application called “I Love Blackberry” from EarlySail.Continue reading…

Cool Technology of the Week

Oct 12, 2009• 3

By JOHN HALAMKA

In many crime solving police procedural programs (NCIS, CSI, Criminal Minds etc), the perpetrator has used an untraceable, disposable cell phone.

But what is a disposable cell phone and where do you buy one? I’ve never seen one in my travels.

The answer – Walmart

The vendor – TracFoneContinue reading…

Cool Technology of the Week

Aug 24, 2009• 7

By JOHN HALAMKA

Before my trip to Japan, I attended the New England Healthcare Institute Medication Adherence Expert Roundtable on Thursday July 23rd, 2009. The purpose of the roundtable was to prioritize activities that would encourage patients to be more compliant with the medications, especially those with chronic diseases such as diabetes, congestive heart failure and COPD. Recommendations from the group included better patient education, enhanced use of IT such as medication reconciliation, and healthcare reform which ensures clinicians have the time and incentives to coordinate and manage all medications for their patients.

One technology that we discussed was an intelligent pill bottle for the home from rxvitality.com and it’s my cool technology of the week. Using technology similar to the Ambient Orb, the intelligent pill bottle flashes to indicate when it’s time to take the medication inside the bottle. When the bottle is opened it sends telemetry back to a portal which can be used to track patient medication adherence.

The device includes a small wireless access point for the home, making the device plug and play. No cell phone plan, configuration or special software is needed – just an internet connection.

A pill bottle that notifies the patient when medications are to be taken and informs the clinician when medications are actually taken.

That’s cool!

John D. Halamka, MD, MS, is CIO of the CareGroup Health System, CIO and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School, Chairman of the New England Health Electronic Data Interchange Network (NEHEN), CEO of MA-SHARE, Chair of the US Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), and a practicing emergency physician. He blogs regularly at Life as a Healthcare CEO, where this post first appeared.

Implementing a Modern Hospital Website

Jun 30, 2009• 12

By JOHN HALAMKA

Over the past two years, I’ve witnessed a transition in modern website design from plain text and static information to multimedia centric and interactive. I’ve written about the new BIDMC website we implemented to meet patient expectations for a modern website.

Many healthcare organizations I work with are considering content managed, new media, highly interactive web 2.0 sites. I thought it would be useful to describe how we approached the BIDMC website so you can leverage our experience.

Content Management – BIDMC has a great
deal of .NET expertise, so we wanted a content management system that worked well in our .NET/SQL Server 2008 environment. SiteCore has been ideal for us, providing content templates, distributed content management, and publishing workflow in a load balanced, secure, virtualized environment. At HMS we use Drupal and WordPress for content management. They also work well for hosting institutional web sites.

Interactive features – The Corporate Communications folks at BIDMC really wanted to highly improves interactivity. We built and bought the components they needed as follows:

Blogs – Uses a SiteCore provided blogging module
Chat – a commercial application called Cute Chat from CuteSoft.
BIDMC TV (news and information videos produced by BIDMC)- Hosted by BrightCove.
Medical Edge (videos about innovation produced by BIDMC)- Hosted by BrightCove.
Podcast Gallery – Hosted on BIDMC servers.
Health Quizzes – created using a commercial application called SelectSurvey.NET from ClassApps.
Social Networking – entirely hosted by outside service providers (Facebook/Twitter/You Tube).
Secure patient web pages for communication with their families – a commercial application provided by CarePages.
Conditions A-Z – a web-based encyclopedia branded for BIDMC using commercial reference provided by Ebsco.
Search Engine – We’re using a Google Appliance

Thus, the combination of SiteCore plus purchased interactive applications and externally hosted streaming video has worked very well to provide our patients with an information rich, interactive experience.

I hope this is useful to you as you implement your own hospital websites.

Getting smarter and greener with electronic medical resources

Oct 16, 2008

By John Halamka Halamka

I’ve described the iPod Touch as the next great technology for medical education, but the Kindle is also a device with great potential.

We’ve recently implemented Kindle support for all our 20,000 educational resources at HMS.

Our integration on the Mycourses educational website enables any Word or PDF document to be delivered to the Kindle wirelessly. There is a cost which is clearly explained to the user (10 cents per document to Amazon). Those that don’t want to pay the 10 cents can download documents to their PC and transfer the documents via USB cable.Continue reading…