3-D technology presents doctors with new way to look at medicine 
A new three-dimensional technology is literally giving doctors at New York City's Cornell Medical College a new way to look at medicine. The technology, Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) is essentially a 3-D virtual reality room, according to Dr. Harel Weinstein, chairperson of Cornell's Department of Physiology and Biophysics. The process projects images on four walls to give researchers a view inside the molecular structure of cells and parts of the human body. CAVE, Weinstein notes, will help them better understand how to study and treat a variety of diseases located in places that they cannot physically penetrate, like the brain. CAVE uses a mathematical algorithm to rearrange normal two-dimensional MRI data segments to create a 3-D object. The result is a room where researchers can actually stand inside a representation of the anatomical structures they are studying. "We can go into cells, into organs, into the brain, and anywhere else," Weinstein said. Full Story

Physician Sentinel network to help Canada's doctors study chronic diseases 
Doctors across Canada now have access to a health information network designed to help treat patients with chronic diseases. According to Dr. Richard Birtwhistle, research director for the Centre for Studies in Primary Care at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, the nation's first "Physician Sentinel" surveillance program will assist family doctors with understanding and managing chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes by securely collecting vital information from patients' electronic medical records. The program has been piloted for the past two years by about 140 physicians in nine regions. Birtwhistle said the program will be expanded during a new five-year extension, enlisting 600 to 1,000 participating doctors and storing 600,000 to 1 million patient records. The compiled data will be used to unite information on the various chronic diseases, so patients' risk factors, medications, and history of developing the illness can be monitored.  Full Story

Automated adverse medication effects system could improve drug safety 
An automated medication side effects reporting system developed by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston drastically increases physician reporting of such events and can significantly improve the amount and quality of data reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a BWH study. "Our goal was to lower the burden for clinicians to report adverse drug events by incorporating the process into the electronic health record," BWH lead researcher Jeffrey Linder said. "In this study, we show that clinicians are open to participating in automated reporting, and by doing so they both increase efficiency and increase patient safety." For the study, physicians had access to an electronic reporting system for adverse drug events over a five-month period in 2008 and 2009. Twenty-six of the physicians used the electronic system to report 217 side effects to FDA regulators. Nearly 20 percent of the reports involved serious side effects, such as hospitalization, according to the study. Full Story

New patient monitoring, hospital check-in devices promise faster healthcare
Daily patient monitoring devices can reduce waiting times for patient care to a few minutes, and they can easily integrate with existing products in a patient's home or room, according to a report by researchers at Kaiser Permanente's Garfield Center in San Leandro, Calif. The center, used by the healthcare giant to test new technologies before they hit the market, is reviewing items similar to Apple's iPad or iPod as ways to keep patients connected to the medical world while they're away from the hospital, according to Sean Chai, the center's senior information technology manager. Potential future care items include a medication alert system resembling a small box that can easily be set up in a person's home, as well as ones that measure weight or blood pressure, Chai said. There are also efforts to design a self-check kiosk, similar to those at airport ticket counters, to help encourage patients to seek medical help and speed admission to the hospital, according to Garfield Center Director Jennifer Lieberman.  Full Story

KLAS unveils first letter grade-based report to rank EMR effectiveness 
Healthcare research firm KLAS has released the industry's first report that offers letter grades to electronic medical record (EMR) systems based on performance by physician specialty instead of practice size. "Ambulatory EMR - by Specialty" organizes EMRs by the 10 most-common medical specialties, from cardiology to primary care, and rates them on criteria such as cost effectiveness, ease of use and whether the systems worked as promised. The report, available for free at KLAS' Web site , takes the non-traditional approach because different practices have different functional needs, according to KLAS Director of Ambulatory Research Mark Wagner. All categories received grades of A to B-, with top recipients including family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, and advanced acute and chronic care. Full Story

States to begin linking prescription databases to help prevent drug abuse 
As of 2011, 34 states will begin linking databases to monitor prescription drug abuse. Over the past year, states have been asked to sign onto an agreement that allows police, pharmacies and physicians to check suspicious prescription pill patterns through the interlinked system, which would use technology and standards developed by the Justice and Homeland Security departments. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nationwide there were 27,658 overdose deaths from prescription medication in 2007, more than heroin and cocaine combined. The databases will alert physicians and pharmacies to patients who see several doctors to collect multiple prescriptions, letting them judge whether to refuse a potential abuser. Law enforcement officers say the databases allow them to document a pattern of abuse after investigations or informants identify a suspected pill dealer or "dirty doctor." Opponents worry that the databases will discourage people who legitimately need painkillers.  Full Story

