October 27th, 2010 by JessicaBerthold in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, Dr. Jay Anders, EHR, EHRs, Electronic Health Record, Electronic Medical Record, EMR, General Medicine, Jessica Berthold, MED3000, Medical Group Management Association, MGMA
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Dr. Jay Anders, the CMIO of EHR vendor MED3000, offered a few tips during a Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) session on implementing an EHR successfully:
1. Make a clear communication pathway. Everyone needs to know what’s going on, from the physicians to the receptionist.
2. Clearly identify the needs of every physician who is going to use the EHR. The needs of an internal medicine doctor aren’t the same as a dermatologist. Make sure the EHR meets those needs.
3. Get a physician champion for the EHR who will be responsible for talking about the project to peers and answering questions, and be the first person to implement it. Pay that person for his or her time spent in championing duties.
4. Some people need more time than others. Don’t let a resistant doctor stop the implementation. Develop a plan for dealing with resisters that includes how you’ll respond to negative comments, how to implement other colleagues despite the resister, and how to sell the benefits of the EHR to the resister.
5. Expect the EHR implementation to be time-neutral. Most EHRs don’t save time; their value is in improved patient care and documentation, which leads to better reimbursement.
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
October 26th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Asleep At The Wheel, Car Manufacturers, Driver Alert Systems, Driver Safety, Eyetracker, Falling Asleep While Driving, Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology, Health Technology, Line Of Vision, Medgadget, Momentary Driver Drowsiness, Public Safety, Safe Driving, Sleepy Drivers, Spatial Position of the Pupil, Staying Awake While Driving, Tracking Drivers' Eyes, Vehicle Safety
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While some car manufacturers already offer systems which can alert drivers who are dozing off, the feature is rare, and tends to be quite expensive when offered.
Now, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology have developed the Eyetracker, which provides this functionality at a lower cost and can be installed in any car. The Eyetracker’s cameras track the driver’s eyes, and the system will sound an alert if it determines that the driver is falling asleep. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
October 26th, 2010 by Jennifer Shine Dyer, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services, CMS, Communication Gap, Consumer Health Information, Doctor Patient Relationship, Doctor-Patient Communication, Dr. Don Berwick, Dr. Jennifer Shine Dyer, General Medicine, Hard-To-Understand Medical Information, Health Insurance, Health Literacy Action Plan, Healthcare reform, Kaiser Permanente, Medical Forms, Patient Education, Patient Handouts, Plain-English Documents, Poor Health Outcomes, Public Health, Reading Medical Materials, Training New Doctors, Type 2 Diabetes, UCSF, Understanding Health Information, University of California-San Francisco
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When it comes to understanding medical information, even the most sophisticated patient may not be “smarter than a fifth grader.”
In one of the largest studies of the links between health literacy and poor health outcomes, involving 14,000 patients with type 2 diabetes, researchers at the University of California San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente found that more than half the patients reported problems learning about their condition and 40 percent needed help reading medical materials. The patients with limited health literacy were 30 to 40 percent more likely to experience hypoglycemia — dangerously low blood sugar that can be caused if medications are not taken as instructed — than those with an adequate understanding of medical information.
Now, federal and state officials are pushing public health professionals, doctors, and insurers to simplify the language they use to communicate with the public in patient handouts, medical forms, and health websites. More than two-thirds of the state Medicaid agencies call for health material to be written at a reading level between the fourth and sixth grades.
A new federal program called the Health Literacy Action Plan is promoting simplified language nationwide. And some health insurers, doctors’ practices, and hospitals have begun using specialized software that scans documents looking for hard-to-understand words and phrases and suggests plain-English replacements. Read more »
October 26th, 2010 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, Interviews, News, Video
Tags: Barbara Ficarra, Consumer Health Information, Dr. Bill Crounse, Health In 30, Health Information Technology, Health Insurance Options, Health Tech Today, Healthcare reform, Healthcare.gov, HHS, Microsoft, Patient Engagement, President Obama, Private Health Insurance Plans, Todd Park, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
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Microsoft’s Dr. Bill Crounse Talks with Todd Park, CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on Health Tech Today
There’s a plethora of health information for consumers today. We are surrounded by smart meaningful material, but somehow it is easy to get lost in the maze of information. We get stuck navigating through it and we find it hard to obtain information that is right for us.
Even the most savvy health consumer may find it difficult to find information out about healthcare reform, insurance plans and the Affordable Care Act. But Dr. Bill Crounse, host of Health Tech Today talks with Todd Park, CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about Healthcare.gov — a government website that makes it simple to find information on prevention, consumer rights, health insurance plans, and tools to assess the quality of care you’re getting.
Dr. Crounse calls Todd Park the “tech guru” behind the government website, charged with improving the nation’s health through the innovative use of technology and data. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
October 25th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Research
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, Anesthesiology, California, Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services, Direct Physician Supervision, Doctor Must Be Present During Nurse's Care, Health Affairs, Hospital Medicine, Inpatient Death, Institute of Medicine, Medicare, New Jersey, Nurse Anesthetists, Nursing, Patient Complications, Practice Without A Doctor's Supervision, Ryan DuBosar
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New Jersey’s state health department is considering a rule that would allow nurse anesthetists to work without a doctor’s supervision, as long as there’s a plan to reach one in case of an emergency. New Jersey would join the 30 states that allow nurse anesthetists to work without direct supervision.
On the other end of the country, a California court upheld the state’s decision to opt out of a Medicare requirement that doctors be present while a nurse anesthetist works in order to be reimbursed. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have allowed states to opt out of that requirement since 2001.
Since then, there has been no evidence of increased inpatient deaths or complications, researchers reported in the August 2010 issue of Health Affairs. Earlier this month, the Institute of Medicine reported that nurses should have a larger role in medical care, including anesthesiology.
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
