Ramblings: RSNA 2008 and a vacation that never took place

An ex-colleague send me a text message earlier on to find out if I am at RSNA.

For the record – No, I’m not attending RSNA this year. Yes, its all exciting and where everything is happening at the moment I’m right here in Singapore, advocating the importance of healthcare informatics

And I am dead tired. I am supposed to be on leave (25th Nov – 7th Dec) but I’ve been pulling double-shift over the last few days (official work on the weekday, family work on the weekends). Its ironic because I took the leave to rest (to prevent a burnt-out) but in compliance to Murphy’s law, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

The good news however, is that my baby sitter is on leave from tomorrow till the end of the week, while this does not result in any rest on my end, it does almost guarantee in me being unable to partake in any work related emergency (hey, I’m on leave! Remember?) so someone might just realise that they have to stop throwing everything (including the kitchen sink) over to me (just because I can handle it)

I think for 2009, I should down play my trophy list a little, I need the personal hours for binaryhealthcare (and perharps to start on my PhD or MBA).

Ramblings: CHIU in the news

Finally, the official press release for CHIU (Committee of Healthcare Informatics Users) for Asia has been released (its available here).

For the interested, CHIU is an online platform aim at “raising the bar’ in the adoption and implementation of healthcare informatics through active intellectual participation, collaboration as well as the promotion of knowledge exchange and ongoing vendor neutral educational activities.

The user group is vendor netural and aims at representing physicians, paramedical professionals, IT professionals, biomedical Engineers and professionals in related disciplines.

Want to find out more? Surf on to www.DoYouCHIU.Asia

Joint Commission issues health IT recommendations for ‘hospitals of the future’

The Joint Commission has released a report offering guiding principles and actions for the hospital of the future to meet the challenges of older and sicker patients, patient safety and quality of care, economics and the work force.

An expert panel, comprised of hospital executives and clinical leaders, as well as experts in technology, healthcare economics, hospital design and patient safety, analyzed how socio-economic trends, technology, the physical environment of care, patient-centered care values and ongoing staffing challenges will impact the hospital of the future for the commission report.  

The commission said that there is “a growing gap between the have and have-not hospitals…an aging population and a continuing decline in employer-sponsored insurance means that hospitals can expect increases in publicly insured patients and uncompensated care.”

For hospitals to be economically viable in the future, the report said that hospitals, healthcare stakeholders and policymakers must:

• Align performance and payment systems to meet quality and efficiency goals;
• Use process improvement tools to increase efficiency and reduce costs;
• Pursue coverage options to ensure patient access to, and affordability of, healthcare services; and
• Address how acute hospitals and specialty hospitals can fulfill the social mission for healthcare delivery.

The report said that IT “plays a major role in improving healthcare quality and safety, and can help to support the migration of hospital-based care into the community and even the home.” The technological transformation of healthcare also invites the redefinition of the hospital, according to the report.

To address technology in the hospital of the future, the roundtable suggested to:

• Make the business case and sustainable funding to support the widespread adoption of health IT;
• Redesign business and care processes in tandem with health IT adoption;
• Use digital technology to support patient-centered hospital care and extend that care beyond the hospital walls;
• Establish reliable authorities to provide technology assessment and technology investment guidance for hospitals; and
• Adopt technologies that are labor-saving and integrative across the hospital.

“The importance of hospital-based care will not diminish in the future, but hospitals will have to meet the high expectations of the public and all stakeholders in an increasingly challenging environment,” says Mark R. Chassin, MD, president of the commission. “As they have been in the past, hospitals must be equally transformative as the future unfolds. The Joint Commission urges hospitals and public policymakers to use the principles in this report to achieve that aim.”

The report can be downloaded here

Toshiba is buying Barco advanced visualization business

Voxar 3D is changing hands (again), this time, it is being sold to Toshiba Medical Systems of Tokyo, Japan, via its newly formed, wholly owned subsidiary, Toshiba Medical Visualization Systems Europe (TMVS), located in Edinburgh, Scotland (phew, that’s a mouthful).

This acquisition translates to a boost for Toshiba for their in-house critical core competencies —the development of 3D volume rendering and advanced visualization capabilities for all Toshiba modalities, possibility increasing Toshiba’s potential as a global medical imaging technology leader.

Look out mates, here comes Toshiba !

iSOFT launches LORENZO

Ladies and Gentlemen, the moment we all have been waiting for… iSOFT launches LORENZO (well, IBA actually).

Actually, no, I’ve gotten over the hype (it has been way too long) and am not really that excited about LORENZO but I guess I must give IBA some credit for finally delivering it (well, not sure how much the the original promises are part of the release but….)

To cut the chase, the official press release can be found here, lets hope I get to see it in the field soon.

KLAS Offering Free Research Reports

Exciting news folks!

KLAS Research will be exhibiting for the first time in RSNA and part of their marketing strategy is this incredible offer of free vendor performance research to healthcare providers to assist in their review processes.

