Ramblings: ICE seminar (Innovation, Commercialisation, Entrepreneurship) at Temasek Polytechnic

I was supposed to attend a seminar on “Innovation & Entrepreneurship Fair and Seminar” organized by the Global Entrepreneurship Week at Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore.

I actually arrived pretty earlier – at 1pm and proceed to local an available eatery for lunch (boy was it crowded) before attending the fair of 10 booths (which I finish examining in less than 15 minutes, after trying to gain some intelligent answers out from the participating students).

I was getting bored as the seminars starts at 2pm and I had 45 minutes on-hand, I needed to get productive (I don’t even find enough time to sleep these days, there is no way I’ll spend 45 minutes doing nothing). So I whipped out my phone and started to go through my calendar and by 1:45pm, the phone battery went flat (ouch).

It would seem that although I had decent power reserved for the day, I had forgotten to turn off the ‘Port Splitter’ I used to enable my GPS (I had to use the GPS earlier on to find my way to two unfamiliar locations). I took it as a sign from above and headed to my car, arriving back home at 2:15pm and resume writing my book.

Now that was the dose of  “Innovation, Commercialization, Entrepreneurship” I got out of the “Innovation & Entrepreneurship Fair and Seminar”.

Ah well, such is life

Ramblings: My Next 2 Speaking Slots

My next two speaking slots are on the same topic: Workflow Preparation and Automation Solutions to Strengthen and Enhance Hospital Operational Efficiencies.

The two conferences are organized by MedTech Dynamics Asia and will be held at;

1. Tokyo (Japan) on the 12th November 2009 @ Hyatt Regency Tokyo
2. Delhi (India) on the 3rd December 2009 @ The Leela Kempinski Gurgaon

Do let me know if you are attending either conferences and want to catch up.

 

Ramblings: I was off on a holiday in Korea

Guess what, I was on a holiday in Korea from the 28th Oct (the day after I took the CPHIMS exam) to 3rd Nov 09 (arrived at Singapore at night-time) and it slipped my mind to update you guys of my absence.

I do have some interesting observation to share on the medical tourism sector in Korea but I’ll leave the details in a later post as I’m still a little groggy (I suspect I’m having a mild case of jet lag).

 

Panel: Health IT professional shortfall underestimated

Good news fellow Healthcare Informatics Professionals, HealthImaging.com ran an article that the Connected Health Symposium (USA) projected a shortage of some 50,000 health IT professionals (in the USA alone, imagine the rest of the world).

BOSTON–A projected shortage of some 50,000 health IT professionals in the United States is most likely an underestimate by the federal government, according to a panel discussion at the Connected Health Symposium on Thursday.

Panelists John Glaser, MD, vice president and chief imaging officer for Partners HealthCare; Eileen Sporing, chief nursing officer at Children’s Hospital Boston; and Andrew Vaz, national director of life sciences at Deloitte Consulting, shared a bevy of professional insights on current health IT market trends and its future direction.

Andrews said he believes that a projected shortage of 50,000 health IT professionals underestimates the market need by about 20 to 30 percent.

Vaz said that offshoring and emerging markets in China will contribute to an IT explosion “to win the war in talent.” Sporing said computer scientists are going to have to help providers expand the role of health IT in the future. Glaser acknowledged that the American Recovery and Reimbursement Act (ARRA) will force health IT professionals to hit the ground running when meaningful use is defined.

He said that the new health IT employment opportunities will need to be occupied in a relatively short amount of time, and all will require staff with the proper training.

According to the panel, the cost of health IT training may be a burden that providers have to shoulder.

Glaser noted that the federal government will put “some money” on the table for curriculum and to jumpstart the process. Increasingly, organizations will front money to bring in talent, Glaser said. He predicted that certification programs will proliferate, as the need for health IT professionals continues to grow.

The panel predicted that individuals also will shoulder some training costs in order to provide themselves with a competitive edge in the job market.

Vaz said that one of the biggest challenges facilities face is obtaining experienced project managers and information system designers. Glaser agreed, noting that “an element of effectiveness comes with experience.”

In a question-and-answer session, Jay Sanders, MD, president and CEO of the Global Telemedicine Group, said he had no doubt that an infrastructure will be set in place for EHR meaningful use requirements. His concern was that the “integrity of the information infrastructure” might be compromised.

“That is a persistent and never-ending challenge,” Glaser responded, adding that there will always be inherent limitations on the quality of data. Glaser noted that you’ll always want to piggy-back “knowledge to complement the algorithms.”

Digirad Debuts Fee-per-Study Web Based Cardiology PACS and CVIS

And Digrad jumps on the bandwagon.

