Gleeman's Daily News-11/19

Gleeman's Daily News-11/19

CCHIT blogs about PHR privacy issues

As part of the development of criteria for personal health records (PHR), the CCHIT Work Group has spent a great deal of time discussing your privacy and how your PHR should handle it.

As one of the highest profit EMR companies of all time, CCHIT has taken up a promotional and education position in their blogging. Worth a read.

Short blog laments the high cost of EHR

Now if you want to know why more practices, particularly small practices, haven't gone this route here's why:

• Software licenses for 3 providers (2 part time):  23,985.00
• Interface with laboratory:  3,000.00
• Training & Implementation:  11,670.00
• Updates/Upgrades & Support:  5397.00
• Third Party Software:  850.00
• Clearinghouse for billing:  300.00
• Grand Total:  $45,227.00

This is a quick read, explains the financial quote received as being much too high, you might suggest software as a service, SAAS.

Group of announcements of HIT grants

Rural hospitals in South Dakota will receive $195,000 in grants to boost HIT initiatives. The funding originates with the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, a federal initiative that provides grants to state governments to strengthen rural health.

A brief roundup of health IT grants for this month.

What are the ten main questions to ask a CCHIT Certified EHR vendor?

With the launch of the CCHIT Certified 08 products, vendors were given the option to publish answers to some of these questions on their certified product pages. For more information, see CCHIT Certified 08 products for Ambulatory, Inpatient, and Emergency Department.

Nice list of 10 questions from the CCHIT website/blog, they are taking a bold hand in promotion and education.

Assisted reproductive services can cause birth defects

Infants conceived with Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) are two to four times more likely to have certain types of birth defects than children conceived naturally, according to a study by the CDC. The report, "Assisted Reproductive Technology and Major Structural Birth Defects, United States," was released in the journal Human Reproduction.

Always there is a price to pay for medical progress, this report is certainly bad news for the science.

Why the Dutch medical system is considered Europe's best

The Dutch system was closely followed by the Danish in second and the Austrian in third. Latvia came in at the bottom of the table of 31 countries in which the UK ranked at 13.

I'll try to look for more on the Dutch system, seems well thought-out, yet a very small country.

Illegal drugs for sale on the Internet tackled by UK regs

It is the first time that action has been taken on an international scale with participating countries including Canada, Germany, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.

I once bought some penicillin on the Internet, and the company would not stop calling me for a year, kept trying to sell me a refill.

Facial fillers: proper warning of the dangers demanded by FDA

"It is almost a no-brainer," said Dr. Michael Bigby, a Harvard Medical School dermatologist. "The current label is not adequate." The gel-like fillers, which have become hugely popular in the last few years, are injected into the face to smooth away wrinkles.

Baby boomer women are buying into this wrinkle dodge, not the safe thing it is thought to be, according to this FDA mandate.

Most common of childhood tumors studied at genetic level

Like other tumors, hemangiomas are caused by the abnormal proliferation of tissue. Since no other type of cell within the tissue displayed the same self-replicating tendency, the scientists concluded that the endothelial cells were the source of the tumors' growth.

Harvard is always doing original research, they are very proud of their work, and rightly so.

Download a copy of health reform report

Twenty-eight stakeholder organizations have published a report identifying and endorsing six national priorities to transform the health care industry.

This report is said to touch only lightly on health information technology.

What are the legal implications of live twittering in health care?

This edition begins with a summary of the raging Twitter Wars and includes a link to a post I did last week discussing some of the legal implications of live tweeting in health care.

I have not yet looked at the joys of Twitter, not that I think my life is all that interesting to be doing a minute-by-minute update of it.

TELUS invests 100 million dollars in Canada health care tech

As a sign of our commitment, we are announcing our plans to invest $100 million in developing TELUS Health Solutions over the next three years. We are very serious about making a difference in Canadian healthcare with applications and technology infrastructure that collects, processes, stores and delivers health information."

Let's watch this program over the next three years, perhaps we can learn something, in fact, I'm sure we will.