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Healthcare IT Checkup

May 21, 2009

Web-based Tool Equips Healthcare IT Professionals with a National Benchmark on Clinical Application and IT Infrastructure Investment

CDW Healthcare, part of the public sector subsidiary of CDW Corporation and a leading provider of technology products and services to healthcare organizations, today announced the release of the IT Checkup Self-Assessment Tool, a Web-based program which enables hospital IT managers to evaluate their clinical application and IT infrastructure investment and receive an instant score indicating how their healthcare organization compares to averages from across the U.S. The tool is based upon the results of the CDWHealthcare IT Checkup, a national survey of healthcare IT professionals, which CDW Healthcare reported in March.

Using the self-assessment tool, hospital IT managers, CIOs and senior leadership answer 19 questions about the sophistication and capacity of their clinical applications and IT infrastructure. The questions highlight indicators of relative strength or weakness in both areas and provide results that are meant to guide discussions between IT managers and senior leadership about the importance of pursuing a balanced approach to clinical IT implementations. No findings based upon individual usage of the Self-Assessment Tool will be made publicly available. The CDWHealthcare IT Checkup Self-Assessment Tool is online at http://www.healthitcheckup.com.

AMA Manual of Style is Now Online

May 21, 2009

Oxford University Press is proud to present the launch of the online version of AMA Manual of Style (launching June 2009), an essential tool for everyone involved in medical or scientific publishing. The online version is written and updated by a committee of editors from JAMA and the Archives Journals, making researching quick and convenient. And as many in the scientific and medical communities know, being able to find information quicker via browsing and searching a website instead of flipping through a manual saves a lot of time, however users are also offered numerous other online features, including:

Style policy changes highlighted and explained
Learning and training resources
An SI conversion calculator
Commentary from editors of JAMA and the Archives Journals
Open URL bibliographic references

http://www.amamanualofstyle.com/home

THCB is Sponsored by:

May 20, 2009

Directus – Create your own CME with the sources you trust

May 20, 2009• 1

Whether you spend a few minutes or an hour
researching online, Directus is the most straight forward way earn AMA/PRA Category 1 Credits™ for your efforts. Wherever your
research is focused – from drug protocols to patient symptoms to medical journals – Directus lets you quickly state
your objectives and expectations, measure your success and submit your time for CME credit.

https://www.directus.cme.edu/

5th Annual Games for Health Conference 2009 in Boston, June 11-12

May 20, 2009

The 5th Annual Games for Health Conference 2009 in Boston, Massachusetts on June 11-12 is closing in.

You can still register for $499.00 for the core conference and $599.00 for the conference+pre-conference events.

You can receive 15% off the normal registration rate by entering the discount code of bos09 during registration.

MAIN SCHEDULE NOW ONLINE

You can find the core schedule for the conference now online at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p9ekyWGoKP7oLryMizeugTw

Games Accessibility Day (June 10)

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p9ekyWGoKP7oJbqar0v4zAg

Pre-conference schedule for Virtual Worlds in Health Day is still forthcoming

TOUR GAMES FOR HEALTH
Dr. Ernie Medina takes you on a 2 minute tour of Games for Health 2008
http://www.gamesforhealth.org/video.html

TRAVEL & HOTEL
Games for Health 2009 is located at the Boston Hyatt Harborside hotel.
To reserve a room please contact:

Hyatt Harborside Hotel
617.568.1234

A Games for Health Conference rate may still be available while supplies last

The Games for Health 2009 conference will be hosted in partnership with
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio, which has
served as the leading sponsor of the Games for Health Project since
2004. The Pioneer Portfolio supports innovative ideas that may lead to
significant breakthroughs in the future of health and health care;
having recognized the transformative potential of games, its support
has helped Games for Health to become the leading professional
community in the growing health games arena.

The Cost of Health Reform – $1.5 Trillion or … ?

May 20, 2009• 3

By ROGER COLLIER

Putting the political cart firmly before the horse, the Senate Finance Committee heard testimony last week on how to pay for reform—before they had reliable estimates of how much it is likely to cost.

It’s not that there aren’t plenty of estimates to choose from. A recent Associated Press report offered ten-year forecasts ranging from “the president’s $634 billion…is likely to be the majority of the cost” (White House budget director Peter Orszag) to “$125 billion to $150 billion a year” (New America Foundation economist Len Nichols) to “$1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion would be a credible estimate” (Lewin Group consultant John Sheils). Take your pick.

What’s really the number that Senate Finance members must find a way to fund? Leaving aside mythical savings like the $2 trillion sort-of promised by health care industry bigwigs, and the almost as questionable cost reductions for delivery system tweaks offered at previous Senate Finance sessions, the question becomes: how much new spending will universal coverage add?

