WirelessDoc

Quick links for medical wireless topics and related

"Conficker worm hits hospital devices"

"A few weeks ago, we discovered medical devices, MRI machines, infected with Conficker," said Marcus Sachs, director of the Internet Storm Center, an early warning system for Internet threats that is operated by the SANS Institute.

I went to the SANS Website and did some searching to find more about this story with no luck. I did look at their Internet Storm Center which told me that Adobe has released patches for the zero day threat associated with PDF readers.

"Implementing an Electronic Medical Record at a Residency Site: Physicians’ perceived Effects on Quality of Care, Documentation, and Productivity" (this links to a virtual viewer of the entire journal issue, but you can select certain pages and download as a PDF)

Published in this month's Wisconsin Medical Journal is this study that surveyed 38 physicians at a single family medicine residency clinic in which the NextGen EMR was installed. They "were surveyed at 3-month intervals regarding perceived impact of the EMR on quality of care, documentation, and productivity."

From the Abstract:

Conclusion:  Not only did physician production rise immediately, it stayed as the increased level for the duration of our study period. This may be due to improved documentation supporting more appropriate billing. However, physicians also perceived the EMR as taking up more of their time.

Pulse pen picks up sound and scribbles

I tried to order the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen when it first launched, but on checkout was told that it would take months to fill the order. Then I began to wonder if its microphone would really be capable of recording a lecturer's speech distinctly enough to make this purchase worthwhile. Recently, I've had several people recommend this product, but I'm still not sure if it will improve my workflow or just be another quirky gadget with another set of batteries I need to babysit.

The above link is to a review by a Vancouver reporter who vouched for the sound quality:

In one-on-one interviews, the recording is flawless—as good as any digital recorder’s. Writing with the pen has no effect on the audio, as expected. What surprised me, however, was how well the mike muffled background noise and picked up sound from speakers. When former prime minister Paul Martin made a speech at a noisy Chinese restaurant during the recent campaign, the Pulse picked up every word.

Maybe if I'm in a situation where I need to do multiple live interviews this product will be useful, but it seems intrusive if you want to engage in conversation. Mighty be too high on the scale of nerdiness for me.

NOTE: I keep updating this page throughout the day. I know that's not very blog-like, but it's more Twitter-like but with some permanence.

4th Nationwide Health Information Network Forum

This is the agenda included in the e-mail that was sent to me, but I couldn't find it on their Web site, so I'm posting it here in its entirety.

These are the forum supporters: Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

4th Nationwide Health Information Network Forum: 
Trial Implementations
December 11-12, 2007
Hyatt Regency Long Beach

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

8:00am – 9:00am          Registration, Regency Foyer

9:00am – 10:00am        Opening Plenary, Regency Ballroom

Welcome
John W. Loonsk, Director, Office of Interoperability and Standards, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

Laura Landry, Long Beach Network for Health

Robert M. Kolodner, Interim National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

Trial Implementations

John W. Loonsk, Director, Office of Interoperability and Standards, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

10:00am – 10:15am      Break                                                                                       Regency Foyer

10:15am – 11:00am      Plenary Presentations for engaging other types of NHIEs    Regency Ballroom

Moderator:  John W. Loonsk, Director, Office of Interoperability and Standards, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

The NHIN is envisioned to incorporate a number of different types of health information exchanges such as integrated delivery networks, health plans, and health data banks.  This plenary will feature perspectives from those types of HIEs that may participate in the NHIN.

11:00am – 12:00pm     Plenary Presentations from CA activities, Regency Ballroom

Moderator:  Lori L. Hack, Object Health

Camino de Salud & Long Beach Network for Health
Allen Miller & Laura Landry
Camino de Salud has developed an integrated operations network to better coordinate care and establish ongoing communication links amongst providers. Long Beach Network for Health is merging the operations from the Camino de Salud model with web-based cross-organizational health information exchange to provide both sustainability and improved quality of patient care for Safety Net consumers.

MiVIA
Kathy Ficco
MiVIA, an electronic (portable) Medi-Cal record is in the fourth year of implementation.   MiVIA is a secure web-based health record that is for single individuals and up to 8 family members.  Providers can access and upload diagnostics, Medi-Cal charts, and other health documents.   The site links to community resources and clinics in geographic areas so that patients can find health services in most communities.  In addition, there is a link to MedLine, providing consumer information on medication. Originally offered to agricultural workers, St. Joseph 's is now expanding MiVIA to the homeless population, another mobile population.   

Northern Sierra Rural Health Network
Ezequiel Sandoval
The Promoting Rural Health Care Quality through the Effective Use of Information Technology project aims to ensure that rural and safety net health care providers can participate in the development of regional, state, and national health information exchange (HIE) initiatives that will benefit underserved communities.  NSRHN conducted a comprehensive assessment to identify how the use of health information technology could improve the health care delivery systems of community clinics, rural hospitals, public health and private health care providers across a nine-county, sparsely populated region of Northeaster California.  The results of the survey identified three priority areas: Electronic Prescribing, Regional Disease Management, and Remote Access to Health Information.

