HHS Releases Healthcare IT Training Funds to Community Colleges

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hhs-releases-80-million-train-hit-workforce

The Department of Health and Human Services will release $80 million in grants to help develop and strengthen the health information technology workforce through community college training programs

Healthcare IT Savings Wishful Thinking?

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/health-it-savings-estimates-are-wishful-thinking-say-harvard-researchers

New Harvard study questions whether investment in healthcare IT actually improves hospital efficiency, cost-savings, and quality.

My take is that it is too early to get a definitive answer.  We are in the infancy stages and won’t be able to measure any significant ROI until we have critical mass of physicians and hospitals adopting robust electronic health records and engaging in electronic healthcare information exchange.

VHA, Kaiser, DoD Health Information Exchange Using NHIN

As announced in Healthcare IT News, VHA, DOD, and Kaiser will exchange health information using the NHIN Connect solution. VHA and Kaiser will be first out of the gate, with DOD expected to join in early calendar year 2010. Initial exchange will focus on a HITSP compliant c.32 document.

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/va-kaiser-plan-link-electronic-medical-records

Understanding Drupal

I am hearing a lot about Drupal, which appears to be a viable alternative to WordPress.

Per the Wiki, “Drupal (pronounced /ˈdruːpəl/) is a free and open source Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for many different types of websites, ranging from small personal blogs to Enterprise 2.0 collaboration and knowledge management uses to large corporate and political sites. High-traffic Drupal-based websites include ubuntu.com and seobook.com.[5] In October 2009, the administration of U.S. president Barack Obama adopted Drupal for the official Whitehouse.gov website. The standard release of Drupal, known as Drupal core, contains basic features common to most CMSs. These include the ability to register and maintain individual user accounts within a flexible and rich permission / privilege system, create and manage menus, RSS-feeds, customize page layout, perform logging, and administer the system. As installed, Drupal provides options to create a classic brochureware website, a single- or multi-user blog, an Internet forum, or a community website providing for User-generated content.”

This seminar looks like it is worth the money. I’ll check it out.

http://store.lullabot.com/products/understanding-drupal?gclid=CIarjoWhn54CFdlD5god_3WulA

Hospital Born Infections

Good site on hospital borne-infections.

http://haiwatchnews.com/

Vecna, Inc. has some interesting technologies to detect infections early and send alerts.

http://www.vecnamedical.com/solutions/quality_patient_safety/index.shtml

New Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Less Than World Class?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/12/AR2009091202432.html

Article by Dr. Steve Schimpff, former CEO, Maryland Medical Center. Note comment on importance of training and simulation labs.

Compare Hospital Quality: Hospital Value Index

http://www.hospitalvalueindex.com

Provides rankings of 4500 U.S. hospitals on mortality and readmission rates, plus core quality measures. It would be interesting to determine if the top ranked hospitals make greater investment in healthcare IT.