Welcome to EHRReporting!  This blog will cover technology as it relates to the medical field!

2 new moms in Bay Area die from swine flu

Friday, July 31st, 2009


News regarding swine flu has died down in the past couple of weeks. However, there seems to be indication that pregnant women are more susceptible to the virus. Two new moms in Alameda county and Marin county passed away after delivering their baby. Here is the news from Mercury News.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

News of the deaths comes as the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that pregnant women be among the first to receive a vaccine, when it’s available. The CDC also urges that anti-viral drugs like Tamiflu or Relenza be quickly administered to pregnant women with suspected influenza.

31.07.2009 Uncategorized No Comments

Health IT and healthcare reform

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009


Here is a video from National Journal Online that explains Health IT and how it relates the the current healthcare reform.

Here is a definition of Health information technology:

Health information technology (health IT) would digitize patient records, doctors’ notes, prescription forms, test results and other information that most physicians currently record using dead trees and ink.

As a person who works in the health IT sector, I definitely agree with the video that there are a lot of benefits of health IT but as the same time there are a lot of challenges such as the adoption rate and the amount of technology savvy required.


29.07.2009 Uncategorized No Comments

ER docs sue state over low Medi-Cal payments

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

Emergency doctors are suing California over low Medi-Cal payments in Orange County.

With California already in a  tremendous budget crisis, this is adding salt on an open wound.  As quoted in the article:
“It alleges that ER doctors subsidized state Medi-Cal with more than $100 million in care in 2007″

This is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed by the new administration.  As the article stated, there are a lot of individuals that are willing to bypass the regular maintenance checkup and let burden fall up emergency room.

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18.07.2009 health care issues No Comments

What makes a good EMR (electronic medical record) system

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

With Obama becoming the new president one of his goal is to have EMR for every individual by the year 2014.  First of all, let’s clarify what is EMR (electronic medical records).  An electronic medical records system typically is referring to the software a clinic or hospital uses to store patient data and to create a patient work flow.

In some ways, president Obama is looking for PHR (personal health records).  In the grand vision, a patient can go to a clinic and provides his/her credentials, and have the EMR at the clinic or hospital integrate his/her personal information at admission.  The diagnosis and treatment will then be build base on a patient’s previous medical records.  Where is the patient data stored you ask?  The is among the biggest challenge.  Security is the foremost issue that comes to mind.  It is a good question and it will need to be addressed by both government policy and technology.

In order to provide better health care through technology, I believe three different phases will have to occur.

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16.07.2009 health care IT No Comments

Obama’s healthcare IT plans

Friday, July 10th, 2009

During the presidential campaign, one of the key focus of president Obama is to invest in healthcare IT in order lower the cost and provide better care.  In essence, there were talks regarding a “affordable, accessible health care coverage for every American.”  One way in which he plans on achieving the healthcare reform is through investment in healthcare technology.

From Obama’s website change.gov, he is planning on investment 10 billion a year for the next 5 years in hope to gain a wide adoption of healthcare technology that includes electronic Health records (ehr).

How much is 10 billion a year for 5 years?  Let’s do some analysis.

According to AHA’s Hospital Statistics there are approxmiately 6000 hospitals in US not counting clinics.
if the fund is distributed directly to each hospital:
$10 billion / 6000 hospitals = $1,666,666.67

This does seem like an aweful lot of money.  However, if we look at the way enterprise software is structured for the past 10 years, 1.7 million is no where close enough to cover the cost of hardware, software, the cost of an IT team and training.  This is not considering the fact that currently there are not enough qualified IT professional to support Obama’s ambitious plan.

10.07.2009 health care IT No Comments

Details on Health Care IT in the stimulus package

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

John Glaser, VP and CIO at Partners HealthCare System has more details on US Stimulus Package regarding Health care IT:
* Provision of $40,000 in incentives (beginning in 2011) for physicians to use an EHR
* Creation of HIT Extension Programs that would facilitate regional adoption efforts
* Provision of funds to states to coordinate and promote interoperable EHRs
* Development of education programs to train clinicians in EHR use and increase the number of health care IT professionals
* Creation of HIT grant and loan programs
* Acceleration of the construction of the National Health Information Network (NHIN)

As someone who recently moved into health care IT from traditional software engineering, I can see where training will definitely need to play a big role.  However, one the issue that I encountered the most is working with domain knowledge experts.  Take pharmacist for an example.  They believed they have much better knowledge regarding drugs yet they have no clue when it comes to data structure and how better to store that information.  In order to put the health care IT into good use, the usage of some sort of reporting system is inevitable.  As a result, I found myself often try to bridge the gap with the subject experts rather than working on the technology aspect of the problem.

As a whole, the health care IT is definitely gaining momentum.  Even Cramer is on board with health care IT.
Companies such as Allscript, Epic, and Cerner will be garnering much more attention in the upcoming days.

05.07.2009 health care IT, health care policies No Comments

Beijing Plans $124 Billion Overhaul of Health Care

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

I saw an article on Wall Street Journal today regarding Beijing’s attempt to overhaul health care.  It seems like the issue of health care is emerging rapidly as citizens grow old across the global.  This is definitely an issue that will surface in the next few years.

Here is the excerpt:

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02.07.2009 health care policies No Comments

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