12:00pm – 1:30pm       Lunch

1:30pm – 3:00pm         Concurrent Sessions               

1.1              A.  Introduction to the National HIT Agenda           Regency D/E/F

Moderator:      Lisa Carnahan, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Speaker:          Kelly Cronin, Director, Office of Programs and Coordination, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

B. Orientation to HITSP Interoperability Specifications

Moderator:      Lisa Carnahan, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Speakers:        Bob Yencha, Alschuler Associates, HITSP liaison to the NHIN

1.2              Population Uses of Health Data                                Beacon B

Moderator:      Simon Cohn, Kaiser Permanente, Chair, NCVHS

Speakers:        Laura Landry, Long Beach Network for Health
                        Maggie Gunter, Lovelace Clinic Foundation
                        Liesa Jenkins, CareSpark
                        TBA, Indiana University

1.3       Discussion of CCHIT Network Certification           Regency Ballroom

Moderator:      Mark Leavitt, CCHIT

Speakers:        Alisa Ray, CCHIT
                       Virginia Riehl, CCHIT

3:00pm – 3:30pm         Break                                                                                       Regency Foyer

3:30pm – 5:00pm         Concurrent Sessions

2.1       A.        HIE 101: Introduction to Health Information Exchange    
                                                                                                Regency D/E/F
            Moderator:      Michael Matthews, MedVirginia

Speakers:        Michael Matthews, MedVirginia
Tom Check, New York eHealth Collaborative
Ben Stein, New York eHealth Collaborative

B.        Gartner Review of HIE related products and services      

Speakers:        Wes Rishel, Gartner

2.2       Technical Trust Models                                            Beacon B

Moderator:      Dave Riley, Federal Health Architecture, NHIN Cooperative Technical and Security WG co-chair

Speakers:        Lori Hack, Object Health
                        Additional speakers TBA

2.3              Data Use and Reciprocal Support Activities            Regency Ballroom

Moderator:      Holt Anderson, NCHICA, NHIN Cooperative DURSA WG co-chair

Speakers:        DURSA WG update, Steve Gravely, MedVirginia
Update from HISPC, TBA
Update from State Alliance for eHealth Health Information Protection Taskforce, TBA

5:00pm                         Adjourn

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

8:00am – 9:30am          Registration, Regency Foyer

8:30am – 10:45am        General Session, Regency Ballroom

Moderator:      Kelly Cronin, Director, Office of Programs and Coordination, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

Using the NHIN Infrastructure for needs of Federal providers of care

Speakers:        Craig Miller, Federal Health Architecture
Terry Cullen, Indian Health Service
                        Celia Quivers, Department of Defense
                        Linda Fischetti, Veteran’s Health Administration

Sustainability Strategies

Speakers:        Gina Perez , Delaware Health Information Network
                        Marc Overhage, Indiana University
Additional speakers TBA

10:45am – 11:00am      Break, Regency Foyer

11:00am – 12:00pm     Closing Plenary, Regency Ballroom

NHIN Cooperative Working Group Reactor Panel

The trial implementations activities are being carried out thru Workgroups of the NHIN Cooperative.  Co-chairs of those Workgroups will provide a brief description of their activities and discuss the relevant input they have heard from this Forum.

http://www.hhs.gov/healthit/healthnetwork/forums/

AMIA announces 10x10 project

The American Medical Informatics Association is announcing their 10x10 initiative to set as a goal 10,000 trained informaticians by the year 2010.

This is from the email I received from them:

The first offering of 10x10 is a partnership with Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). AMIA 10x10 at OHSU current course will consist of 12-weeks of on-line training culminating in an intensive in-person 2-day session. (One full day of AMIA 2005 Tutorials, and one day final project work and networking with classmates and leaders in the field)The Web-based portion of the course will be provided through lectures, interactive discussions, and self-assessment tests. The in-person sessions will bring together attendees to integrate the material, allow presentation of course projects, and meet leaders in the field as well as other students.

Topics covered in the program:

• Overview of Discipline and its History
• Biomedical Computing
• Electronic Health Records and Health Information Exchange
• Decision Support: Evolution and Current Approaches
• Standards: Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security
• Evidence-based Medicine and Medical Decision-making
• Information Retrieval and Digital Libraries
• Bioinformatics
• Imaging Informatics and Telemedicine
• Consumer Health, Nursing, and Public Health Informatics
• Organization and Management Issues in Informatics
• Career and Professional Development

The tuition for this program is $2,000. The tuition covers both the on-line and in-person sessions. Additionally, 10x10 students will receive a one-year membership in AMIA.

Deadline to sign up for the current offering is July 6, 2005

Complete course information available at: http://www.amia.org/10x10