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MOST HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS HAVE DISCUSSED TEAMING IMAGE MANAGEMENT WITHOUT RADIOLOGY TEXT REPORTS, BUT PROBABLY FEWER THAN A DOZEN HAVE MADE SUCH A COMMITMENT. Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has […]

With approximately $20 million in their pockets to create an information infrastructure that paves the road for total quality management, a 15-member design team and senior management at Lutheran General […]

Healthcare and high-tech writer Rob Hard scoured the exhibit hall at the huge Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) annual conference. He discovered that healthcare professionals are seeking ways […]

The job of chief information officers (CIO) at hospitals and health care networks is becoming more future-oriented and strategic. Industry experts claim that information systems will become increasingly important to the efficiency and profitability of health care. Information is presented on the various duties that CIOs perform and how those duties are evolving as the CIO becomes a strategic manager., If the information management demands facing hospitals today seem more challenging than those of just a decade ago, the future looks even more bracing. Experts expect that intense changes in [...]

Hospitals facing tight budgets have been able to save millions of dollars a year by implementing tough cost-cutting measures. Creative ideas ranged from reducing postal expenses to implementing new procedures for linen service, materials management and food service. A list of 12 hospital cost-cutting measures, including pharmaceutical, nursing, construction, maintenance, waste management and scheduling, is provided., Hospitals use creative ideas to gain control of expenses It takes innovation and imagination to weather tough times. The hospitals profiled here show plenty of both qualities in the programs [...]

Hospital imaging departments are becoming the targets of total quality management programs to contain costs, improve service and speed up the imaging process. Profiting from expensive imaging equipment means making the system as efficient as possible so that a high number of procedures can be performed. A number of procedures help make this possible, such as a good film tracking process, a program to eliminate patient waiting time and careful examination of regular equipment maintenance costs., Hospitals give renewed attention to service, costs, flow of images Transformed from busy streets to super highways by advances in technology and surges in patient volume, imaging departments are experiencing [...]

Hospitals are still having trouble integrating computer systems within their own walls. Now they're facing an added challenge: utilizing long-distance telecommunications networks that would shuttle health care information around the [...]

Physicians should participate in setting up and managing hospital information systems (IS) that track patient care. Doctors' resistance to involvement stems from factors including fear of change, indifference and lack of access to the system. These objections can be modified by persuading doctors to collaborate in selection and development of the information system. The tactics adopted by several hospitals that include physicians and specialists on their IS committees are recounted., What are you doing at your hospital to gain the maximum benefit from your patient care information system? Many hospitals have found that the answer is persuading the medical staff [...]

A survey reveals that many hospital CEOs believe satisfaction with information services (IS) depends on the IS manager's reporting to the CEO. The most important area in which IS should help meet strategic goals of hospitals is cost control, followed by physician-hospital relations and quality control. Experiences of individual hospital CEOs with information services are reported by Robert Kelley, Madera Community Hospital, Madera, CA, and David Rosen, Jamaica Hospital, Jamaica, NY., When it comes to the finer points of computer technology, most hospital CEOs will admit they're lost. But growing numbers recognize the importance of aligning the goals for their information [...]

A R.L. Johnson & Associates survey revealed that sales of hospital information systems (IS) remained flat in 1991, but more purchases are expected in 1992 as IS vendors increasingly offer services usually provided by consulting firms. In 1991, hospitals tended to purchase IS upgrades or additional software rather than install new systems. IS sales are expected to rise, however, as vendors begin to help hospitals integrate new software with existing applications, train staff and perform other functions traditionally handled by consulting firms.

Hospital CEOs don't receive operational data in a form they can use to make decisions; as a result, many of them rely on personal instincts and experience in their decision [...]

Hospitals must take steps to plan for the implementation of electronic data interchange (EDI), a system for sharing information among hospitals, insurers, and the federal government. A number of such steps are described, such as assessing the readiness of current systems to combine with EDI. Other issues involved in planning for EDI are judging to what degree a hospital's existing systems are integrated and whether the hospital can afford the staff and computer interfaces necessary to use EDI., As hospitals, insurers and the federal government all gear up to process health care claims via universal use of electronic data interchange (EDI), the first order of business is to [...]

