Topic One: What are the unique #HealthIT opportunities to improve cancer patients’ experience during treatment?
T1 Organizing treatment schedules/keeping up with appointments, staying connected with resources & support systems #HITsm
— Henrike (@HenrikeFH) May 24, 2013
T1: Communicating what to expect at each stage of treatment is v. important. #HealthIT makes it easier to do so #hitsm — Anshu Jindal (@AnshuBJindal) May 24, 2013
T1 Access to support networks and sustainability of before/during/after #cancer treatment #HITsm — Dr. Gia Sison (@giasison) May 24, 2013
A1: HIT offers opportunity to help foster sense of community amongst patients/caregivers via social communities #HITsm
— Jennifer Dennard (@SmyrnaGirl) May 24, 2013
Topic 2: How can technology improve the lives of post-treatment #cancer survivors?
T3: my concierge physician offers “patient-directed medical home” — very high touch, high involvement. #HITsm
— Lynne Durham (@RH_LynneDurham) May 24, 2013
T2: With #HIT & Direct secure messaging, post-treatment patients can easily keep their doctor updated on how they’re doing. #HITsm — OrionHealthUS (@OrionHealthUS) May 24, 2013
T2 Follow up care using technology is vital-reminder of checkups,daily ADLs or just simply how are you’s can make a huge difference #HITsm — Dr. Gia Sison (@giasison) May 24, 2013
T2: #7Cs of #cancer #survivorship: Caring, Communication, Compassion, Connection, Collaboration, Creativity, Community. #gratefulmed #hitsm
— Dr. Steven Eisenberg (@drseisenberg) May 24, 2013
Topic …Read more
It’s a well-known and worrisome trend that patients are receiving potentially harmful doses of radiation from tests such as CT scans. Generally speaking, though, neither patients nor clinicians know exactly how much radiation exposure an individual has received.
At Intermountain Healthcare, however, they’re hoping to change this state of affairs. The Salt Lake City-based health system of 22 hospitals and 185 clinics is launching what the Wall Street Journal says is the first major effort to measure and report patients’ cumulative radiation exposure.
Intermountain’s effort is focused on the tests that produce the highest amount of radiation, including CT scans, nuclear medicine scans and interventional radiology exams of the heart, the WSJ reports. As part of an effort to educate clinicians and patients about medical radiation, both will be able to access data on patient exposure levels through Intermountain’s EMR.
The idea behind listing a patient’s radiation exposure is to encourage both clinician and patient to consider the risks and benefits of a particular test and at times, avoid the test if the needed information can be obtained with a radiation-free test, the WSJ piece says.
In a typical year, Intermountain’s patients receive 220,000 CT scans and radiology procedures, so data that helps patient and doctor consider alternatives could conceivably have a meaningful effect, clinicians there say.
Intermountain is not the only hospital system to …Read more
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. English is the international language of medicine, according to many. Regardless of whether that is true, what is becoming increasingly clear is that English is the second language of medical documentation. For those of you who blame EHRs for this, the replacement of
Read more →One of the things I hear people talk about all the time is how much time they spend charting in their EMR. There’s little question that doctors, nurses, and front desk staff’s lives revolve around an EMR when one is implemented in an office. However, the same was true with the paper chart.
How many times have we hear doctors say, “I’ve got a stack of paper charts I have to finish.”? Or the phrase, “I’m drowning in charting.” It happened all the time even in the paper chart world. Why else would a doctor take a stack of paper charts home with them in their car. It wasn’t for some light reading at night. It was so they could catch up on their paper charting (yes, some took them home for their hospital rounds too).
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that we should give inefficient and poorly designed EMR software a pass. Absolutely not! I am saying that far too many people forget how inefficient paper could be and how the charting and documentation requirements took a lot of time before EMR as well.
In my EHR benefits series, I wrote about the efficiency benefits of Legible Notes and Accessible Charts. I’ve heard many doctors …Read more
As a physician, I experience first-hand the impact that internal communication at a hospital—both good and bad—has on patient care. If I am able to quickly access clinical systems, analyze patient information and collaborate with colleagues, I can diagnose and interact with the patient much more efficiently and effectively. Conversely, breakdowns and inefficiencies in the
Read more →Also in the news, the Pentagon is in search of a new system for veterans’ health care while San Francisco is “leading the way” in new health data applications.
USA Today: Incentives Push Doctors To Electronic Medical Records
More than half of doctors’…
I’m often surprised by people’s reaction when I say that I’m a blogger. Most then believe that it must be a part time thing that I do for fun at nights. While it started that way, blogging is my full time job. If it weren’t for a large number of companies who’ve supported my work over the years, I’d probably have one blog that I’d post to a couple times a month. I can’t say how much these companies support means to me.
As my blogs have grown and the industry has changed (when I started people didn’t even know what a blog was), I’ve been working to evolve with the industry. While display advertising still does quite well for me and my advertisers, there are a number of shifts happening in healthcare marketing. That’s why I launched Influential Networks, an EHR Job board, EMR and EHR whitepapers, email blasts, and a number of other projects I’m still working to officially launch like my EHR and Health IT video series.
There’s a lot happening when it comes to healthcare marketing, and next week as part of my EHR and Health IT interview series, I’m going to be doing an interview with Don Seamons from Lumeno Marketing and Shahid Shah from Influential Networks. More …Read more
The Wall Street Journal: Electronic Health Data Gaining Favor
More than half of U.S. doctors have switched to electronic health records and are using them to manage patients’ basic medical information and prescriptions, according to federal data set to…
Idaho State University (ISU) has agreed to pay $400,000 to the U.S. Department of Health Human Services (HHS) for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule. This settlement involves the breach of unsecured electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 17,500
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Some might say that fixing healthcare in America is like changing the tires on a car that’s plowing ahead at full speed on the highway. If that’s the case, then we may have just loosened up a lug nut or two-and that’s a good thing. Lawyer turned author, Steven Brill, recently wrote a special health report for Time Magazine, Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us. This insightful piece highlighted the impact of high hospital prices in the healthcare… read more >
