If you’re still apprehensive about committing to an EMR system, Healthcare IT News had a recent article called “10 Technologies to Embrace Before EMRs.” They list:

1. Electronic prescribing
2. Email
3. Microsoft Office 365 and/or Google apps
4. Clinical groupware
5. Patient registry and CCR bulletin board
6. Document imaging
7. Clinical content repository (CMS)
8. Electronic lab reporting
9. Electronic transcribing
10. Speech recognition

Although these don’t purport to be presented in any particular order, we found it interesting that e-prescribing is listed first. Since Michigan doctors are already prolific users of electronic prescriptions, you might be familiar with this technology already.

And the second item is email, which almost everyone uses these days.

The rest might be slightly less familiar, but, rest assured, with the right direction, none of these are particularly difficult to use.

The article does a good job of explaining each of these, but if you need assistance understanding what these are – or are ready to integrate more technology into your medical practice – just give us a call at 810-355-2280, or see our contact page.

We could hardly call ourselves an IT company without commenting on Steve Jobs and the massive contribution he made to the world of computers.

While most people think immediately of the Macintosh, iPhone and other popular Apple devices produced under his meticulous direction, Healthcare IT News online itemizes several areas where Jobs’ innovations have changed – and are still changing – the way we use computers in health care. An excerpt:

Many big-name electronic health records vendors have developed iPhone or iPad access capabilities. There's also an increasing number of iPad-native EHRs. The devices have proved their worth from the get-go when it comes to telehealth – and the new iPhone 4S (with its 8 megapixel camera and 1080p HD video capabilities) looks to be even-better suited for remote diagnoses in time-sensitive emergencies. The galaxy of self-monitoring, smoking cessation, fitness and assorted other mHealth apps in Apple's App Store have helped bring about a new era in personal health.

Read the full article here.

Steven Paul Jobs, February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011.

To many who grew up watching movies like War Games, Hackers, and The Net, the threat to your computer network by some shadowy criminal infiltrating your system from a remote location seems very real.

However, a recent story from Information Week says that the actual biggest threat to health IT security is something far more mundane – physical theft.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has been tracking “breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals” since September 2009.

The Information Week article reports that almost half of HIPAA violations affecting more than 500 individuals resulted from theft of computer equipment and paper records. In fact, hacker attacks ranked only fifth out of six types of security breach causes. Here is the list:

• Theft – 49%
• Unauthorized access and disclosure – 16%
• Loss – 14%
• Combination – 9%
• Hacking – 6%
• Improper disposal of non-electronic records – 5%

What You Can Do

Clearly, these findings do not mean it’s perfectly ok to turn off your firewall and give away your passwords. In fact, we’re inclined to think that the fear of being hacked – driving health care centers to take precautions – probably contributes to the low number of “IT incidents.”

However, a number of loss- and theft-related breaches, not surprisingly, came from “portable electronic devices” and laptops. We recommend not storing patient information on laptops or tablets, but using these devices to access data securely stored on a central server. Information stored on USB flash drives and CDs for transportation or archiving should be encrypted. In addition, simply being more aware of these devices, such as not leaving them unattended and making sure they are with you when leaving airplanes, taxis, and the like, is another common-sense approach. 

If you aren't a little bit spooked by the national weather lately, you haven’t been paying attention.

At 1,243 tornadoes so far in 2011, we’re only 50 tornadoes away from topping the average per year over the last decade (1,293). And hurricane season, with its associated twisters, hasn’t even started.

Here in Michigan, we’ve even had wide-ranging tornado watches and warnings – and even confirmed touchdowns – just in the past week.

How’s your disaster preparedness plan coming along?

Our hats go off to the staff at St. John’s Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri. When the sirens went off, the staff implemented the hospital’s emergency plan, which very likely saved many lives. Only 5 patients in the hospital died despite the building taking a direct hit from the EF5 twister.

Less than a week after the tornado hit, a temporary facility opened at the edge of the hospital’s parking lot with 60 inpatient beds, an ER, MRI and CT scanners, and even surgery suites.

“We’ll be able to do everything we need to do for patients we see here. We’ll make sure they are able to get their medicines and the treatments they need. Their wounds will be cared for and their daily needs will be met, vital signs monitored, telemetry, lab work, all of that will be done,” said St. John’s Mercy nurse Marilyn Welling.

Perhaps most reassuring of all, the temporary building is designed to stand in the face of 100 mph winds.

The temporary facility is also reconnected to St. John’s Mercy Hospital’s electronic health record system. In an epic example of perfect timing, the system had just gone live May 1.

Dr. Bob Dodson, who is coordinating the temporary hospital set-up, explains, “Our electronic health record contains all of the records of our patients before the storm. We don’t have to worry about losing a paper chart or having it damaged by water or rain.”

Even if you choose not to invest in an EMR at this time, simple steps like hosted servers or off-site data backup can help protect your patient data in a weather-related emergency or other disaster, such as flooding or fire.

If you’d like more information about disaster plans, data recovery, or electronic health record systems, please contact us today. We’ll be happy to help you out.