Computers in healthcare最新文献

At press time, the details of the Clinton administration's healthcare reform package were not yet public. Some information has been leaked, however, fueling speculation about the plan's exact points. Computers in Healthcare asked three board members of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives what they thought the Clinton healthcare team should know about the information piece of the puzzle.

The relatively new concept of physician hospital organizations is gaining strength in the managed-care world. PHOs exist to make and maintain contractual arrangements--especially between employer groups and healthcare providers--and provide information services, physician referrals, utilization-management services and more.

At any node on the network implementation timeline, whether in the first planning stages or after the bottom-line benefits are stacking up, networking is a compelling idea. So compelling, with flexibility, cost-cutting results and strengthened community resources, that it extends its influence into the future of the organizations it serves. Two institutions, University Hospital in Denver and the Medical Center of Delaware in Wilmington, Del., illustrate networking's tempting benefits. University Hospital disabled its mainframe, switching to an Ungermann-Bass Access One smart hub in January of this year. Their systems are added to the network one-at-a-time, with plans for complete integration once everything is working online. In contrast, the Medical Center of Delaware shifted to networking in 1987, following a five-year implementation plan. The completed, integrated network is now a strategic tool for containing costs an MCD.

Health information networks are coming. Hospitals that plan ahead--using open architecture adhering to accepted standards--will have the competitive edge in an age of shared information.

Joel Ackerman serves as director of advanced technologies for Minneapolis-based ProviderLink, an electronic claims software subsidiary of United Healthcare Corporation. United Healthcare is a managed-care company that owns and operates 19 fee-for-service and capitated health maintenance organizations in 15 states serving almost two million members. In addition, United Healthcare has subsidiary operations selling services to more than 80 other Blue Cross Blue Shield plans and indemnity and HMOs--including its competitors. These services include managing departments such as pharmacy, providing specialized contract clinics like mental health or chemical dependency, performing utilization-review services, and providing computer outsourcing such as enrollment and electronic claims processing. Ackerman has been involved in both American National Standards Institute (ANSI) efforts and the Health and Human Service's Workgroup on Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI).

The time has come for healthcare providers to stop hoarding information. By building healthcare information networks, providers at all levels can gain a competitive edge not by "owning" information, but by better using richer, more complete, "shared" information.

As part of the general computer industry movement toward open systems, many are predicting UNIX will become the dominant host operating system of the late 1990s. To better understand this prediction within the healthcare setting, Computers in Healthcare surveyed our readership about their opinions of UNIX, its current use and its relative importance as an information services strategy. The upshot? CIH readers definitely want more systems on UNIX, more healthcare applications written for UNIX and more trained resource people to help them with faster installation and more useful applications.

At Bishop Clarkson Memorial Hospital in Omaha, CEO D. Max Francis has a passion. He talks it day and night. His managers will practice modern management processes and techniques. Where the majority of healthcare organizations are still remarkably hierarchical in their management structure, Clarkson Hospital has broken those traditional boundaries. Former Clarkson CIO Harry McQueen says that under the CEO's enthusiastic leadership, this regional tertiary-care center has undertaken business process redesign and has realized significant, measurable results.

Four of the top leaders in the American Health Information Management Association met with Computers in Healthcare, detailing their coalition-building efforts to make the computer-based patient record a reality. They reinforce their belief in the eventual reality of the CPR and its security, and call for sanctions and penalties for those who misappropriate or misuse patient records.