Posts Tagged public health department

image_pdfimage_print

Natural Language Processing, First Steps Towards Telehealth, and a Single App to Read any EHR in another edition of Manage My Practice’s 2.0 Tuesday!

As managers, providers and employees, we always have to be looking ahead at how the technology on our horizon will affect how our organizations administer health care. In the spirit of looking forward to the future, we present “2.0 Tuesday”, a  feature on Manage My Practice about how technology is impacting our practices, and our patient and population outcomes.

We hope you enjoy looking ahead with us, and share your ideas, reactions and comments below!

  • Natural Language Processing Advances Allow for Improved Insight into Public Health

Writing for KevinMD, Jaan Sidorov, author of the Disease Management Care Blog highlights several examples of how Natural Language Processing- the idea of teaching computer programs to understand the relationship between words in human speech (teaching them to not just hear us, but understand us- like Watson understood the clues on Jeopardy) is being be applied to the Electronic Health Record to predict and prepare for public health trends, as well as to correct mistakes present in the electronic record due to human error. Recent developments like the CDC’s Biosense program allow public health officials at local, state and federal levels to monitor big picture trends in public health by the words and diagnoses reported in medical documentation- keeping an ear on health trends, by “listening” to data about reported health incidents.

  • 10 Best Practices for Implementing Telemedicine in Hospitals

Sabrina Rodak at Becker Orthopedic, Spine and Pain Management has put together a fantastic list of the steps and assessments involved in implementing a telemedicine program in a hospital setting. Although written with Orthopods in mind, the questions that need to be answered, and the steps that need to be taken to develop a strong, lasting program are similar across many different programs and specialties. With so much excitement in the field, it is very nice to see someone talk about the process of taking these technologies from drawing board excitement to nuts-and-bolts execution.

(via FierceHealthIT)

  • San Diego Health System Seeks to Develop Single App to Access Any EMR

Presenting at a Toronto Mobile Healthcare Summit Last Week, Dr. Benjamin Kanter, CIO of Palomar Pomerado Health presented the two-hospital system’s plans to develop their own native mobile application to view as many different Electronic Medical Records as possible from a single mobile interface. In other words, this fairly small health system, who has only devoted three employees to the project, is taking on one of the biggest, and toughest challenges in HIT by simply saying “We can do it ourselves!”, and from some of the reactions from the conference attendees who saw the presentation, they are off to quite a strong start. The first version of the program should launch for Android in March, and the system already has a deal in place with vendor Cerner to access their systems. Stay tuned!

(via ITWorldCanada)

 

Be sure to check back soon for another 2.0 Tuesday!

 

 

 

 

Posted in: 2.0 Tuesday, Electronic Medical Records

Leave a Comment (0) →

News Nabs for September 9, 2009


Doctors Slash Vaccines Due to High Cost (CNN Money)



Physicians are referring patients to the public health departments for vaccines because insurers won’t reimburse them for the cost of the vaccine, much less a profit to cover the overhead and labor.  Physicians want to give high quality care to their patients, but why should they subsidize vaccines?  Read about it here.



Ghostwriting: the Dirty Little Secret of Medical Publishing That Just Got Bigger (Public Library of Science)



Surprise! Pharmaceutical companies are writing journal articles and attaching physician names to them.  What doesn’t pharma have a hand in today?  Read it here.



InQuickER: The Answer to Making a Visit to the ER an In and Out Experience



InQuickER says that the average wait time in the Emergency Room is 3.2 hours.  I recently spent 5 hours on a Sunday and 7 hours on a Monday in the ER, although I must say I was grateful that the ER was there.  Atlanta-based InQuickER, launched in April of this year, announced the launch of a new service that allows patients with non life-threatening conditions to reduce their waiting time by calling ahead or signing in online. The price to patients is USD 24.99 per visit, and if the patient is not seen within 15 minutes of their “appointment” there is no charge for the ER treatment – no charge for the ER visit, no charge for diagnostic services, and no charge for supplies.  Read more here.



Photo Credit: © Gbcimages | Dreamstime.com

Posted in: Headlines

Leave a Comment (0) →