News from HIMSS08 for Feb. 25

Bowe Bell + Howell to Attempt Scanning World Record

BÖWE BELL + HOWELL (BBH) Scanners will attempt to establish the Guinness World Record for the longest document scanned today at HIMSS08.

BBH employees will attempt to scan a paper document roughly one-half mile long -- the equivalent length of 2,880 standard, 8.5 x 11-inch sheets laid end to end, according to the company. They will try for the record using the Truper 3600 low-volume production scanner. If successful, the single, continuous scan could last up to two hours.

An official Guinness World Records adjudicator will travel to Orlando from London to validate BBH's record attempt. The adjudicator will verify that the attempt meets the criteria set forth by Guinness World Records, including that the scanned document is a continuous file in one single page and that the original document is made out of paper. 

Hospitals Turn to IT Solutions from Cardinal Health

Cardinal Health reported that more than 250 hospitals across the country have turned to the company to help prevent, detect, monitor and treat hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). The company said HAIs affect one in every 20 patients across the U.S. and cost the health care industry an estimated $20 billion each year.

The MedMined Data Mining Surveillance Service monitors the entire hospital for early signs of an emerging issue and targets improvement efforts where and when they can have the most impact, according to Cardinal Health. Using technology similar to that used by credit card companies to monitor purchases for fraud, the patented technology automatically identifies patterns indicative of specific and correctable quality breakdowns without predefined search criteria, user-defined control charts or alerts, or chart review.

The new MRSA Scorecard provides a hospital-wide view of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), allowing infection control practitioners to track the types and locations of MRSA infections throughout the hospital. The MRSA Scorecard allows hospitals to identify patients who have tested positive for the bacteria and distinguish between those who likely acquired the infection in the hospital and those who had an MRSA infection present on admission.

Through this real-time view, hospitals can rapidly dispatch resources to limit the spread of MRSA infections that are responsible for an estimated 94,000 life-threatening conditions and 18,650 deaths annually in the U.S., Cardinal Health noted.

CHIME Lends a Helping Hand at Food Bank

On Feb. 23, a group of CHIME members, Foundation representatives and staff provided assistance to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.

CHIME, a membership organization supporting the educational and professional development needs of health care CIOs, organized the effort prior to the annual CHIME/HIMSS CIO Forum on Feb. 24.

Last year, CHIME organized a community service project with Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans, site of HIMSS07.  

At the food bank this year, CHIME volunteers sorted and boxed food for distribution to needy families in the central Florida area. CHIME President and CEO Rich Correll commented, "I am grateful that CHIME members are willing to give their time and energy to this important cause."

The Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida collects, stores and distributes donated food to more than 450 non-profit partner agencies in six Central Florida counties: Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia. For more information about the organization, visit www.foodbankcentralflorida.org.

InSite One Completes Integration Testing at IHE 2008 Connectathon

For the fifth year in a row, InSite One acted as an Image Manager/Image Archive and a Report Repository at the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) North America 2008 Connectathon. Held Jan. 28 - Feb. 1 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, 70 organizations tested 130 health care IT systems for their compliance with IHE Integration Profiles. As a standards-based, DICOM archive, InSite One was a part of this annual event that allows for the evaluation and exploration of new opportunities to cohesively manage and share information across multiple imaging workflow environments.

The Connectathon event is a process whereby each company gains validation of the interoperability and compliance with IHE profiles. The venue offers vendors a unique opportunity for connectivity testing in a neutral environment. InSite One completed testing in the areas of radiology, cardiology and mammography workflows. The companies ranged from modality, PACS and EMR companies and modalities.

MedQuist Showcases Next Generation of Mobile Web Dictation

MedQuist Inc. of Mount Laurel, N.J., a national provider of medical transcription outsourcing and clinical documentation workflow solutions, highlighted a new, Web-based version of its mobile dictation application, PhysAssist IQ.

The software release gives physicians more flexibility over documenting at the point of care, using familiar mobile devices including "flip" phones, smartphones, PDAs and Tablet PCs, according to MedQuist.

"We are excited to offer IQMax's new browser-based mobile technology as part of our PhysAssist IQ solution. It further strengthens our product offerings and emphasizes MedQuist's commitment to offering our customers and the health care market integrated solutions that lower health care costs, increase efficiency and improve quality of care," stated Emmy Weber, vice president of product marketing at MedQuist.

By using Internet-enabled mobile devices to dictate, caregivers can document patient encounters anytime, anywhere. The voice file is automatically and securely uploaded to MedQuist's Enterprise Platform to complete the document creation workflow.

"Bringing dictation to wireless phones [cell phones and mobile devices] enables caregivers to streamline their documentation processes, reduce costs and drive revenue while eliminaing unnecessary steps in their documentation workflow," said Paul Adkison, founder and CEO of IQMax.

