Connecting For Health, in collaboration with a dozen other organizations dealing with information technologies for the health industry, is starting to promote a plan to establish a joint framework that will help improve information sharing while maintaining medical confidentiality.
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek
In the past year, many good people in the US - including President Bush and managers in the health industry - have been promoting information technology in the health industry. From the point of view of the industry, the advantages of information technologies are many - and include, among other things, financial savings, higher efficiency and better quality treatment.
The transition to electronic medical records will enter more practical lines this year, when the industry will begin to implement cooperation plans and formulate detailed plans to meet the goal set by President Bush - shared electronic medical records throughout the United States by 2014.
This prediction was voiced by Dr. Carol Diamond, who heads the steering committee of Connecting For Health, a private-public partnership in which more than 90 medical institutions that deal in the fields of clinical data, privacy and security are members. Last month, Connecting For Health, along with a dozen other organizations dealing with information technologies for the health industry, published an agreement for a joint framework that will help improve information sharing while maintaining medical confidentiality.
The joint framework - which includes recommendations for non-proprietary standards that will be accepted by the entire industry, Internet-based communication and the preservation of medical confidentiality - was submitted to the American office dealing with the coordination of information technologies for the health industry, headed by Dr. David Brayler, in response to a request published by the office last November.
"In the coming year we will be able to understand what is applicable and what works" says Diamond. "We were surprised by the high rate of response and the widespread willingness to cooperate in this area." The agreement marks a big step forward for the industry towards mutual action at the national level - and the linking of information technology systems in the health industry seems absolutely possible, says Diamond.
Connecting For Health, established by and operated by the Markle Foundation, presented last summer an initial road map that includes practical recommendations in relation to the needs of the industry, with the aim of establishing a common infrastructure of medical information. These recommendations include the establishment of a "super network" that will unite all the networks, financial incentives that will encourage the industry to adopt information technologies and proposals to mobilize public involvement and guide patients in relation to the benefits of information technologies in the field of health - including giving patients access, by electronic means, to their own medical files.
From InformationWeek January 26
Survey: The slow adoption of information technologies threatens the healthcare industry
38% of managers in the healthcare industry believe that the slow adoption of information technologies - such as electronic medical records - threatens the industry. 37% of the respondents to the survey believe that the high costs of health services or the costs of the technology itself, endanger the industry more.
By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek
The slow adoption of information technologies, the high costs of health care services and the costs of the technology itself are, in that order, the most serious threats to the health care industry - according to a survey conducted among senior executives in the US health care industry and published last month.
38% of managers in the healthcare industry believe that the slow adoption of information technologies - such as electronic medical records - threatens the industry. 37% of the respondents to the survey believe that the high costs of health services endanger the industry more. The growing number of people without health insurance, or those whose health insurance does not meet their needs, was chosen by 34% of respondents as the most serious threat. The respondents were asked to choose the two most serious dangers from a list that included over twenty threats.
Among the 122 respondents to the survey, 44% work in hospitals, medical insurance companies and clinics. The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive for the information technology company Capgemini among executives registered for the recent global healthcare industry conference in Washington.
Among the other options, the cost of technology reached the fourth place in the list of serious threats, after being chosen by 30% of the respondents. "For many, the financial issue is the biggest challenge," said Louis Redd, president of Capgemini's healthcare division.
Medical systems based on information technologies, such as electronic medical files or electronic prescriptions, in addition to tools that assist in decision-making, can save the United States billions of dollars every year by reducing the number of medical errors and saving on expensive processes, such as double registration of medical experiments - according to studies conducted for the US government. However, medical institutions with limited budgets find it difficult to finance such technological projects.
Still, the survey carried out for Capgemini shows that 68% of the managers who work in hospitals, medical insurance companies or clinics intend to increase or accelerate their investments in medical systems based on information technologies - including electronic medical files.
Currently, only a third of the respondents say that they cooperate with other medical institutions in the implementation of these projects - contrary to the goal set by President Bush, the establishment of a national system of electronic medical files in the next ten years. "Many of the institutions operate in isolation from other institutions" says Red.
There are indeed projects here and there to establish joint networks to treat suppliers and customers, but usually these are medical insurance companies that insure many citizens and are willing to invest and cooperate to move to digital processes, says Red.
For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has allocated $50 million to a pilot project in three communities across the state that will share shared electronic medical records. The experiment should serve as a model for other projects in the rest of the country, which will be completed within five years.
From InformationWeek January 31
Who will help the health industry?
President Bush is pressuring the healthcare industry to expand the use of information technology, but where will the money come from?
By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek
Everyone is feeling the pressure of the increasing spending of the healthcare industry. New technologies such as electronic medical records and decision-making tools may save the American nation billions of dollars every year by reducing the number of medical errors and eliminating duplicate processes, according to a study conducted for the American government. However, the medical institutions whose funds have dwindled are having difficulty financing the projects.
In the Bush administration's budget for 2006, a larger amount was allocated to fund trials and implementation of new technologies by medical institutions. The administration intends to request an amount of 125 million dollars to finance information technology projects in the health industry - an increase of 75 million dollars compared to the amount allocated for these purposes in 2005. Last month, the administration requested to increase the budget allocated for these purposes in 2005 by an additional 50 million dollars and make the amount totaling over 100 million dollars.
