As you read this November issue of Healthcare IT News, Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Across the country healthcare IT personnel are beginning to count their blessings.
In the world of healthcare IT, there seems plenty to be grateful for this year, including the billions of dollars in government funding that came through ARRA (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) – an unprecedented amount aimed at transforming the healthcare system – in large part with the use of healthcare information technology. The gift does not come without strings, but it is a gift that holds at least as much promise as it presents challenges.
But even as we acknowledge this public present that has spurred both health IT activity and anxiety in all corners of the nation, there arrived another gift – a surprise from the private sector. It was made all the more precious because it was unexpected, and generous and meaningful. The gift – Convergent Medical Technology (CMT) is something Kaiser Permanente has been crafting over 16 years. Kaiser uses it to document thousands of patient encounters every day.
CMT underpins the Kaiser Permanente electronic health record called KP HealthConnect. Terms are captured within the EHR and turned into terms that patients can understand, Kaiser officials explained at the Sept. 29 unveiling of its gift. For example, MI (for myocardial infarction) turns in heart attack, or HT translates to hypertension. David Blumenthal, MD, the national coordinator of health IT, said, "It's like a continuous translation of different languages." Now Kaiser is making the technology available to help U.S. health professionals and hospitals achieve key meaningful use standards set forth by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The technology enables any vendor to incorporate the capability into their products and make them available to their clients.
Jack Cochran, MD, executive director of The Permanente Federation put it this way when he unveiled the gift:
"Better data is critical for better health. That is why physicians, nurses, and pharmacists worked together with technology specialists to develop CMT," he said "Modern medicine is very complex and information about a single patient can be reported in different ways by different doctors who are treating different conditions for the same patient. Utilizing a common terminology that translates complex medical concepts into language that is both clinician – and patient-friendly has helped us coordinate teams, improve the quality of care for our patients and enhance efficiency in our organization. We would like to share the tool we developed with the country."
The gift could not have come at a better time. In addition to being of immediate value to EHR developers and users, these resources will assist the distributed enhancement of standard vocabularies, such as SNOMED CT, to better meet U.S. and international needs. Kaiser Permanente has agreed to work with the IHTSDO, the owner of SNOMED CT, and its U.S. Member, the National Library of Medicine, to help make an internationally distributed network of terminology development a reality.
"The development and implementation of this terminology system was a strategic investment as part of our commitment to improve health care, and we are pleased to share it with providers across the country so that they and their patients can benefit from it as well,” said Kaiser Permanente CIO Phil Fasano.
Thank you, Kaiser.