Digrad Corporation, Poway, Calif. has launched c.pax™, a new web based cardiology PACS and cardio vascular information system (CVIS). The combined structured reporting and picture archiving and communication system is an online solution specifically for cardiology applications.

“c.pax will offer our many cardiology clients a tremendous workflow enhancement opportunity as well as greatly improve their quality of life by enabling instant web-access to all of their patients’ imaging studies and reports,” said Digirad CEO Todd Clyde in the press release.

c.pax includes remote archiving, web-based multi-modality viewing, analysis and intelligent structured reporting, as well as a remote archiving system that lets physicians edit and complete reports remotely, while eliminating the administrative task of implementing and maintaining a local archive. It is also DICOM compatible.

The c.pax costs are structured on a fee-for-service basis, rather than purchasing the PACS system and service contract separately, saving large capital upfront costs. In addition, as a secure web-based solution, physicians are able to perform diagnostic work and submit reports from any computer, regardless of location.

Lets see, Web Based and Fee-For-Service, maybe these guys have been attending my talks. (just joking guys).

On a serious note, I didn’t manage to find out what sort of modalities Digrad’s CVPACS covers so I can’t cover on the breath (nor depth) of the solution. One thing I did notice is that it is (so far) only available in the USA so I reckon it’ll be awhile before I get to see it in action.

Updates: binaryHealthCare as a Social Enterprise

Alright, I reckon its time to announce the birth of binaryHealthCare as a Social Enterprise.

As you might have noticed, I have been focusing most of my time at ClubPACS.com, trying to build up the online community and there is a good reason why.

After attending the Entrepreneurship course and chatting with an old friend in the health informatics industry, I sat down and rethink on how to best utilize my time and resource on the various (related) side projects (binaryHealthCare, PACSAdminDay, ClubPACS etc) and worked out a ‘business plan’ to reorganize the various initiatives into a Social Enterprise.

The mission of binaryHealthCare as a Social Enterprise is to advocate Health IT as an enabler for “better patient care at lower cost” by raising the standards of health informatics through training, continuing education and providing a vendor neutral community for knowledge exchange and collaboration.

Sounds lofty? Not really, if you think about it, the various initiatives launched have been working towards this mission except that the synergy is lower. Having said that, my efforts will most probably be insufficient (although a recent turn of events has freed up more time for me).

So stay tune for more updates.

Cheers

Adam Chee
Chief Advocate

Ramblings: Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS)

So what I been busy with?

Well, it was originally work but from today onwards, I’d be concentrating more on a few other things and among them would be an upcoming certification – the Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS) examination administered by HIMSS.

I’m scheduled to take the exam on the 27th Oct 2009 and will post more about the actual test at a later date but let me share my thoughts on the Core Body Of Knowledge (CBOK) as I go through the materials for my preparation.

According to HIMSS, CPHIMS is a professional certification program for healthcare information and management systems professionals and this really sums up what the certification is all about and it’s intended audience.

I personally feel that the CBOK has been pretty well design as it comprises of not only the critical skillset and knowledge that a Health IT Professional should process but also the related CBOK like HR Financial.

The usual suspects includes System Analysis and Design, Project Management, Quality Improvement, Database Management System, Inforcomm Security, DR & BCP, Outsourcing, Software Testing, Service Management and of course, basic stuff on Healthcare that includes regulation, health systems and workflow.

Sounds challenging? Definitely.

Sounds impossible? Definitely not.

I can imagine that any experienced Health IT Professional who have his/her fair share of ‘battle scars’ to process the above CBOK because one would need to process a fair understanding of all the domains of knowledge mentioned above (and more) to effectively manage their daily roles in Health IT Management.

HIMSS also publish a Candidate handbook that illustrate the CBOK and where the emphasis is. I think it is a useful read before determining if one would like to embark on the certification. The handbook can be downloaded here

I’ll post more on CPHIMS as I go along or after I take the exam to share more

Updates: New Article – Do Health IT vendors understand hospitals

“Do IT health vendors understand hospitals” is an article I wrote out of ‘inspiration’ arising from a question of the same title from a media company. I’ve written it in such a way that the reader will raise questions of their own and attempt to answer them while figuring out what applies to them (in their environment, culture).

I hope you enjoy the article.

Regards
Adam.

Ramblings: My SIM card went dead (and why it relates to health informatics)

I’d like to share something interesting that happened to me last week – my SIM card went dead all of a sudden (while I was using the phone).

