Quality and Safety

In one of the first large-scale empirical studies on the links between HIE participation and imaging in hospital emergency departments, researchers found redundant CT scans, X-rays and ultrasounds decreased fairly significantly -- with savings in the millions of dollars.

Karen DeSalvo, MD, appears to have the right background to understand the challenges facing the healthcare system. Beginning with her childhood experience as a public health clinic patient and including work as an internist managing a hospital's medical records committee, she has direct experience with the system at all levels.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has released what it calls Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience guides: nine toolkits to help providers make safer use of electronic health records and other technology.

A pilot project OhioHealth rolled out with IBM has resulted in a 90 percent compliance with hand-washing standards. That's a 20 percent jump for the hospital -- and markedly better than most other hospitals around the country that are at 50 percent.

The Mass HIway Health Information Exchange has entered into the next phase, with new tools for locating and retrieving medical records across the state. Gov. Deval L. Patrick and healthcare leaders gathered at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston on Jan. 8 to show how data exchange works -- on a secure network with the click of a button.

Patient portals have proven to be far more than just a convenient tool for patients to access their health information. These Web-based portals are also doing big things for improving care.

EarlySense, which develops and markets patient care solutions, has received FDA clearance for its EarlySense 2.0 System, a bedside monitor for continuous measurement of respiration rate, heart rate and motion, in an automatic and contact-free manner.

HIMSS Analytics awarded Cincinnati Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, with its Stage 7 Award, and 14 of its associated ambulatory clinics the Stage 7 Ambulatory Awards.

Hospitals were treading carefully around CPOE a decade ago, especially after Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles turned off its CPOE system in early 2003. Today is a different story. Meaningful use is helping to drive CPOE uptake, workflows are better designed and physicians expect more automation. Yet there remain many challenges, industry insiders say.

Three hospitals -- in Hawaii and Texas -- recently reached Stage 7, the highest level of HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Records Adoption Model, which is used to track EMR progress at hospitals and health systems.