The National Practitioner Data Bank offers free personal-computer software to hospitals to search its files either on-line or by diskette. The popular software enables hospitals to identify practitioners by specific department, selected name, specified alphabetical range or date of last query. The service of the US Department of Health and Human Services began operating in Sep 1990 and receives about one million physician queries annually., About 1,900 hospitals have requested personal computer-based software that allows them to query the National Practitioner Data Bank via phone modem or diskette. The software and a user's manual are [...]

Hospital pharmacists faced with problems determining proper children's drug doses are pooling their efforts to establish guidelines. The pharmaceutical companies test new medications on adults, and drug labels are based on the results of these tests. Difficulties arise when antibiotics, for instance, are available only in vials that must be diluted. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has funded a Premier Hospitals Alliance study of medication errors. Also, the Kapoor Center for Pediatric Drug Information, in Children's Hospital, Denver, collects data on drugs administered to children., Drug dosages for children have always been a thorny issue for hospital pharmacists. Many drugs administered in hospital pediatric units are not manufactured in children' s doses, leaving pharmacists to [...]

Computer documentation of patient records finds increasing acceptance in hospitals, but bedside systems have been installed in only 5% of hospitals. Handheld portable systems are used by some hospitals, such as Kimball Medical Center, Lakewood, NJ, which experienced a noticeable reduction in nursing overtime after paying about $1,100 per bed to install its system. The American Hospital Association's Div of Clinical Services and Technology provides a list of items to consider before purchasing a bedside computer system., Like many other administrative innovations in health care, bedside computers have drawn fans as well as skeptics. Hospitals pioneering the use of point-of-care computer systems say they expect to improve [...]

Hospitals are increasingly purchasing consulting services from their information service vendors rather than hiring outside consultants. These services may include receivables recovery, hospital reorganization, and systems integration. In addition, more consulting contracts are written on a contingency rather than a fee basis. Consultants need to refocus their businesses by controlling costs and providing more services to information system vendors rather than to system users., , Attempting to stretch information system (IS) budgets further than ever, hospital executives are expecting their IS vendors to provide more support services as part of their purchase agreement. Historically, [...]

Both Kaiser Foundation Hospital, San Diego, and a group of South Carolina hospitals are studying plasma pyrolysis, incineration, and microwaving methods of treating medical waste. Plasma pyrolysis turns waste into a much smaller amount of glass slag. Microwaving destroys microbes, but the amount of waste remains the same. Any method used must pass air pollution tests relating to air cleanliness and metal slag leaching. Two of the pyrolysis by-products, glass and gas, can be recycled., San Diego's Kaiser Foundation Hospital and a group of South Carolina hospitals may be the first health care organizations to apply an old technology to the weighty problem of medical [...]

The Western New York Health Sciences Consortium has decided to network medical information. Eight Buffalo, NY, community hospitals will set up network links and create software prototypes over the next 12-18 months. The $20 million project has five corporate commitments thus far: Digital Equipment Corp., Hewlett-Packard, IBM, NYNEX, and Siemens. Goals for the network include regional health care management, care cost and quality management, educational information delivery, and research support., A university-hospital consortium formed five years ago in Buffalo, NY, to foster collaboration has taken an innovative, high-tech turn in its recent development of a computer link to share medical [...]

Hospitals have found a variety of ways to gain computer users' acceptance of new information systems. For example, St. Agnes Medical Center used promotion and marketing techniques to encourage staff to become involved in the installation of its new computer system. In addition, Washoe Medical center in Reno, NV, applied total quality management principles to gain acceptance for its new computer system by involving the staff in the selection, implementation and use of the new computers., Two years ago, when St. Agnes Medical Center, Fresno, CA, began converting to a new computer system, hospital executives realized that there could be an undesirable side effect: anxiety and [...]

