At last week’s Meaningful Use Workgroup meeting, Leslie Kelly Hall and I reviewed the HIT Standards Committee recommendations for patient generated healthcare data from online applications and devices.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Management lessons learned from A Game of Thrones
A Game of Thrones is the first novel in A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of high fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin.
I rarely watch television, but for Christmas, my wife bought me Season 1 of Game of Thrones, the HBO series inspired by the novels. Don’t worry, this blog post will not contain any spoilers.
The year that was 2013
As the year drew to a close, I was interviewed by many trade publications about the key themes that shaped 2013. Here’s my own version of the notable events of 2013.
1. Meaningful Use changed the EHR landscape
Regardless of your political affiliation, there is little debate that EHR adoption in the US achieved a tipping point in 2013.
Meaningful use and certification improvements
HHS circulated the following important announcement:
"CMS to Propose New Timeline for Meaningful Use Implementation and ONC to Propose New Regulatory Approach to Certification
Google Glass progress report
Our teams continue to work on Google Glass applications for Emergency Department workflow improvement. Here’s a photo of our team at work with a stealthy startup developing healthcare solutions on Google Glass.
Lessons learned from the health insurance exchange launch
CIOs face many pressures – increase scope, reduce timelines, trim budgets. After nearly 20 years as a CIO, I’ve learned a great deal about project success factors.
When faced with go live pressures, I tell my staff the following:
"If you go live months late when you’re ready, no one will ever remember.
The innovator’s challenge
I’ve written many blog posts about our efforts along the path to ICD-10 that will enhance our inpatient clinical documentation. We’re hard at work planning the improvements we think are foundational to support care coordination, compliance, and quality measurement goals.
The healthcare IT applications of Google Glass
Last week I had the opportunity to test Google Glass.
It’s basically an Android smartphone (without the cellular transmitter) capable of running Android apps, built into a pair of glasses.
The law of unintended consequences: Transparency rules may harm sickest patients | MassDevice.com On Call
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — A new study out of Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston suggests that transparency rules might have negative consequences for very sick heart patients.
The study evaluated the frequency of coronary stent implantation in 116,227 Bay State patients, finding that "outlier" hospitals – pegged for having higher-than-average death rates – were less likely to accept the sickest patients.
Patient and family engagement in ICUs
My father died 2 months ago and now with a bit of distance from that emotional event, it’s time to further reflect on technology to support patients and families in ICUs.
BIDMC has been speaking with a major foundation about creating a cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional, open source application to turn critical care data into wisdom for patients and families.
How might it work? Let me use my father as an example.
Personal health record use by adolescents
In response to many questions about PHR use by adolescents, I asked Fabienne Bourgeois, the expert at Children’s Hospital Boston, to write this guest blog post –
As more and more practices and hospitals are making patient portals available to their patients, providers of adolescent patients are encountering a major hurdle: how to handle confidential adolescent information.