Interoperability - National Learning Consortium Informatics and Nursing Website Update

Update for Chapter 15 on interoperability:

National Learning Consortium was added to the textbook website for Chapter 15 at http://dlthede.net/Informatics/Chap15Interoperability/chap15.html. This site represents the lessons learned from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) outreach programs (Regional Extension Centers, Beacon Communities, State Health Information Exchange) and through the Health Information Technology Research Center (HITRC).

Regional extension centers (RECs) was added to the index.

Ethics and HIT

Last week a task force for AMIA (American Medical Informatics Association) released a report entitled "Challenges in ethics, safety, best practices, and oversight regarding HIT vendors, their customers, and patients: a report of an AMIA special task force."  The report provides clear direction to vendors and system purchasers regarding ethics and HIT. 
 
A quote from the report abstract is below - although I took the liberty to bullet and emphasize statements to make them clear to the reader.  The full 5-page report is available online at http://jamia.bmj.com/site/icons/amiajnl8946.pdf
 
"Task Force findings and recommendations include:

• patient safety should trump all other values; corporate concerns about liability and intellectual property ownership may be valid but should not over-ride all other considerations;
• transparency and a commitment to patient safety should govern vendor contracts;
• institutions are duty-bound to provide ethics education to purchasers and users, and should commit publicly to standards of corporate conduct; and
• vendors, system purchasers, and users should encourage and assist in each others’ efforts to adopt best practices.

Finally, the HIT community should re-examine whether and how regulation of electronic health applications could foster improved care, public health, and patient safety."

Telehealth Success Story

In the Journals: IT Bundle Reduces Mortality; Commentary Examines Comparative Effectiveness Research abstract of an  article posted in the April 12, 2010 issue of Archive of Internal Medicine

at https://www.ecri.org/PatientSafety/HrcReports/Pages/AlertListing.aspx?alert=4587&ref=https://www.ecri.org/PatientSafety/HrcReports/Pages/HRC_Public_Alerts.aspx

The researchers found that a combination of healthcare information technology (HIT) and remote intensivists reduced mortality by 30%.  Ventilator use was reduced by 5%. The study included 1,913 patients. 
(Chapter 22 on telehealth)