Category Archives: Health-IT Successes

InfoTechPharma� 2005

IBC’s 9th Annual Conference
InfoTechPharma(R) 2005
Innovative IT Systems and Applications to Support and
Accelerate R&D
15-16 March 2005, Novotel London West, London, UK
http://www.infotechpharma.com
IBC’s 9th Annual Conference
InfoTechPharma(R) 2005
Innovative IT Systems and Applications to Support and
Accelerate R&D
15-16 March 2005, Novotel London West, London, UK
http://www.infotechpharma.com

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Two Clinics Choose Open Source EMR – OpenEMR

San Diego, California — July 5, 2004 — Pennington Firm, an open source software development company, is chosen by two clinics to implement the open source electronic medical record (EMR) application OpenEMR. Clinics choosing OpenEMR in June 2004 are: West Marion Family Medicine in Florida; and Operation Samahan in California. Pennington Firm is assisting both with electronic billing using a clearinghouse. OpenEMR supports two clearinghouses, ProxyMed and ZirMed. OpenEMR has the ability to submit in the ANSI X12 format, allowing clinics to make direct submissions to payers such as Medicare or Medicaid.

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Electronic Medical Records: Lessons from Small Physician Practices

Full article here:http://www.chcf.org/topics/view.cfm?itemID=21521
University of California, San Francisco
This project provides solo and small group physicians with practical information on electronic medical records (EMRs) implementation and use. This group was the focus for two reasons. Although estimates of actual EMR use rates are relatively low�likely substantially less than 13 percent�estimates of physician interest in EMRs are substantially higher, ranging from 31 percent to more than 65 percent of all physicians nationwide. In addition, approximately 70 percent of active, practicing physicians in California work independently or in small groups of ten physicians or fewer; yet, little has been published on their experience using EMRs.

This report will be of interest to employers and employer coalitions that provide health care benefits, policymakers in government that craft legislation, managers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and research and demonstration funding agencies. These stakeholders increasingly recognize that the use of information technology and electronic medical records are critical to improving quality of care. Understanding EMR use in solo/small groups can help policymakers craft policies that can hasten electronic medical records adoption.

Mercy Ships formulary available at drugref.org

The Mercy Ships drug formulary has been made available for download at drugref.org. It is based on the WHO model formulary. Many thanks to the hard working volunteers who made this most useful 100+ page work of drug information possible. We now call for volunteers to convert this information into a machine interpretable format in order to integrate dosing and indication information etc. into decision support modules and the drugref database.

Cardiology Practice Moves to Linux

a href=”http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7018242169.html”>Here is an interview on DesktopLinux.com with Dr. Martin Echt, Cardiologist who moved: ‘… his 200-user network to Linux-based thin clients. The NY medical practice’s conversion to Linux has improved performance, reduced costs, and increased stability. Capital Cardiology Associates’ (CCA) cares for over 40,000 patients, makes 40,000 hospital visits, and performs more than 30,000 diagnostic procedures like open heart surgery in 6 offices and 8 hospitals. The decision to move met stict requirements to accomodate all levels of users, delivers secure exchange of information, and was easily introduced into an existing system…’

Hospital Case Study of FOSS Use

Joseph Dal-Molin found this case study of Open Source Software in a Dublin, Ireland hospital: ‘This study describes the implementation of open source software in a
large Irish public sector organization, Beaumont Hospital. The findings
reveal a radical shift in open source deployment from invisible
horizontal infrastructure systems to highly visible vertical
applications. The case study describes the implementation of these
systems, the difficulties encountered, and also the benefits in terms of
astonishing cost savings of �13m over 5 years. Given that Beaumont
were already receiving academic pricing discounts for many of their
original proprietary closed source applications, the savings for a
typical commercial organization could be even higher. The study also
identifies the primary drivers in the move to OSS, namely principle,
pragmatism and practicality…’

Open Source Order Entry Preferred Over Closed

JAMIA reported in this research article that Physician’s preferred the Free/Open Source based order entry system in the Veterans Administration VistA software versus a commercial one: ‘…Overall, house staff were dissatisfied with the commercial system, giving it an overall mean score of 3.67 (95 percent confidence interval [95%CI], 3.37-3.97). In contrast, the CPRS had a mean score of 7.21 (95% CI, 7.00-7.43), indicating that house staff were satisfied with the system…’ While this data is compelling, it is worth pointing out that Free/Open Source Software does not pre-clude or exclude commercial companies from selling installation, support, training and documentation for it. They just don’t ask you to give up your rights in doing so.

Open Source Order Entry Preferred Over Closed

JAMIA reported in this research article that Physician’s preferred the Free/Open Source based order entry system in the Veterans Administration VistA software versus a commercial one: ‘…Overall, house staff were dissatisfied with the commercial system, giving it an overall mean score of 3.67 (95 percent confidence interval [95%CI], 3.37-3.97). In contrast, the CPRS had a mean score of 7.21 (95% CI, 7.00-7.43), indicating that house staff were satisfied with the system…’ While this data is compelling, it is worth pointing out that Free/Open Source Software does not pre-clude or exclude commercial companies from selling installation, support, training and documentation for it. They just don’t ask you to give up your rights in doing so.