Galen Healthcare Blogs About EMR Implementation
Mandated functionality use with a Live date without a plan to get there are begging for user adoption failure. There are few organizations that have the ability to staff "Big Bang implementations." Whether big bang or some portions of the functionality, I think having just a live date can be very frustrating for users.
Good philosophy regarding the "go live date" concept and pressures involved in not having a definite set of goals instead of just a date.
Dr. Robert Kolodner's possible role in EMR and PHR adoption
Kolodner has written that this year represents a "tipping point" for the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) by doctors and hospitals and Personal Health Records (PHRs) by individuals. He can give chapter-and-verse on the benefits, and at a Health IT Summit in Pensacola, Florida earlier this month he did just that.
If he keeps his job, this one man will have great influence on HIT, according to this article.
Blog looks at the three top EMR stories of the day
It is this later part, which is part of the overall organizational transformation enabled by the technology (not solely because of it), that allows an organization to achieve the promised high performance results of an often painful EHR implementation.
I have not seen this blog before but it seems to be "high-gain" for our tastes in EMR news treatments.
Medical Informatics in Japan Lays the Foundation of Better Care
Yesterday afternoon, it was my honor to provide a keynote for the 28th Joint Conference on Medical Informatics being held at the convention center in Yokohama adjacent to the InterContinental Grand Hotel.
Did you know that Japan lags behind in healthcare, hospital stays are often twice as long as in the other developed nations?
Is the $1,000 deductible a milestone in health care rationing?
On the other hand, a $1,000 deductible could provide a rationing tool on the part of employers who want to slow utilization trends. Observing job-worried enrollees' health care utilization trends in the next couple of quarters will be important to understanding the role of the new $1,000 deductible and its impact on Americans' health-rationing.
On the finer points of health insurance, this writer feels this is significant enough to write about the $1K amount.
AHA says hospitals are sick because of the economy
40% of American hospitals have seen drops in inpatient admissions, according to the American Hospital Association. In the AHA's survey, Report on the Economic Crisis: Initial Impact on Hospitals, it's clear that hospitals are already experiencing the effects of the economic downturn.
Another view of the troubled hospital business and what CEOs are planning to do about it.
Diabetics who stabilize blood sugar avoid destructive complications
The findings suggest that the long-term stability of blood sugar, and not just the average blood sugar control, predict the risk of these complications, study investigator Dr. Eric S. Kilpatrick of Hull Royal Infirmary in Hull, England, noted in an interview with Reuters Health. "It is probably another reason to aim for stable good glycemic control rather than only good glycemic control," Kilpatrick said.
Stability, rather than just control-that seems to make all the difference in this interesting study. Doctors may want to discuss this.
Nice Video Interview with Dr. Nathan on the satisfaction of helping patients On a recent trip to Boston, we caught up with Dr. David M. Nathan, MD, who is the Director of both the General Clinical Research Center and the Diabetes Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Nathan is also the Chairman of the Diabetes Prevention Program, an NIH-sponsored multicenter trial to prevent type 2 diabetes.
Nice interview, not very long, will make you feel good about being a doctor, and you can never get enough of that feeling.
Genetic screening for Type 2 Diabetes is not there yet
Although recent research has identified 18 gene variants that increase an individual's risk for type 2 diabetes, a recently published New England Journal of Medicine study suggests screening for these variants doesn't identify adults at risk much better than screening based on traditional risk factors like weight, blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
I don't think it is hereditary at all.
Melatonin may have benefits for certain eye diseases
The inflammatory eye disease, uveitis, causes sudden redness, pain and rapid vision deterioration accounts for an estimated 10 to 15 percent of cases of blindness in the United States. While there are no optimal treatments for uveitis, results of a new study suggest the herbal supplement, melatonin, may help treat the eye disease.
If you can't sleep because your eyes hurt, this might be the stuff to take.
Seven out of ten do not control their high blood pressure adequately
Most also said they were taking some or all of the commonly recommended measures to control blood pressure. For example:
- 71 percent said they had changed their eating habits.
- 80 percent were limiting or eliminating the use of salt.
- 80 percent said they'd reduced alcohol consumption or abstained from drinking alcohol.
- 69 percent said they exercised.
- 73 percent were taking high blood pressure medications.
Despite these measures, just 30 percent of Americans with high blood pressure have it under control, according to the study, which was published in a recent issue of the CDC's journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
In this country, with a BP meter in every drug store, why is it not better controlled? This is a shock to me.
If your parent lives for 100 years, you have better statistical health
Over 10 years, children of centenarians were significantly less likely to die (P<0.01) or have a myocardial infarction (P<0.04) than age-matched controls, Dellara F. Terry, M.D., of Boston University, and colleagues reported in the November issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Like so many of these studies it just makes plain common sense that good health would be passed on in the genes.
Posted
Nov 25 2008, 07:12 AM
by
Robert Gleeman