Veterans Administration
See the following -
A New Meaning for Connected Health at 2016 Symposium (Part 3)
The previous section of this article paused during a discussion of the accuracy and uses of devices. At a panel on patient generated data, a speaker said that one factor holding back the use of patient data was the lack of sophistication in EHRs. They must be enhanced to preserve the provenance of data: whether it came from a device or from a manual record by the patient, and whether the device was consumer-grade or a well-tested medical device. Doctors invest different levels of trust in different methods of collecting data: devices can provide more objective information than other ways of asking patients for data. A participant in the panel also pointed out that devices are more reliable in the lab than under real-world conditions. Consumers must be educated about the proper use of devices, such as whether to sit down and how to hold their arms when taking their blood pressure...
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Health Tap: Intelligent Interface for Patients
allows patients to connect with doctors online, and additionally hosts an enormous repository of doctors’ answers to health questions. In addition to its sheer size and its unique combination of services, HealthTap is ahead of most other health care institutions in its use of data. I talked with founder and CEO Ron Gutman about a new service, Dr. AI, that triages the patient and guides her toward a treatment plan: online resources for small problems, doctors for major problems, and even a recommendation to head off to the emergency room when that is warranted. The service builds on the patient/doctor interactions HealthTap has offered over its six years of operation, but is fully automated...
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Is GitHub Government’s Next Big Thing?
With recent attempts from the White House to bring a more agile approach to government technology, U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel’s “Shared First” initiative, released in December, coupled with the federal government’s new digital strategy, the door may slowly be opening to a more widespread public sector collaborative coding environment, such as the one provide by San Francisco-based startup GitHub.
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MedVirginia Gets Connected
MedVirginia, a Richmond, Va.-based health information exchange, is now linked to the virtual lifetime electronic record, a collaboration between the healthcare systems of the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments and civilian healthcare systems, the organization has announced.
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Open Source Initiatives Rated Highly
Accenture and ACT-IAC particularly praised the administration's support for open standards in building health IT software. For example, the Veterans Affairs Department is considering upgrading digital patient records with open source software -- programs that use nonproprietary coding -- that would let outside developers improve and modify the code. VA's current e-records system, Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), is based on a 1996 model for information exchange. Read More »
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RedWood MedNet and CaHIE to Host Major Open Health Information Exchange (HIE) Conference
Leaders of major open source projects in healthcare and the open health HIE community are gathering for the annual Redwood MedNet Conference in Santa Rosa, CA next Thursday and Friday, July 24-25. While the focus of this conference is the growing open source HIE movement in California, the conference will feature successful open HIE implementations from around the world, including the extraordinary OpenHIE effort in Rwanda, and critical lessons for any HIE and health information organizations (HIOs) that want to develop cost-effective and successful interoperable solutions. Read More »
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Samuel Shem Calls for Using VistA and the VA Model of Care to Solve the Physician Burnout Crisis
On November 1st Newsweek published an extraordinary Op-Ed by Samuel Shem titled Why Computerized Medical Records Are Bad for Both You and Your Doctor. In the article, Shem, pen name for the American psychiatrist and well-known author Stephen Joseph Bergman, presents evidence that poorly designed electronic medical records (EMRs) and over-regulation are to blame for the growing crisis of physician burnout and suicide. The rate of suicides among physicians has risen to a staggering number--three per day. Shem argues that there is a "better way," and that is shown by the electronic health record (EHR) system used by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA's EHR is called VistA. Shem's view is supported by a large and increasing number of physicians and nurses. Read More »
- The Future Is Open
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Success Of Blue Button Initiative Tied To MU Program
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT this fall will launch a national campaign to boost consumer use of Blue Button technology to securely access their health records electronically...The national Blue Button campaign, which runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 6, will include public service announcements posted on partner websites to get the word out on how consumers can access their own health data.
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VA on the Bleeding Edge
"I know that Google has moved forward with FISMA certification of some of the stuff they are doing so that is a possibility," [Roger Baker, VA CIO] said. "The issue there is that there are various levels of certification and what they have achieved is medium and for the types of information we store, it would have to be a high certification. But we look at is there a way to embrace the tool as it stands? Is there a way to bring the tool inside the VA firewall and control access to it a bit more and meet our requirements that way?"
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VA Prepared for New Employee Mobile Devices on Oct. 1
The Veterans Affairs Department is on track to begin allowing additional types of mobile devices on its networks starting Oct. 1, but will start slowly with only about 1,000 users, according to Roger Baker, CIO and assistant secretary for information and technology.
Currently, the VA has about 17,000 Blackberry users. Read More »
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VLER Opens to More Vets in More Places
The pilot for the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER), which enables sharing of Veterans' health records will be expanded, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday. Read More »
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Why Computerized Medical Records Are Bad for Both You and Your Doctor
We should not click for cash, but for care. We can use the data to benefit the patient-and the medical professionals...The EMR could have been a lifesaver. It still can be. If we get rid of on-screen, for-profit billing, and use electronic screens exclusively for care, we solve a lot of problems. We could create a true national health care system, modeled after our existing two national systems-Medicare/Medicaid and the VA. As in all other national systems, each procedure would cost about the same all over the country. On longitudinal charts showing the health of Americans as they age, a sharp rise in good health suddenly increases at age 65, when Medicare kicks in. Read More »
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Redwood MedNet Conference 2014
Connecting California to Improve Patient Care is an annual conference on electronic health information exchange and interoperability. Presenters will explain practical solutions for securely sharing electronic clinical information between separate health care facilities. Presentations address the status of health information exchange services in California, national standards for clinical data interoperability, innovations in patient safety, and emerging tools for physician and patient engagement.
California Connects Interoperability Exhibition, hosted concurrently as part of the Redwood MedNet Conference, will feature practical demonstrations on interoperability. Ten kiosks will show the secure exchange of electronic health data, including patient engagement with the care team, in a hands on manner that allows one on one interaction with the kiosk presenters. The kiosks are co-sponsored by Redwood MedNet and California Association of Health Information Exchanges (CAHIE).
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