Available executive summary reports for download (at www.KLASresearch.com/freereport) includes,

• Cardiovascular/Interventional Radiology X-ray
• High-Field MR
• Speech Recognition
• Single-Cassette CR
• Digital Radiography
• PACS – Acute Care
• Digital Mammography
• Hand-Carried Ultrasound

Hurry up, offer is good till 5th Dec only

OsiriX and Merge Mobile for iPhone

Technology innovation excites me and today, the excitement is OsiriX for iPhone as well as Merge Mobile (also for the iPhone).

Before I start, I must make a disclaimer, I do not use the iPhone (I use a Dopod running Windows Mobile 6) but the inner techie in me thinks that the iPhone is very cool

Firstly, OsiriX for iPhone has arrived is now available for purchase from here.

Key features of OsiriX for iPhone includes

• Display and browsing through large sets of images through an interactive slider
• Zoom, Pan and rotation of the images through two-fingers drag and pinch
• Contrast and intensity adjustment of image window and level through single finger drag
• Rapid switch between image series through single finger screen ”swipe”
• Reset to image default size and setting through double tap
• Measurement of object sizes using a line measurement tool that can be set and adjusted by two fingers
• Measurement of image content data using a circular region of interest tool that can be drawn and moved with two fingers
• Fully DICOM compliant Listener (hmmmm, interesting)
• Preference setting for user DICOM communication settings
• Access to desktop database through web-based portal for retrieving image data
• Built-in help (duh….)

And for Merge, I didn’t manage to get much information for the website but there is a demo clip here.

MP3 earphones can hamper defibrillators, pacemakers

Brace yourselves mates, a study presented at an American Heart Association conference has found that MP3 player headphones placed within an inch of pacemakers or implantable defibrillators may interfere with the operation of the lifesaving cardiac devices.

It seems that the cause is due to neodymium, a magnetic substance contained in the MP3 player headphones, which impede proper functioning of the technology, posing a potential grave risk to patients who rely on these life saving devices.

“Exposure of a defibrillator to the headphones can temporarily deactivate the defibrillator,” said William Maisel, senior author of the study and director of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.”

The study concluded that in order to be operated safely, headphones accompanying the popular MP3 digital music players must be at least 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) from the implanted devices, this translates to users of such devices to not place MP3 player headphones in their pocket or drape them over their chest.

“For family members or friends of patients with implantable defibrillators,” said Maisel, “they should avoid wearing headphones and resting their head right on top of someone’s device.” Ouch!

The good news over, is that Maisel and his research team determined that outside studies have found no adverse reactions to pacemakers and defibrillators from other portable electronic devices like iPods, Bluetooth headsets, iPhones, electric blankets or hand-held airport metal detectors.

Go iPods!

Panasonic offers Toughbook for clinicians

Good news to fans of MCA (Mobile Clinical Assistant), there is another new player in town – Panasonic !

Introducing the Panasonic Toughbook CF-H1, touted as the first fully rugged MCA and “the first device of its kind to integrate the low power Intel Atom processor” (leading to six hours of battery life)

‘Designed by clinicians for clinicians’, the CF-H1 is a light-weight (about 1.5 kg), water-resistant, low surface heat, shock and drop-tolerant, disinfected (phew, that’s a mouthful) mobile computing device to meet the demands of a fast paced clinical environment while offering enhanced ergonomics over other MCA devices (like a comfortable-to-use integrated hand strap and conveniently placed barcode reader).

Other bells and whistles includes an integrated RFID reader, 2.0 megapixel auto-focus camera with dual LED lights, contactless smart card reader and fingerprint readers for user authentication.

In addition, the CF-H1 is designed for easy disinfection, fanless design (limiting opportunities for germs to be transported by the device), smooth surface with sealed buttons, a gapless LCD screen, basically leaving no no exposed ports, what so ever (cool!).

Are there any downside? I have no idea, never see / use the CF-H1 yet (maybe I should start a product review page) the Panasonic Toughbook H1 MCA will be available worldwide early next year but but for those interested, Panasonic Canada has evaluation units and is placing them with healthcare organizations that are interested in testing the device.

Unique health ID numbers could reduce medical errors, increase patient privacy

According to a new study from the RAND Corporation (with data provided by a consortium of health IT companies, including Cerner, CPSI, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, MISYS, Oracle and Siemens) – “Creating a unique patient identification number for every person in the United States would facilitate a reduction in medical errors, simplify the use of EMRs and help protect patient privacy”

I know what you are thinking of, its a “no brainer” but hear me out. For those who are new to implementing healthcare informatics solutions (especially HIS or EMR) on a large scale / national wide basis, the benefits might not be so obvious to them.

I’m not going to steal the thunder from the author, instead, I take this opportunity to invite you (the reader) to spend a minute or two on the original article and be reminder why sometimes, newbies still ask for clarification of a unique identifier

Read the original article here.