Integration of nursing clinical information systems (IS) at hospitals is an important component in delivering quality patient care. A survey conducted at the annual meeting of the American Hospital Association's Health Care Information Management Systems Society revealed that 43% of the executives polled view IS as a major area of spending for their hospitals. Installation of bedside computers is the favorite configuration according to nurses, since they enable better user access., Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center, Lancaster, CA, performed a fourweek test last year on one of its nursing units to determine how a nursing clinical information system (IS) could be [...]

Hospitals are reviewing orthopedic department processes to find ways to reduce medical costs. Hospitals are frequently purchasing prosthetic devices from as many as 11 different vendors, which greatly increases orthopedic costs. Hospitals signing exclusive contracts with vendors can receive concessions on prices, cost of instrumentation, consignment inventory and freight. Other costs that hospitals need to take into consideration when reducing orthopedics costs are operating room time and length of patient stay., Last year, after analyzing costs and reimbursement for DRG 209, which covers certain hip and knee procedures, senior management at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, asked the orthopedics department to find [...]

Hospitals increasingly contract management firms to help their hospitality service departments meet total quality management goals. Contract service firms can reduce costs and improve the quality of laundry, food services, housekeeping and other departments. Approximately 30% of all US hospitals contract hospitality service firms., For the past 25 years, Sibley Memorial Hospital, Washington, DC, has vice department in the hands of a contract service firm. Last year, however, the hospital parted ways with its [...]

Knowledge Data Systems Inc has a computer graphics product that will help hospitals track patient medication, vital signs and test result data. The computer software, known as graphical interfaces, is currently being tested and developed at hospitals and will provide a variety of patient data that doctors could consult. The big challenge is the creation of the right interfaces throughout a hospital's vast systems, which requires time and can be very complex., 6 A project now under way at Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital is breaking new ground in the use of electronic means to track patient vital signs, medication, test results and [...]

A new survey has found that nearly half of hospital CEOs aren't satisfied with the performances of their hospitals' departmental computer systems. The survey, conducted in fall 1991 by 3M, [...]

Aa time when many hospitals are struggling with ways to integrate their clinical and financial information systems (IS), the need for solutions has never been more critical. A typical hospital [...]

Under a new HCFA rule, hospitals failing to convert to electronic cost reports or to win an exemption from the agency would risk suspension of their Medicare payments. The rule, [...]

As more and more hospitals move ahead with plans to add or expand rehabilitation services, some facilities are turning to outside contractors for management skills and staffing. But consultants advise [...]

Most vendors support the development of Health Level-7 (HL-7) technology, an interface standard that allows hospitals to transfer data between different software programs. The technology, introduced roughly three years ago [...]

It's not unheard of for health care information system vendors to abandon hospital clients. Most of the time, however, the companies that drop out of sight are small and relatively [...]

When the surrounding community demanded that Sarasota (FL) Memorial Hospital shut down its waste-burning incinerator at the end of 1989, the hospital began hauling its biohazardous waste elsewhere-at an annual [...]

A handful of hospitals in the United States are exploring the idea of using robotics-computers with mechanical abilities-in their laboratories. Robotics has the potential to eliminate many of the manual [...]

Hospitals are changing the way their food service and pharmacy departments work together to support the nutritional needs of patients who are more acutely ill than ever before. Some hospitals [...]

Two things are certain to make people hang on to their money: recession and war. The combination of both makes the present a difficult time to budget for the coming [...]

Computers help keep patient files confidential File folders stuffed with papers documenting a patient's hospital stay can be an administrative nightmare. Such medical records pass through many hands, are easily [...]

In less than five years, one in three hospitals will have installed an operating room (OR) in formation system. If this prediction comes true, it'll be a significant change: Today, [...]

Retaining quality management on a long-term basis used to be a challenge for Pioneers Memorial Hospital, Brawley, CA, says Leo Haggarty, president of Pioneer's board of directors. Five years ago, [...]

n the 1980s, the answer to spiraling I health care costs was to shift care into the outpatient setting. But now that outpatient costs are rising, payers and providers are [...]

