Ramblings: I know I have been ‘quiet’.. but…

First thing first, as some readers have noticed, I’ve sort of ’slowed down’ in my posting of new content, especially my series of articles (thanks for the support).

I’ve been caught up with work (I know, that’s not an excuse) as well as my Master of Science (yes, I’m still working on it).

However, I do have some good news, my deadline for submitting the MSc project is on the 16th May 2008 (UK time), this means will soon have more time (I’ve already line up some followups for binaryhealthcare.com). the results obtained from my MSc project (Industry Research on Cardiology Informatics in ASEAN) has also proved to be extremely useful and I’m going to write an article based on it.

Now with good news comes bad news. Well, its not exactly that bad actually.
With the promotion where I got an increase of geographical coverage (from ASEAN to ASIA), I reckon I’m going to be extremely busy.

In addition, I had initially planned to do either of the following;

1. A ‘top up’ MSc in Health Informatics (to ‘top up’ from my Pg Dip in Medical Informatics) – Paid by me
2. A MBA – Paid by my company

Actually, I had wanted to do a qualification in Marketing as it related to part of my work but my boss ’sold’ me the idea how an MBA would be much better and that the company would pay for it. Now I’ve not quite decide which to take (although some external circumstances are seriously influencing my decision… but that’s another story for another day)

So in a nutshell, I’ve not forgotten about binaryhealthcare.com and I definitely have lots to write – just no time to type it, sometimes I wish I’m paid to run binaryhealthcare.com – any sponsors? :)

That’s all for now!

ProSolv CVIIS interfaces with Philips ultrasound software

“ProSolv CardioVascular, a FUJIFILM Medical Systems company, has interfaced its cardiovascular image and information systems (CVIIS) with Qlab, proprietary ultrasound software from Philips Healthcare. 

Facilities using Philips’ ultrasound systems will now benefit from the availability of Philips’ Qlab advanced 2D and 3D ultrasound quantification tools within the ProSolv CardioVascular application, delivering efficiency benefits for clinicians and enhancing the accuracy of diagnosis, said ProSolv.

More healthcare IT professionals needed for health IT adoption

While the job market is good for us in Healthcare Informatics (nope, working as a helpdesk or maintaining servers in a hospital does not count), I didn’t know that it was this good.

“As the healthcare system in the United States moves toward wider IT adoption, approximately 40,000 additional health IT professionals will be needed, according to a study presented to the House Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics.

The results showed the “overall IT staffing ratio to be 0.142 IT FTE [full-time equivalent] per hospital bed. Extrapolating to all hospitals beds in the United States, this suggests a total current hospital IT workforce size of 108,390 FTEs.”

Third ABII exam yields 87 new imaging informatics professionals

So there are now 270 CIIPs with 87 new CIIPs passing the 3rd American Board of Imaging Informatics (ABII) exam in back in March 2008.

According to the statistics,

• The first ABII exam in June 2007 was passed by 99 of 103 candidates, a 96 percent pass rate.
• The second exam in September 2007 was passed by 84 of 96 candidates, an 87.5 percent pass rate.
• The third exam in March 2008 was passed by 87 of 103 candidates, an 84.5 percent pass rate.

I think the folks at ABII are fine-tuning their exams, the passing rate is going down from 96% to the recent 84.5 percent (I reckon the good old bell curve is at work).

If you are interested (and located in the US), the next administration of the ABII exam will be held Sept. 26, at Pearson VUE centers across the country. The deadline for applications is July 20.

Google, Microsoft May Pose Threats to Patient Privacy

And the saga continues, the entrants by both industry giants not only raised several eyebrows but also questions that challenges how things are traditionally ‘operated’ before IT giants with resources and capabilities (know how) come into the picture.

The latest news remains on the area of patient privacy and I personally recommend the following 2 articles on the topic (that is, if one is interested at all)

1. Google, Microsoft May Pose Threats to Patient Privacy
2. Implications of Google, Microsoft storing health data questioned

Thats all for now.

New 3D imaging technology reveals heart’s secrets

This is a nice one

“A new type of echocardiogram that provides live 3D images of the beating heart moments before surgery is being used by cardiovascular surgeons and anesthesiologists at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.

The technology is expected to help surgeons better determine the course of open-heart surgeries and better treat people with heart failure, according to Melvin Platt, MD, medical director of cardiovascular surgery at the hospital.

“Ultrasound imaging is beneficial because it is a relatively non-invasive way to look inside the body,” said Platt. “But until now those images left many unanswered questions. There’s no question this technology adds a whole new dimension to what we’re able to see.”

Open Health Tools Initiative Targets 2009 for Major Release

“After two years of planning, a new open source collaborative site called Open Health Tools(OHT) is available to users, and will eventually offer a wide range of free tools and software for expediting EHR implementation and facilitating interoperability, says Skip McGaughy, OHT’s executive director. “

Now that’s nice

I suggest one (who deals with EHR / EMR as part of their job) takes some time to read the article here. It may be worth your while.

That’s it for now

Philips launches professional services portfolio for speech recognition

“Royal Philips Electronics has launched its services portfolio to enable its global network of SpeechMagic partners to access the company’s healthcare documentation support.

Philips said the aim of the portfolio is to facilitate the integration, deployment and support of the SpeechMagic platform while providing consultancy on productive medical reporting.
Source: Healthimaging.com

I like Philips’s SpeechMagic (where there are a few speech recognition software that I like), they are pretty good, but they do not solve all problems.

Maybe I should do an article on Structure Reporting, I think its a good topic (for both Radiology and Cardiology)

Microsoft releases Amalga in Europe

“Microsoft has released its Microsoft Amalga, which allows hospital enterprises to unlock their data from isolated clinical, financial and administrative services, for European availability.Source: Healthimaging.com

The company also said it is implementing a European Amalga early-adopter customer program, in which it will work with health providers to implement and deploy Amalga in various healthcare scenarios.

Implementing IT Solutions: Getting Physicians Onboard

“When implementing a health IT system or CPOE, a well thought-out training program is essential. Administrators, system administrators and physicians recommend the following steps

Aggressively sign physicians up for training.

Provide plenty of opportunities for retraining

Go to satellite and physicians’ offices.

Experiment with interim steps.

Beef up support staff.

Clearly identify support staff.

Bugs are inevitable.

Keep the directions posted and available”