ohio health

Case study: NH Blue plan offers mobile EMR access

Mon, 12 May 2008 06:59:54 -0400

New Hampshire's Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire plans to begin offering physicians access to patients' electronic health records via mobile phones. The new capabilities also allow doctors to e-prescribe using the phones, as well as through any appropriate Internet connection. Available data includes both clinical data and medical histories.

The announcement comes as part of Anthem's e-prescribing program, rather than an EMR rollout. New Hampshire actually has been a hotbed of e-prescribing activity, driven in part by an Anthem initiative. Late last year, the plan partnered with the NJ Citizens Health Initiative to kick off a statewide e-prescribing program for all of the state's doctors.

To learn more about the program:
- read this Healthcare IT News piece

Related Articles:
Trend: EMR-on-cellphone interest grows
NH governor backs e-prescribing
Study: E-prescribing cuts med errors 66 percent
Ohio health system rolls out e-prescribing

ALSO NOTED: WEDI releases IT compliance deadlines; MA hospital builds high-tech OR; and much more...

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:59:50 -0500

> A North Carolina healthcare group and WEDI have released a list of timelines by which they think key technical milestones (such as technical support for HIPAA transactions) will be met. Article

> A suburban Boston hospital has sunk $2 million into three high-tech operating rooms complete with Web broadcasting capabilities, mobile monitors and a fiber-optic connection. Article

> Here's the tale of how an Ohio health system's affiliated medical practices improved cash management with revenue cycle management software. Article

> The San Francisco Medical Center has rolled out a real-time asset tracking system. It will be used to tag and track 700 assets throughout the center. Article

And Finally... These high-tech helmets may help coaches decide a tackle crossed the line. Article

Ohio works to foster HIE development

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 06:59:57 -0400

It looks like Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D) hopes to play catch up. When it comes to health IT, Ohio is lagging a bit behind other states, some of which are vigorously promoting health IT initiatives like e-prescribing and health information exchanges. Now, Gov. Strickland has issued an order creating an advisory board to coordinate public and private efforts aimed at building its own statewide HIE.

The new Ohio Health Information Partnership Advisory Board is chaired by the state's CIO. It's tasked with developing a plan for pulling together the HIE. It should help to pull together some relatively advanced efforts, such as the Cincinnati HealthBridge RHIO, but will extend their efforts. The group has just over 12 months to develop the plans.

To learn more about the state's plans:
- read this Government HealthIT piece

Related Articles:
Ohio health system rolls out e-prescribing. Report
Kentucky moves ahead with HIE plans. Report
Minnesota backs statewide HIE. Report

Study: E-prescribing cuts med errors 66%

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:01:34 -0400

Medication errors could be dramatically cut by using e-prescribing systems, Health Services Research says in a newly published report.

Authors analyzed 12 other studies published between 1990 and 2005 which compared the number of errors occurring with hand-written prescriptions vs. computerized prescriptions. It found hospitals with the highest rates of medication errors (12 percent or more) showed the most improvement. On the other hand, it's sobering to note that while e-prescribing lowered med errors overall, it had no impact on the problem of physicians prescribing the wrong drug. The report underscores that e-prescribing can do a great deal to address the problem of illegible handwriting on scripts, which causes as many as 61 percent of medication errors.

To find out more about the study:
- read this HealthDay article
- read this iHealthBeat article

Related Articles:
E-prescribing apps still dogged by problems. Article
Ohio health system rolls out e-prescribing. Report
NH governor backs e-prescribing. Report
Here's proof: E-prescribing saves bucks, lives. Report

E-prescribing apps still dogged by problems

Mon, 28 May 2007 20:01:36 -0400

Despite a great deal of happy talk by regulators, legislators and vendors, doctors are still not that enthusiastic about e-prescribing. According to one study by the Center for Studying Health System Change, most doctors who switch to e-prescribing wouldn't go back to paper prescribing. But getting there is difficult, observers say. Rolling out e-prescribing technology is still costly and difficult. To date, few if any e-prescribing applications have proven simple to install, researchers say. Not only that, e-prescribing apps may be hard to master, particularly given that EMR standards from the CCHIT don't take usability into account. Yet another problem is that health plans aren't doing a good job of providing complete, updated formulary information for use by e-prescribing systems.

To get more background on e-prescribing adoption:
- read this Modern Physician article

Related Articles:
Ohio health system rolls out e-prescribing. Report
NH governor backs e-prescribing. Report
Here's proof: E-prescribing saves bucks, lives. Report