Early Sense patient monitoring device receives clearance from FDA 
Ramat Gan, Israel-based patient monitoring device maker EarlySense has received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market its EverOn Central Display Station in the United States. According to EarlySense Chief Executive Officer Avner Halperin, EverOn gathers incoming data from up to 36 patient monitors for display at a nurse's station, and can send alerts directly to clinicians' mobile phones. The contact-free system continuously measures heart and respiration rates as well as motion levels, and alerts physicians if the patient's health declines. It also detects bed entries and exits, and patient turns, which is aimed to help minimize falls. Full Story

Indiana makes USA's first successful trek along national health data network
Indiana has become the first state in the U.S. to use the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) to transmit public health information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to State Health Commissioner Gregory N. Larkin, the transmission consisted of de-identified information on new cases of influenza, pneumonia, and influenza illness from 76 emergency departments across the state. Larkin said the NHIN will facilitate more prompt identification of public health trends because the network collects data faster than older methods of aggregating data. Other federal and private sector partnerships have already used the NHIN, a secure, information superhighway that exchanges healthcare information. These include the Social Security Administration, which uses the NHIN to exchange medical records to improve the disability determination process, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which uses it to exchange medical records to improve coordination of care between a veteran's healthcare providers. Full Story

Medicare goes online with 'Blue Button' process for EMR downloads 
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has launched a program that simplifies Medicare beneficiaries' ability to view, download and print their complete medical records. According to Aneesh Chopra, the White House's chief technology officer and associate director for technology, the Blue Button Health Assistant, available on the MyMedicare Web site , "eases the linkage of consumer information - including immunizations, allergies, medications, family health history (and) lab test results" for 47 million Medicare enrollees. The Blue Button is similar to a function enacted on the Department of Veterans Affairs' MyHealtheVet site in August. That "button" has proved extremely popular, with more than 60,000 veterans downloading their records through the system in less than two months. Under both systems, users will eventually be able to download health data from laboratories, pharmacies and physicians' offices, Chopra said. Full Story    Further Information

VA, DoD consider merging VistA and ALHTA EHRs in attempt to modernize
The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are considering creating a joint electronic health record (EHR) system as one way to modernize their aging medical records systems while reducing cost. According to Roger Baker, VA's assistant secretary for information and technology, the two agencies have been holding "a series of productive discussions" on how to proceed on their modernization goals for DoD's AHLTA and VA's VistA EHR systems. Merging the two is a possibility, but "not the only option" Baker said, because the departments have different needs, populations and locations to consider. VA and DoD are collaborating on several projects that involve partial integration of their EHR systems, including a project at the Capt. James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Chicago, in which AHLTA and VistA will co-exist with joint interfaces for VA and Navy systems. Full Story

'Cloud computing' could lead to better collaboration among healthcare firms
Healthcare providers might achieve greater communication and cooperation with each other through use of cloud computing, according to a report by HealthLeaders Media. The report notes that cloud computing, in which an online platform enables users to assemble, store and view medical data in real time, would also be more cost-effective because healthcare providers would only pay for what they use. Smaller practices could also benefit from using off-site servers for data management and storage. Healthcare decision makers are definitely interested: on average, two in five say they know at least a fair amount about cloud computing and 49 percent say their organization has used it, according to a survey conducted by London-based Ipsos Research for Microsoft. The most common use of cloud computing across all industries surveyed were collaboration (56 percent) and storage (48 percent), according to HealthLeaders.  Full Story

Movers & SHAKERS

Ben Heywood, President of PatientsLikeMe, discusses with the Wall Street Journal how research firm Nielsen improperly used data "scraping" to acquire data from their social networking site...Captain Michael Weiner, director of the U.S. Navy's Electronic Health Record Way Ahead project, discusses the project with Federal Computer Week...Wendy Thomas, founder and CEO of Mobile Health Expo, announced the lineup of speakers for the October 19-21 Mobile Health Expo...James A. Diegel, President and CEO of St. Charles Health System, announced they have chosen Allscripts as the electronic health record and practice management vendor for the system...Dan Weigel, Director of Human Resources for InTouch Health, announced they were opening an R&D operation in the Ann Arbor, Mich. area...Christine Cote, MD, chief medical officer of PDR Network, announced the drug alert distributor has delivered 6 million drug alerts and Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies...Steven Peltier, CEO of Nefsis, announced they had posted a report online that discusses HIPAA compliance for Web and video conferencing in telemedicine...David Pearah, formerly VP of the e-prescription business unit at Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, has been named CTO and senior VP of product management at Emmi Solutions...Mitch Fry has been named executive VP of business development for Halfpenny Technologies...Daniel O'Brien has been named CFO, Roger Newbury has been named senior VP of sales, and Jim Sheils has been named VP of sales for Halfpenny Technologies. Please send us your news on Movers and Shakers in the field.

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