"In most industries in America, information technologies are used to save expenses, optimize business and increase productivity - and the unfortunate truth is that in the health industry they do not do this," said President Bush during a tour he conducted at the Cleveland Clinic as part of the discussions on health reform. The president watched a demonstration of how to use electronic medical files in an emergency room, a technology that improves patient care and helps save costs. Last year President Bush announced the goal - within ten years the medical files of most US citizens will be electronic, and all medical institutions will be able to access these files.
However, it is difficult to see how these amounts will be sufficient for the said purposes, if you consider that the medical insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts invested 50 million dollars just to establish a network in three communities in order to operate electronic medical records within five years. And the approval of Congress is far from obvious: last December, the American Congress refused to allocate 50 million dollars to finance a national medical information infrastructure.
"The government should allocate larger amounts" says Dr. Harev Pardes, CEO of the New York health system. "The health system suffers from many budgetary difficulties, but information technologies such as electronic medical files are a profitable investment from a business point of view, because they save a lot of money and help save lives."
The pressures on the industry to accelerate the implementation of information technologies are only increasing. According to a recent online survey, 38% of managers in the healthcare industry believe that the slow adoption of information technologies - such as electronic medical records - threatens the industry. 37% of the respondents to the survey believe that the high costs of health services endanger the industry more. The growing number of people without health insurance, or those whose health insurance does not meet their needs, was chosen by 34% of respondents as the most serious threat. The cost of technology reached the fourth place in the list of serious threats, after it was chosen by 30% of the respondents. The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive for the information technology company Capgemini among executives registered for the recent global healthcare industry conference in Washington.
Among the 122 respondents to the survey, 44% work in hospitals, medical insurance companies and clinics. Currently, only a third of the respondents say that they cooperate with other medical institutions in the implementation of these projects - contrary to the goal set by President Bush, the establishment of a national system of electronic medical files in the next ten years. "Many of the institutions operate in isolation from other institutions" says Louis Redd, president of Capgemini's health department.
Still, progress is evident. 500 companies submitted proposals for the establishment of the national medical information infrastructure, among them the Interoperability Consortium which includes Accenture, Cisco, Computer Sciences, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Oracle. The companies presented a plan for a network that would be based on open standards and distributed databases, instead of a centralized database. The consortium also offered financial incentives - including tax breaks, low-interest loans and a federal indemnity program - to help finance the investments.
"The healthcare industry is still stupid compared to other industries. There are not enough financial incentives to invest in smart technologies," said John Glazer, vice president and chief information officer of the Partners Healthcare system, which includes several hospitals in the Boston area. Due to the many technical and cultural obstacles, ten years seems like an overly ambitious goal in Glazer's eyes: "Maybe in 20 years" most Americans will have electronic medical files, Glazer estimates.
From InformationWeek February 7
The FDA is moving to one system
An electronic system for submitting documents will simplify the approval process for drugs.
By Rick Whiting, InformationWeek
Systems integrator GlobalNet Services and provider of business sharing software, Cyclone Commerce, will open a gateway for submitting electronic documents for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The system will centralize the process of submitting documents to the FDA for drug manufacturers and government offices. The development may mark a turning point, since the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries will follow it to electronic document systems and abandon the inefficient paper-based processes.
The central system, worth 2 million dollars, will replace several separate systems for submitting electronic documents that operated in different departments of the FDA and were used to approve drugs, medical devices, biological products (such as vaccines) and food products. The first phase of the project should begin in June and allow drug manufacturers to submit documents for the approval of new drugs. The FDA encourages drug manufacturers to make use of electronic documents to speed up both the approval process and the receipt of reports of side effects discovered after the drug has been marketed.
After the project is completed, in mid-2006, it will serve as the only gateway where manufacturers of drugs and medical equipment, drug distributors, food manufacturers, medical institutions and government offices can submit documents. In the new system, a uniform standard for the submission of documents will be implemented for all FDA departments - says Michael Fontelroy, director of the program for the submission of electronic documents at the FDA and project manager. "The gate will save the industry a lot of time spent on documents. Sometimes whole trucks arrived with documents. The electronic documents save time, effort and materials" says Pontelroy.
The new gateway will be particularly beneficial to companies such as Glao Smith Kline, which develops both pharmaceutical and biological products as well as medical equipment. Today, the company must support different standards for submitting electronic documents for each category of products - explains Pontelroy. The system will be based on Sun servers, the Solaris operating system, Oracle 9i cluster databases, Cyclone Commerce software and applications that will be developed specifically for the project. The system will use TCP-IP and AS2 protocols (EDI specification for inter-business communication security). According to Pontelroy, the system will be able to handle 25 document submission processes at the same time.
"The system will be the basis for communication on a very large scale in the entire healthcare industry" estimates Cyclone's president and CEO, Phil Myers. Cyclone has helped set up similar e-filing projects for the European Medicines Agency and the Japanese Ministry of Health.
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