HIMSS chief mixes politics and health care Richard Rydell brings a unique blend of experience and know-how to the health care information management industry. Rydell -- the 1990 president of [...]

Hospitals undertaking changes for patient-centered care may also need to update their information systems to provide patient data throughout the hospital. Institutions planning to update their information systems include, for instance, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in San Diego, CA. Managers want the new system to provide admissions capability, test results data and critical pathways information. Other hospitals reveal their plans for new information systems to support patient-centered care., Many hospitals in the process of reengineering the delivery of services under patient-centered care have discovered they need to restructure their information system (IS) as well. In fact, more than [...]

Medical imaging equipment manufacturers are now offering financing packages to hospitals. Vendors are offering financing options to hospitals because of changes in capital rules and to protect their share of the market. For example, Picker Financial Group is introducing full-service financing packages to hospitals interested in leasing or purchasing its medical equipment. Industry experts say that leasing may be a good way for hospitals to obtain new equipment., New capital rules and concerns about prospects for comprehensive health care reform, as well as a desire to maintain market share, have encouraged a number of imaging manufacturers to offer [...]

Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA, is customizing its computer software with its own internal information systems staff. The 746-bed hospital hopes to benefit from a computer system tailored to each user's specific needs. Customized software will allow better information to be obtained on the sources of patient referrals from doctors and other medical facilities. Customizing software will also increase the number of procedural and diagnostic codes used to obtain a better picture of patient care., Pittsburgh's Allegheny General Hospi- tal is among a small percentage of health care facilities improving information management by customizing packaged software. In opting to rely on internal information systems (IS) [...]

Three hospitals in Madison, WI, formed Madison Energy Recovery Inc to dispose of waste material and provide enough energy for an adjacent laundry. The incinerator generates 1.2 million pounds of steam a year and eliminates the need for any other fuels to run the shared laundry. Meriter Hospital, St Mary's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics paid $2 million for the incinerator, which can dispose of 1,500 tons of infectious waste annually., The spirit of collaboration is alive and well in the city of Madison, WI. There, three hospitals decided to pool resources to construct a regional medical waste incinerator to help [...]

Hospitals are subject to lawsuits if unauthorized persons manage to access patients' medical records. In the last few years hospitals have installed clinical systems that may give opportunities for information leaks unless carefully monitored. Executives must accept a commitment to protect security, set standards for passwords and implement programs throughout the hospital. Also, employees must be trained to understand the meaning of confidentiality., Access to patient information can be a double-edged sword for hospitals. On one hand, computer systems increase the amount and availability of information, with clear strategic and patient care benefits. [...]

Hospitals need to track patient information from physicians' offices across the care continuum to perform managed care contracting effectively. Some hospitals are trying to develop systems that provide financial incentives to physicians for sharing information. Hospitals without computer links to off-site physicians can often purchase commercial software packages to generate internal data reports. Sometimes special interfaces between the billing and medical record systems are needed to capture the appropriate data., Most hospitals already have the basic computer systems they need for effective managed care contracting, experts say. But that's only half the battle. The real challenge is to manipulate utilization, [...]

The 1992 purchasing outlook from the Joint Purchasing Corp. (JPC), New York City, forecasts a difficult winter followed by a mild economic recovery beginning in spring or early summer. By [...]

For hospitals, the days of relying on vendors for information systems support may be ending, consultants say. In fact, about one-third of U.S. hospitals own or are considering buying products [...]

Two years ago, Lynchburg, VAbased Centra Health Inc. made expanded service the central theme in turning around 'a half-hearted outreach laboratory program.' By adding courier services and customized reports, Centra [...]

With hospitals looking increasingly to materials management as a way to hold down expenses, it's critical that CEOs assess how well their materials managers are controlling costs. In a recent [...]

While prices for computer software continue to rise each year, more efficient manufacturing practices are causing hardware prices to fall. For hospitals, hardware has become a commodity purchased at lower [...]

CPR concept-from the drawing board to reality The Institute of Medicine (IOM) isn't the first organization to indicate that the health care field needs to develop computerized patient records. But [...]