News

A new security report finds the average institution leaves terabytes of sensitive information exposed to unauthorized parties.

Organizations aim to advance the radiology community’s use of existing and emerging technologies.

A new cross-sectional study from Austria shows that more often patients go straight to the specialist.

From the pacemaker to the joint replacement: an online registration for implants should soon be obligatory in Germany - and increase patient safety.

InterSystems has included a unified provider directory as part of its HealthShare suite of connected health solutions, aiming to drive collaboration and innovation across the care continuum. HealthShare brings together health providers, patients and payers with a unified care record and the newest member of the suite, HealthShare Provider Directory – available as part of HealthShare 2019.1 – is a single source of information for provider demographic and professional relationship information. Specifically, it is a master data management solution that automates the process of collecting, consolidating and publishing accurate provider information. The latest HealthShare release also includes enhancements to its clinical viewer, expanded HL7 FHIR capabilities and out-of-the-box analytics functionality. The move follows recent news that InterSystems launched a new TrakCare clinical system that allows healthcare professionals to use touchscreen devices to create patient notes with swipes and taps, capture images and barcodes via camera, and add information by voice. According to the company, the upgrades to HealthShare enable users to more easily comply with regulations, enhance customer service and improve the efficiency of any business process that requires up-to-date and accurate provider information. InterSystems HealthShare Vice-President Don Woodlock said the latest version of HealthShare offers more functionality, scalability, communication and extended decision support. Woodlock added that inaccurate provider information has consequences for patients, payers and providers themselves as wrong telephone numbers and location information limits access to care. [Read more: InterSystems launches recruitment drive for its pioneering NT digital health system roll out | InterSystems lands $259 million Northern Territory healthcare IT project] In addition, he said inaccurate information propagated across multiple clinical and administrative systems at a hospital or integrated delivery network can negatively impact efficiency and cash flow. “Interoperability and information exchange are hot topics now, but technology can do better than simply moving data around,” he said. “If government initiatives are going to be the foundation for innovation in healthcare, organisations need to aggregate information and build upon a true unified care record – then put the data to use to improve patient care experience, drive down costs and improve the health of populations.” In addition, as part of the updated release, InterSystems has also renamed its flagship HealthShare product module, HealthShare Information Exchange, to HealthShare Unified Care Record.

As health systems merge, the need to reconcile data sets from disparate EHR systems for population health and quality improvement is critical, and artificial intelligence can help, the company says.

The hospital has been able to use the Amazon Web Services-based interface engine to send hundreds of millions of messages both internally and externally.

HIMSS Insights speaks to Mikel Hernaez, director of computational genomics at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois.

Earlier this week, the Western Australia (WA) Government announced the establishment of a new Ministerial Council that will advise the State Government on opportunities to further develop and support precision health advances. Precision health uses new and emerging technologies to enhance disease prevention and early detection, and improve patient outcomes through treatments tailored to patients' individual genetic profiles, as well as their variable responses to the environment and lifestyle.  The Precision Health Council will be chaired by South Metropolitan MLC Kate Doust and is expected to hold its first meeting within the coming months. According to the official statement, the council will comprise stakeholder representatives from medicine, science, industry, Aboriginal health, patient organisations, medical research and commercialisation, as well as experts from key precision health-related technologies of genomics, phenomics, informatics and geographical information systems. Early priorities of the council will include identifying and enhancing successful precision health initiatives already operating in WA's health system, and determining key areas that could benefit from increased integration of precision health measures. On the record “Western Australia already benefits from emerging precision health initiatives such as the Undiagnosed Diseases Program of WA (which provides earlier diagnosis for people with rare and baffling medical conditions), and the Australian Genomics Cancer Medicine Program (which harnesses precision genomics technology to match patients with rare and untreatable cancers to tailored clinical trials).” “I look forward to being advised by the new council about potential advances in this exciting field,” said Health Minister Roger Cook in a statement.

ACT Health is rolling out Wavelink’s Spectralink Versity enterprise mobility solution across five of its facilities, including Canberra Hospital. The deal involves the roll out of 2000 of the Spectralink Versity handsets by July. Spectralink Versity is an Android smartphone, purpose-built for healthcare. It is durable, waterproof, and has secure messaging capabilities, in addition to personalised settings for each user. A higher-grade model has a barcode scanner, which enables integration into EMRs. ACT Health will be using a combination of both models. Wavelink Health Practice Lead Alan Stocker told HITNA that part of the evaluation criteria that it went through was a checklist of requirements such durability, being able to be used with medical gloves and a single sign-on for practitioners. “ACT Health is effectively ditching the utility belt, which sees healthcare professionals carrying a number of utility devices like hospital issued phones, pagers and barcode scanners. They carry around about five devices at any given time,” he said. “As it was managing a number of devices, this also meant that it had in place different maintenance contracts and multiple relationships with various vendors. And even with a number of devices, they weren’t delivering on what ACT Health wanted to do.” Spectralink Versity eliminates that as it integrates all the uses of multiple devices into one. According to Stocker, the units are designed to be used in an enterprise environment and also integrate with EMRs. “A medical practitioner doing their rounds can go up to a patient, load up their EMR app, scan the patient’s hospital wristband, which then brings up their information,” he said. “In addition, before we sell this to a hospital, we look at their wi-fi networks and make sure that it’s enterprise-grade. This means that we make sure of coverage no matter where Spectralink Versity is being used in the facility as if there’s a black spot, the healthcare professionals are not going to be receiving critical messages.” [Read more: ACT Health replaces outdated bedside whiteboards with digital bedside technology | Royal Darwin Hospital improves patient care with virtual desktop program] The devices connect to an electronic dashboard, which manages a number of functions, such as real-time staff whereabouts and rostering. Stocker said with interoperability and connected devices becoming more prevalent in other parts of the world, Australian healthcare organisations need to keep up to stay ahead of the curve. “In Australia, we haven’t quite seen the adoption of many smart devices in hospitals. We’re about five years behind to countries like the US. So, connected health is a huge part of Wavelink and we’re now driving this strategy to make healthcare easier for practitioners,” he added. Spectralink Versity has also been taken by Northern Hospital in North Melbourne, a number of aged care groups including Arcare, Shepparton Villages, TLC Aged Care and Townsville Aged Care, as well as in smaller quantities at a couple of other hospitals. The company is also running a number of proof-of-concept trials with hospitals and state health groups around the country.