Started implementing a pioneering IT project in the field of preventive medicine
Yossi the Tony, people and computers
Klalit Health Services has begun the experimental implementation of a pioneering IT project in the field of preventive medicine, and it will be fully implemented by the beginning of 2006, announced the CEO of the fund, Zeev Warmbrand, ahead of the Ila conference to be held on April 5.4.05, XNUMX. The project is based on data mining and allows predicting the medical deterioration of clients. Similar to banks and credit companies that build a customer profile for healthcare services, Klalit has built a customer profile that includes a variety of medical and demographic variables. On the basis of this customer profile, a statistical model is developed that allows to locate patients who are at risk of deterioration in their condition.
Through this model, it was possible to focus and improve the quality of treatment in the population.
Zeev Warmbrand, CEO of Clalit Health Services, said, "We are a very large bank. Despite this, it is important to emphasize that everything should be wrapped in personal care. Every year, we have 70 million physical therapist-patient encounters. This, in addition to another 12 million call center calls. These meetings have two important components - the medical quality, and the quality of the service. IT helps to improve these two dimensions. In addition, medicine itself is going in a more technological direction - more genetics, more non-invasive surgeries, tiny medicine, a lot of information related to imaging - CT, MRI, the transmission of information. The treatments are also becoming more complex, as well as the whole issue of transplants. All of this requires constant improvement in our information systems, as part of efficiency and technological progress."
According to Warmbard, the IT budget in general is about NIS 200 million, which is 1.3 percent of operating expenses. "IT makes it possible to provide more correct medicine, and to point out processes that can be optimized. The IT systems help us get tools, make better use of the medical information stored with us, and improve the medical service. With us, the saying that 'the customer is at the center' is important, more than anywhere else."
Zeev Warmbrand will participate in the annual ILA conference which will be held on April 5.4.05, XNUMX and will speak about the importance of introducing the medical record into the health care system in Israel.
The IT systems in the health systems are becoming more critical
This is what the CEO of Klalit Health Services, Zeev Warmbrand, of the participants in the Ila conference, tells InformationWeek * The name of the game - producing quality medical information, to improve the quality of medical care * "With the help of data mining, personal-medical deterioration can be predicted, and it can be prevented, a year in advance" * Doctor, the doll is sick
Zeev Warmbrand, CEO of Klalit Health Services, what is the value, the purpose, of IT systems in your opinion?
"The use of information must be a competitive tool. In my opinion, an organization that is not a pioneer in its IT systems cannot survive. At the end of the day, providing health services is much more than providing financial services in banks. It is the most sacred and most important thing to us. The more the customers - the doctors and the patients - understand deeply that the information systems of General Health Services are more available, more accurate, the more extensive use of their applications will be able to bring more medical information. It is this information that increases the chance of recovery. Correct utilization of the information stored in the IT systems prolongs and saves lives, and improves the chance of recovery. With the help of the information extracted from the data stored in the IT systems, medical errors can be prevented.
The more reliable and available the information data will be, the more transparent the information will be, and the quality of medical care will inevitably increase with its help. The situation today is that there is still an information gap about the patient, with the therapist. The IT systems can, and are successful, in reducing this information gap, and allow the information to be an important supporter during the medical treatment, to improve the doctors' decision-making, based on more information. The world today is characterized by an abundance of information, and the accessibility to this information has also increased. All that is required is to utilize the IT systems, in order to optimize the information that reaches the caregivers. Because of this, the IT systems in the health systems are becoming more critical".
How are general health services organized to improve the situation, and bridge the information gaps?
"We in general health services have several goals: one, to establish medical quality indicators, in order to check with objective tools the medical achievements of the treating staff. For example, increasing the probability of stabilization of diabetic patients, with the help of preventive medicine measures. This is a system in which medical quality indicators are placed in each of the clinics, and through which doctors are provided with managerial-statistical tools. These tools should provide the doctor with additional insights in the field of preventive medicine. We set before the doctors a goal, of a quality index, and provide him with tools to reach this goal. The system handles the medical information, and requires the doctor to work according to the goals, while making constant comparisons. We have set over 34 such quality indicators, and everything works on Microsoft tools."
Getting information in 10 seconds
And what are the other goals?
"Another goal is to bring medical information, which is classified and stored, but relevant in order to prevent mistakes and improve the quality of care, to every meeting point between therapist and patient, Point of Care.
The "Horizon" system, a virtual information system that is implemented in general, allows each treatment point to transfer and receive virtual medical information, and to transfer worlds of medical information to the treatment point. The technological solution of a virtual file allows caregivers to receive the information quickly - within ten seconds. The solution gives the ability to convey messages, from community medicine to the hospitals. Added value is also obtained, which is the respect given to the patient - the therapist knows his name and details, and his medical history. All information received is reliable and available.
A distinction must be made between a medical file and a national medical record. The national record is a tool, a technology, through which the important and critical medical information can be transferred from the hospitals to the community medicine, and vice versa. We are before the implementation phase of a uniform medical file project for all hospitals in the general health services, and in the coming months we will implement this project."