Microsoft Announces the Amalga Family

Microsoft Corp. announced and demonstrated the Amalga Family of Health Enterprise Systems. The Amalga product lineup is a portfolio of enterprise-class health information system solutions spanning clinical, operational and financial functions, the company stated.

"One of the health care enterprise's biggest issues is that providers and executives can't access patient information when, where and how they need it," said Steve Shihadeh, general manager for Microsoft's Health Solutions Group. "Microsoft's Amalga products offer proven solutions that bring together information from across the health care enterprise into one, easily accessible view. In fact, the name 'Amalga' is based on the Latin word 'amalgama,' meaning to bring together different elements."

The Amalga family of products includes the following:

·        Microsoft Amalga. The new version of the product formerly known as Azyxxi, Amalga is part of a new software category called Unified Intelligence Systems that allows hospital enterprises to unlock the power of all their data sitting in isolated clinical, financial and administrative systems, according to Microsoft. Without replacing current systems, it offers a way to capture, consolidate, store, access and quickly present data in meaningful ways for use by clinicians and executives. Amalga is designed for hospitals and health systems that have invested in a diverse set of IT solutions.

·                    Microsoft Amalga Hospital Information System (HIS). The new version of the product previously named Hospital 2000, Amalga HIS is a fully integrated hospital information system designed for developing and emerging markets. Amalga HIS is built around an electronic medical record (EMR) with complete patient and bed management, laboratory, pharmacy, radiology information system and picture archiving and communication system (RIS/PACS), pathology, financial accounting, materials management and human resource systems.

·        Microsoft Amalga RIS/PACS. The new version of the product formerly known as GCS Amalga is now available as a stand-alone system as well as an integrated component of Amalga HIS. The integrated architecture means that a radiologist can use a single application to manipulate and study images and access the patient medical record. Microsoft said the workstation interface is optimized for radiologist workflow, including support for predefined templates, an intuitive report editor and voice recognition capabilities.

Microsoft reported that Amalga is now live at MedStar Health, a community-based network of eight hospitals and other health care services in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area. As part of the early adopter program, the beta version of Amalga is in the hands of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Johns Hopkins Health System, Novant Health, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, St. Joseph Health System and the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange.

Northrop Grumman Demonstrates Technology

Northrop Grumman said it is dedicated to global health priorities, including establishing health information exchange networks that ensure quality health care and evidence-based health administration. At HIMSS08, Northrop Grumman will discuss requirements for nationwide adoption of electronic health records, and steps beyond prototype development.

Northrop Grumman pointed out its experience in designing, developing and deploying clinical information systems that support physicians with real-time access to comprehensible patient information to ensure instant and appropriate treatment. The company also highlighted its capabilities in disease management surveillance, "providing health agencies with resources needed to collect and analyze public health data to alert medical professionals of infectious outbreaks so they can better treat patients and prevent further diseases from spreading."

Philips Partners with VoiceViewer Technologies

Royal Philips Electronics announced that its SpeechMagic technology will be integrated into VoiceViewer's application software to support the accurate and efficient capture of patient information at the point of care. The companies showcased a new hand-held device that allows nursing staff to enter information into their systems by voice.

A wireless, portable device that captures information in real time, the joint solution helps to eliminate manual data entry and transcription, providing fast availability and access to critical patient information, the companies stated. Thanks to wireless information transfer to a hospital's central information system, physicians can quickly see if a patient's condition has changed. For example, by getting a faster update on the change of a patient's blood pressure or heart rate, the device may allow physicians to react quickly to a worsening condition.

VoiceViewer, powered by SpeechMagic, also features a preloaded list, which helps ensure that nurses check and record all vital patient data, such as respiratory or behavior patterns. Spoken information is recorded as structured actionable data, which can be automatically downloaded to a data collection system. Users can rely completely on voice input, but also have the option of using the touch-screen or a keypad. The hardware provides storage capacity for approximately 100 forms, and an additional 3,000 forms can be stored on an optional SD card.

Sonitor Launches RTLS Solution

Sonitor Technologies, Inc., a developer, manufacturer and supplier of a proprietary ultrasound indoor positioning system (IPS) and real-time location systems (RTLS), announced the launch of its "PC-Detector" RTLS technology.

Sonitor said its ultrasound tag signal detection can be performed by most computers by leveraging a hospital's existing hardware and LAN connectivity.

"Most computers deployed in hospitals and other health care settings already have the required ultrasound-detecting hardware and sound processing capabilities required to detect and digitize the ultrasound signals from the various patient and equipment tags in a Sonitor RTLS or IPS," said Dr. Wilfred Booij, CTO of Sonitor.

"Should a computer not have the required sound-processing capabilities, then this can be cost-effectively and simply remedied by adding an inexpensive USB or similar microphone and soundcard accessory," Dr. Booji added.