FierceHealthIT notes a new CDC study on ED overcrowding - it's getting worse.
Emergency department visits hit a new high in 2005, with more than
115 million visits, says new research from the CDC. That's a jump of
five million visits over the previous year, and a substantial 20
percent increase over 10 years.
Over the same time period, […]
According to a survey by CHIME, more hospitals are reducing restrictions on cell phones.
Twenty-three
percent of the 185 survey respondents reported their organization has
lifted all restrictions on mobile phone use, up 5.5% from a similar
survey conducted by the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based organization in 2004.
Only 11 respondents, or 6%, indicated that cell phone use is entirely
prohibited at […]
Technical Session 1: Interoperability Challenges; Introduction by Glenn Himes, Mitre Corporation.
Himes presented a model for medical device connectivity, emphasizing the challenges with interoperability facilitated by medical device controller systems. He then pulled back to show the context that device data and system connectivity plays in the broader health care delivery system.
The biggest challenge faced by […]
I was in hog heaven at this year’s AAMI meeting. Connectivity was a major theme, and during every time slot in the program there was at least one presentation dealing with connectivity. During my presentation Monday afternoon, there was one I really wanted to see that dealt with alarm notification.
Lots of discussion centered around the […]
A while back, Masimo acquired a Canadian firm that developed a novel bioacoustic respiratory sensor. The fruits of that acquisition are soon to be on the market (press release). In recent studies, “Masimo Acoustic Respiratory Monitoring technology (ARM) is “at
least as accurate as capnometry” and “significantly more reliable” for
monitoring respiration in spontaneously breathing patients.”
Respiration is […]
First up today, the Clinical Engineering Symposium: Medical Device Integration Projects. A panel of rock stars will present case studies on medical device connectivity. Steve Grimes kicked things off to a full house - SRO, actually.
Case Studies from Beth Israel Deaconess
First up will be John Halamka, CIO at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His […]
GE Carescape is the main focus of a front page story
in Healthcare IT News (dead tree edition that came today). GE
Healthcare brings out the big guns to describe the Carescape solution.
Let's start with the problem as they define it:
Walk – or be wheeled – into any hospital’s emergency or operating room and you’ll likely […]
ClearCount Medical Solutions announced that they received FDA approval its RFID-based SmartSponge System for use (press release - pdf).
This is the world’s first RFID system that detects and counts surgical sponges and towels during surgical procedures.” Mr. Palmer continued, “With an estimated 3,000 – 5,000 incidents a year, retained surgical sponges are a considerable problem. […]
According to this story in the New York Times, “More than half the doctors from New York State, New Jersey and
Connecticut who responded to a survey conducted in April by the
American College of Emergency Physicians said that boarding had
increased significantly in recent years.” Boarding is the practice of treating patients in hallways of busy Emergency […]
You can find a pretty comprehensive report on the proposed reimbursement changes for 2008. The report was written by Larry Goldberg, senior advisor for health care
legislative and regulatory matters at Grant Thornton, LLC, an accounting, tax and business advisory firm.
[Hat tip: S-DRG Report]
