Technology News

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Ensuring Safe Transitions from Hospital to Home

SAN FRANCISCO—The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), in conjunction with the Partnership for Patients—an initiative of the Department of Health & Human Services— and with the support of Health 2.0, announced the winners of the “Ensuring Safe Transitions from Hospital to Home” innovation challenge. Three teams were named winners: Axial Exchange, iBlueButton, and VoIDSPAN.

The public challenge, which launched in September 2011 under the ONC Investing in Innovation (i2) program, called for innovative approaches to improving patient safety and facilitating care transitions for patients being discharged from hospitals to their next care setting, including their home, nursing home, or hospice. Statistically, nearly one in five patients discharged from a hospital will be readmitted within 30 days, a large proportion of which could be prevented by improving communications and coordination of care before and after that transition.

Research has shown that empowering patients and caregivers with information and tools to manage the next steps in their care more confidently is an effective way to reduce errors and complications and, in turn, prevent readmissions. In addition to incorporating other data sources and available services, solutions were expected to make use of the discharge checklist made available by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (which can be found at www.Medicare.gov). Axial Exchange, iBlueButton, and VoIDSPAN were rated the top three submitted solutions by a technical review panel of subject matter experts.

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Hospitals to buy new PACS

CHICAGO—Although picture archiving and communication system (PACS) replacements have slowed overall, a KLAS report, PACS 2011: A Victim of Its Own Success, indicates that a new wave of replacements is approaching. Nearly one in six hospitals and health systems with more than 1,000 beds reported that they have plans to replace their PACS.

Providers report that their vendors, for the most part, are performing very well in the PACS market; most have either been maintaining or improving on customer satisfaction since last year. DR Systems, Philips, Carestream, McKesson, and Fuji customers are the most excited about their current solution—and are more likely to recommend their PACS to another facility than users of other systems., notes the report  In large hospitals, Cerner, Sectra, GE PACS-IW, Siemens, and Agfa customers report that they are more likely to say they have plans to move on.

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Technology firms to work together

mentor, ohio – STERIS Corporation, a surgical support and integration technologies company, and Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc., provider of medical imaging technology, have formed an alliance to offer advanced vascular, cardiovascular, pediatric, and neurosurgical hybrid surgical suites to healthcare systems.  These suites will blend the contributions of both medical device leaders. Toshiba will provide tableside digital information and imaging technologies, and STERIS will deliver custom-designed high-definition integrated surgical suites featuring LED surgical lighting and visualization systems, and Harmony iQ™ advanced integration and OR equipment management solutions. The suites will enable surgical and diagnostic teams to carry out a vast range of image-guided cardiovascular, vascular, and neurosurgical interventional procedures as well as open surgeries.

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Cloud confidence is foggy

OREM, Utah – Providers are beginning to consider cloud computing in healthcare, but their trust in public cloud options (such as Amazon and Google) is weak, according to KLAS perception report Path to Cloud Computing Foggy: Perception Study 2011.  In addition to patient data security, two major provider concerns KLAS identified were data privacy and data control. A growing number of providers are gravitating toward private clouds, where they could use designated servers and ensure control and security of their data.

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E-prescribing faces hurdles

WASHINGTON, D.C.—There are several barriers impeding the progress of electronic prescribing, according to a study funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Electronic prescribing, or e-prescribing, helps reduce the risk of medication errors caused by illegible or incomplete handwritten prescriptions. However, prescription renewals, connectivity between physician offices and mail-order pharmacies, and manual entry of certain prescription information by pharmacists—particularly drug name, dosage form, quantity, and patient instructions—continue to pose problems.

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Intelligence dashboard addresses HAIs

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Thomson Reuters, a global provider of information for healthcare professionals, has  announced the launch of Infection Xpert - a clinical intelligence dashboard that helps Infection Preventionists (IPs) manage and reduce hospital acquired infections (HAIs), capture and submit mandated infection reporting metrics, and analyze hospital infection data to improve patient safety. Infection Xpert combines three critical elements in a single dashboard - real-time clinical surveillance, comprehensive patient data, and integrated, patient-specific Micromedex reference content - to give IPs the data they need to manage infectious diseases. 

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Physician groups are interested in EHRs

BURLINGTON, Vt.—Fully 63% of physician groups indicated they would replace their current patient management system for an integrated patient management/electronic health record system, notes CapSite™. The2011 U.S. Ambulatory Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Practice Management (PM) Study found that this percentage has increased steadily over the past three years from 46%. Researchers also found that 38% of physician groups indicated that they plan to upgrade or replace their current PM in order to make their practices more efficient.

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Technology facilitates patient communication

SIOUX FALLS, S.D.—LodgeNet Healthcare announced the expansion of its interactive patient engagement solution that encourages patients to become educated, active members of their care teams. eSUITE™ now allows hospitals to interact with patients throughout the entire continuum of care - and across multiple technology platforms - using evidence-based engagement principles proven to improve clinical outcomes.

eSUITE facilitates two-way communications with patients, making it significantly more effective than passive solutions. Its compatibility with a variety of communication devices helps providers reach even the most vulnerable audiences who don't use (or have access to) computers. eSUITE can report when individuals view content, measure patient comprehension and alert staff when additional intervention is necessary. All of this information can be dynamically documented in the electronic medical record (EMR). eSUITE interacts with patients at three key stages in their care process:

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Software aids documentation

MOUNT LAUREL, N.J.—MedQuist Inc., provider of integrated clinical documentation solutions for the healthcare industry, announces it will be highlighting the next generation of clinical documentation technology. New advances in speech recognition solutions that leverage technology from M*Modal will be featured, including the introduction of SpeechQ Direct® and DocQment myWAY® along with CodeRunner™ CAC software and Computer-Assisted Abstracting. SpeechQ Direct® voice powers Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, enabling providers to seamlessly dictate narrative patient information directly into the EHR as well as establish voice "command and control" to simply and easily navigate through screens of the EHR.  Providers using this solution can speed documentation time, improve documentation accuracy, and avoid the trap of template-based point-and-click systems.

For more information, see www.medquist.com

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Software simplifies supply chain optimization

FAIRFIELD, Conn.—Management Health Solutions, an independent provider of supply chain optimization solutions for hospitals and healthcare systems nationwide, announced the launch of its latest application, Point-of-Use Bill-Only item software. This product is the newest addition to MHS' suite of software modules, an end-to-end suite that provide hospitals with automation and optimization tools necessary to meet their clinical supply chain needs.

Bill-Only is a software application designed as an add-on to its Point-of-Use clinical module, which seamlessly integrates with any Material Management Information System. Created to help hospitals manage the very complex, high-value area of bill-only items, vendor-managed inventory and samples, the Bill-Only feature automates manual processes and creates more visibility. Items such as orthopedic implants, spinal instrumentation and specialty cardiology are difficult to manage in a hospital's master item file because the catalog for each manufacturer can be extensive, which is why hospitals typically use a manual process when documenting utilization and creating purchase orders. However, with any manual process, errors are more likely to occur and it is difficult to track product use.

For more information, see www.mhsinc.com

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