Private-sector Leaders Craft Health IT Interoperability Fix
This week the nonprofit group that brings together industry leaders to discuss digital health, eHealth Initiative, proposed an interoperability roadmap that will rival the already drafted roadmap by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The plan, which was unveiled at a conference Thursday, is expected to reach technologies and healthcare professionals not covered by meaningful use.
“This is more comprehensive than meaningful use,” said Dr. Steven Stack, president-elect of the American Medical Association. He believes that the group’s private-sector composition differentiates its approach from the government’s efforts to encourage IT adoption and guide the way it is employed through the meaningful-use program. One thing both plans have in common is a call for greater use of standards and open APIs (application programming interfaces), which will allow different systems to exchange information.
Source: Modern Healthcare, 11/7/14
Telstra Takes a Stake in Orion Health
Two of our partners are working together! Telstra joins over 20 new institutions that will become shareholders in Orion Health as part of the initial public offer (IPO). Telstra has invested $NZ20 million, which represents about two percent of the company’s shares.
Orion Health’s Founder and CEO, Ian McCrae, said that in addition to Telstra’s investment, the two companies plan to work together on eHealth initiatives for the Asia-Pacific market.
Source: Pulse IT, 11/13/14
Study: Medication Adherence Improved with Proper Prompts
According to a study published in the American Journal of Managed Care, patients who received automated reminders were more likely to refill their blood pressure and cholesterol medications. The study included 21,700 Kaiser Permanente members and found that the average improvement in medication adherence was about 2%.
Lead author and senior investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, Dr. Bill Vollmer, stated, “This small jump might not mean a lot to an individual patient, but on a population level it could translate into fewer heart attacks, fewer deaths and fewer hospitalizations, which will ultimately have an important impact on public health,”
In the study, researchers examined the PROMPT reminder program which included three arms: usual care, an automated call intervention, and an enhanced intervention for those who did not respond to the automated calls which entailed reminder letters, live calls, personal health reports and educational mailings.
This study comes out just as the recent federal report found that Americans with chronic conditions only take their medications as prescribed about 50 to 60 percent of the time. The report estimates this costing the heath care system $300 billion and 125,000 deaths each year.
Source: Medcity News, 11/17/14
Graphic of the Week:
Source: Health Intelligence Network