What about data mining?
"We strongly believe in data mining. With the help of Data Mining it is possible to observe, predict personal-medical deterioration. In this segment we are pioneers. This is an issue that we are in its infancy, but in general we very much believe in it. Just as until today banks and credit companies have built, and are building, customer profiles, so this model can be applied in general health services, with the help of proper data mining. The patient's future aggravation can be predicted, based on past events, as well as complex statistical data.
We wrote a strategy, built on the basis of preventive medicine. It contains two components: work according to clinical quality indicators, and comprehensive care. These two components of the strategy cannot be realized without the application of advanced information systems.
With the help of data mining, based on the organizational data warehouse, DWH, and using the same statistical tools, it is possible to predict a patient's medical deterioration, a year in advance! Thus, this deterioration can be prevented, and the patient's quality of life preserved. This important project is in the pilot stages, and will be fully implemented at the end of 2005, until the beginning of 2006.
We are a very big bank. Despite this, it is important to emphasize that everything should be wrapped in personal care. Every year, we have 70 million physical therapist-patient encounters. This, in addition to another 12 million call center calls. These meetings have two important components - the medical quality, and the quality of the service. IT helps to improve these two dimensions. In addition, medicine itself is going in a more technological direction - more genetics, more non-invasive surgeries, tiny medicine, a lot of information related to imaging - CT, MRI, the transmission of information. The treatments are also becoming more complex, as well as the whole issue of transplants. All of this requires constant improvement in our information systems, as part of efficiency and technological progress.
Thus, at the end of the treatment, the client should understand that he received the appropriate medical response, and the best possible."
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IT supports administrative decentralization
The general is in budgetary difficulties.
"According to the work plan, this year we will reach a balance, we will get out of the deficit in which the fund was running, of hundreds of millions of shekels. Part of building the organizational strategy in general - a large organization dealing with individual care - was a decentralization move. Each clinic manages itself, and the IT systems massively support and assist this process. Thus, it is possible to provide clients with better medical services, as well as to point out less efficient processes. Each of the clinics built its own work plan, where the IT tools meet the goals of striving for quality and efficiency. In addition, the clinics compare their performance with other clinics.
The IT budget in general is about NIS 200 million, which is 1.3 percent of the operating expenses."
What about the information security aspects?
"We understand the importance of the issue, and emphasize the confidentiality of customer information. We allocate budgets to the subject throughout the years, due to this understanding. We are a healthcare organization, and as such, the aspects of information security are clear to us, and important. We take care to integrate information security aspects in every project from the dozens of IT projects we implement.
One of the areas that we are required to handle carefully is the permissions - who is allowed to see what type of medical information, to whom to transfer, what. Already today it is clear to us that issues that do not directly assist treatment and saving lives are issues that information about will not be transmitted. Thus, for example, information about abortions that occur at a young age, or information about treatments performed with psychiatric drugs. We are in the in-depth stages of examining what types of information will be stored in the IT systems.
In Klalit Health Services, there is a complete separation between the party that plans the information security policy, and the parties that handle the implementation and enforcement of the information security policy, who are the IT managers in the districts in the hospitals, as well as in the IT department. In 2004, we completed the design of the information security policy and guidelines in general health services, and we are beginning the process of the organization-wide implementation of the policy and guidelines. These will be reflected in a wide-scale assimilation system in the organizational culture. In the technological aspect, we are currently implementing an organizational information security management system, which will enable control and monitoring of information security issues, in the 200 computer systems of the General, including an examination of physical security aspects. At the same time, we are at the end of the development process of establishing the SOC, the Information Security Incident Operations Management Center. The SOC will be integrated within the SHOB Center, Control and Control of the Computing Division.
During 2005, Klalit Health Services will operate a full PKI system, which will enable the transfer of medical data in a secure manner, and according to the law. The infrastructure meets the information security standards, as well as the requirement for medical confidentiality, and according to
The American standard for information security in the world of health. Since the American standard regarding medical information has no equivalent in the Israeli information security standard 7799 of the Standards Institute, Klalit Health Services chose to adopt the main points of its standards. We have established an information security policy, in order to ensure the privacy of our customers' information. These standards are gradually being implemented in the information systems of Klalit Health Services".
About Ila:
Ila is the umbrella organization of the professional community that deals with information technologies (software, communication and computers) that has maintained extensive social professional activity since 1960. The organization embraces within it specialized unions (consultants - computers in education, computers in medicine, Althim - production engineers and operation managers in industry and Internet users) And about ten working groups specialize in other technological issues, which are the cutting edge of information technology.
Ila is the only professional body with a national nature and character whose purpose is to promote national issues in the field of information technology, the main of which are: closing the digital divide in Israeli society, identifying and dealing with threats that endanger the scientific and technological advantage of the State of Israel, dealing with issues of professional importance and cultivating knowledge.
They knew innovations in medicine
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