PHR Evolution

May 20, 2009• 5

By JOSH SEIDMAN

I participated in a personal health record (PHR) workshop yesterday hosted by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). CDT’s goal was to gain input from a wide array of stakeholders (an impressive collection of about 40 health care leaders with different types of expertise in PHRs) to help inform CDT’s recommendations to federal agencies — HHS and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — and try to build some degree of consensus among key stakeholders.

[NOTE: All comments at the meeting were not for attribution, but I confirmed with the organizers that there was no problem in sharing my own impressions following up from the meeting.]

There’s no doubt that current federal statutes and regulation (and there are potentially many that apply to PHRs) create considerable uncertainty regarding how to balance promotion of consumer engagement with concerns over privacy and security. Existing regulations from HIPAA, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and others coupled with the new provision from the American Recovery & Reinvesment Act (ARRA) — not to mention the complexity of layering state laws on top of that — provide a lot of work for privacy attorneys. But with all the different (potentially) applicable federal and state laws/regulation, there is very little practical guidance on what has to go into privacy policies. PHR implementers can find some guidance from FTC consent decrees, which can represent an expansion of the law.

Unlikely conversation partners

May 20, 2009

By Matthew Holt

Do you want to see me and Regina Herzlinger in conversation together? You can sort of do that here. The Center for Connected Health (the Partners guys) had a conversation which was supposed to be three people who’d been at their previous conference talking together. But for some mysterious reason at the last second Herzlinger couldn’t make it. (I sincerely hope that it wasn't because she saw that I’d be on the call!)

So it was Joe Kvedar (from Connected Health). Jay Sanders—who is great by the way—and moi. All talking about the future of remote care. It’s a fun conversation, with Herzlinger’s comments somehow cut in at various times.

By the way, on the topic of everyone’s favorite HBS Professor, last week WellCare settled with the Feds following the raid in October 2007. Apparently the Feds figured that the fraud on Florida Medicaid was about $40m, and that a fine of $80m would be as much as the company could afford (although as far as I can tell they have over $1 billion in cash!). This week on Monday, Wellcare settled with the SEC for another $10m. By the way, Wall Street regards these settlements as good news, and the stock actually has nearly doubled from the depths of last month

Our friends over at Health Care Renewal have put themselves on the Regi shit-list by noticing that she’s still on the board of directors, and they’ll presumably be expecting a letter from her lawyer too. But Roy missed out on noticing (or didn’t report) that Regi sold more than $2m worth of stock a few months before the raid. Not getting soft in your old age are you, Roy?

The Red Flags Rule

May 19, 2009• 7

By JOHN HALAMKA

You may have seen the recent headlines “FTC delays Red Flags Rule
implementation until August 2009”. What is the Red Flags Rule and how
does it relate to healthcare?

The FTC has a great website that it explains it all in detail.

Basically,
the FTC requires most clinical offices, hospitals, and other health
care providers to develop a written program to spot the warning signs
of identity theft – “red flags” If a patient’s name on a photo ID and on their insurance card do not match, that’s a red flag. If a patient visited last week as John Smith but today is Fred Jones, that’s a red flag. If patient seems to travel from provider to provider seeking numerous expensive treatments, that’s a red flag.

The
law was initially designed to cover creditors and it seems odd for
healthcare providers to be considered creditors. The FTC defines a
creditor as anyone who enables the customer to carry a balance after
services are rendered. Unless a clinician asks for payment upfront (all
balances not covered by insurance), the clinician is a creditor.

More on HITECH , Microsoft mea culpas, Google, et al

May 19, 2009• 2

By Matthew Holt

I draw your attention to a troika of articles, all of which show how things can be slightly misinterpreted.

First, who knew that Blackford Middleton was either the most influential health policy wonk out there, or single-handedly responsible for the Haliburtonization of health IT? If you read the WaPo article about it, it looks as though there was some kind of terrible conspiracy to impose an evil fraud in terms of unnecessary health IT spending on the taxpayer. And for example MedinfomaticsMD over at Health Care Renewal (who appears to have jumped from the position that some health IT installations have real problems to the less tenable one that all EMRs kill) is just one going loopy about it.

I've known Blackford for a while, and even though I don't necessarily agree with everything he espouses I think two things are clear. One, the studies his team did (and does) at CITL were done honestly and competently, and they in general reflect what most of us have observed–EMRs have the potential to improve care quality and save money, but that most of the money saved flows back to payers. This has been the experience both in integrated systems in the US, and in health systems in Europe. There are those of us who think that much of the $2.4 trillion is wasted and IT might be part of the solution to trim that waste.

So it was not a great stretch for the Obama team to make the logical leap that health IT is a good thing, and and that subsidies will have to be given to physicians to get them to adopt EMRs (or wider uses of clinical IT). Fer chrissakes even many on the right agree with them. This was not Halliburton sticking it to the US taxpayer in order to boost Dick Cheney's stock options. (Insert your favorite conspiracy theory about the reasons for the Iraq war here if you don't like that one)