Now my first reaction when that happened was – the phone is faulty and for the record, it’s a brand new phone (My Dopod was functioning fine but the battery is so old that it can no longer last for more than 1/2 a day so I got myself a new phone) and I did what any self-respecting techie will do – try to troubleshoot.

I tested my faulty SIM card with my 2 other mobile phones – didn’t work, I tested my wife’s SIM card with my phone – worked fine. So it was obvious, my SIM card malfunction in the midst of its usage and I had no choice but the wait till the next day to visit the service center to get it replaced.

My visit to the service (for this purpose) was;

1. Time consuming as I had to forgo my lunch, drive to the nearest service centre, queue and wait for quite a fair bit
2. Non-informative as the customer service representative didn’t provide a reason for why the SIM card fail (but he was not even remotely surprised so I suspect this happens quite often)

Now, what does this have to do with health informatics?

Well to reconstruct this scenario in the world of let say, medical imaging informatics;

1. A technical error occurred, the first thing that the end-user will think that the fault lies with the PACS solution, however, it could easily be due to the network, hospital’s HIS, modality, other hardware component failures, anti-virus, firewall  etc. The PACS itself could be functioning properly but it will get the ‘blame’ as it is the main component that the end-user is facing when an error occurs
2. Now it would be unreasonable to expect clinical end-user to perform troubleshooting when an error occurs but simple troubleshooting (e.g. Ping) by supporting staff (maybe the rad-tech) can help quickly narrow the error source
3. Most solution providers / PACS Administrators do not provide the necessary education / information update to the end-user. It is beneficial to have the end-users be informed on what exactly happened, how it was fixed and what could be done to prevent it (e.g. end-user related error) but of course, use non-technical language
4. There is also expectation management, stuff like SIM cards have a lifespan, so does other hardware components like batteries. In the example of medical imaging informatics again, stuff like monitors, keyboard, pointing devices etc have life span too. Things breakdown, set proper expectations to your end-users.
5. Backup Backup Backup. There are some components in your PACS solution that does not have a high availability option. Are you prepared to handle the situation when it fails? Have you done your backup?
   (I can buy spare batteries for my phone, keep a spare phone around, backup my SIM card but if my SIM card fails, I’m kind of stuck with ‘a problem’)

Now its much easier to fix a problem with my mobile phone as the technology is much more consumer friendly but when mobile phones were first release, I’m sure most users had problem and blamed the phone (and the service provider) whenever something went wrong. I’m sure health informatics will evolved to where mobile phones are now – consumer friendly enough for the average joe to perform troubleshooting, till then, let’s do our best to educate and set the right expectation

Ramblings: I met up with an old friend…

I met up with an old friend (but she is not old) that I got to know back in 2002 when I first started out as a RIS/PACS Administrator and yes, she is in the health informatics industry too. As a matter of fact, she is from the RIS solution provider that I administered.

So I metup up with her for tea last week to catchup and chat alittle (well, alot actually). We realized that we share several ideology (which is not common in Singapore). Now this friend of mine has 12 years of professional experience in the health informatics industry and when she say she likes my blog (this blog), I was truly humbled (and very excited) because she is the 3rd person I personally know who told me that she reads my blog (I always thought the readership streams from out of Singapore).

Now that’s not the interesting part, the interesting part is that she is the 8th person in this two months to tell me that I should venture more into binaryHealthCare because of my passion. Yes, the key word is passion, I keep finding it amazing when different people, who do not know each other (some healthcare providers, some are solution providers, some are educational providers, some are conference producers, some are peers from other countries, all on the topic of health informatics) tells me that I should keep up the good work because they see the passion in me.

Now I am not praising myself (that would be shameless.. lol) but rather, I had been working on binaryHealthCare, ClubPACS, PACSAdminDay, writing articles, giving talks etc etc because I truly enjoyed it and yes, although I didn’t see it myself, it might actually be considered as ‘passion’

And its timely too, because I was actually thinking if I should be spending all my free time (which is very little left after work and family) on all my ’side gigs’ (there are more in the pipeline, including writing a book and lecturing for institutes of higher learning), hearing words of encouragement from this old friend strengthen my determination to make a difference for this industry and it is definitely quite motivational because the next day, I celebrated the International PACS Administrator Appreciation Day (and I received words of encouragement from peers on the other side of the globe for creating the day of celebration).

So I’m truly motivated (its a Sunday night now) and I’m working on how to better rebuild CluPACS (the effort paid off, I think I came up with something really interesting) so I really want to thank this friend (you know who you are) who gave me a timely morale boost (and some very good pointers on how to best approach some issues).

However in the meantime, I’m going to watch some television