IT Matters to Your Health

Over the past few days I have been following articles in my local newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen, on the ballooning provincial deficit and the government’s plan to review all provincial spending. I thought to myself “I wonder if any of the eHealth budget will be cut, particularly given all the media attention regarding spending irregularities at the Ontario eHealth agency”. My fears were amplified when I watched the local news last night and they showed clips of “man on the street” interviews asking people what the provincial government should do to reign in spending. The first person interviewed stated that the government should cut spending on eHealth given the $1B that has been wasted to date (the interviewees perspective, not mine). Yikes!

While many members of the mainstream press may be doing a good job at convincing people that eHealth is boondoogle, I was pleased to see an article from the noted Globe and Mail columnist Andre Picard summarizing the highlights of the recently released “For Patients’ Sake” report commissioned by the Saskatchewan government.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/heres-a-radical-health-care-idea-put-the-patient-first/article1333019/

As Mr. Picard points out, this report states that one of the areas in which “medicare falls down on the job” is “Lack of electronic health records: Patients hate repeating their medical histories over and over and tests are oft-repeated because of lack of modern records.”  If we ever hope to shift from the current “provider-centric” model of patient care to a more “patient centred” model it is absolutely critical that we put modern information systems in place to make patient information available to all healthcare professionals involved in the patient’s care.  Failure to do so will, in my view, severely limit our ability to ever achieve patient centred care.

Mike

Increased Acquistion and Mergers Among Healthcare IT Vendors?

Although the recent acquisitions by Dell and Xerox were headline news, mergers and acquisition activities among healthcare IT companies was actually down compared with the two previous quarters according to Healthcare Growth Partners:

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/acquisitions-39225-1.html?ET=healthdatamanagement:e1054:15369a:&st=email

According to the article, “Although challenges remain, Healthcare Growth Partners believes the health I.T. mergers and acquisition market likely bottomed out during the second and third quarters. Activity now should increase as vendors attempt to augment growth to meet investor expectations.”

So, Mark, care to guess what announcement we might see over the next 12 to 24 months?

Mike

eHealth Board Chair Apologizes

The eHealth Ontairo Chair, Rita Burak, and Interim CEO, Rob Devitt, appeared today before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Ms. Burak’s opening remarks can be found at:

http://www.ehealthontario.on.ca/pdfs/news/OpeningRemarks_Rita.pdf?emc=el&m=311987&l=3&v=dfdbabfc5d

Of particular note, Ms. Burak apologized for untendered contracts, “The very serious issue of untendered consulting contracts at eHealth Ontario has unfortunately taken focus away from the important issue of patient care and progress toward an electronic health record. It has also undermined the public’s confidence in the agency. For this I believe the people of the province are owed an apology.”

I concur with Ms. Burak’s assessment that the issue of untendered consulting contracts have seriously detracted attention from moving the eHealth agenda forward. I encourage Ms. Burak, the eHealth Ontario board and eHealth Ontario executives to take proactive steps to keep the public informed as to progress against stated objectives and generally be as transparent as possible about how things are being done.

Mike

eHealth Ontario Diabetes Registry Short List

eHealth Ontario has released the names of the three organizations short listed to compete for implementation of the Diabetes Registry.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2009/21/c8969.html

The three companies are:

– CGI Information Systems and Management Consultants Inc.
– TELUS Health Solutions GP
– xwave, a Division of Bell Aliant Regional Communications, LP

Good to see eHealth Ontario moving forward on the Ontario eHealth strategy.

Mike

Another new EMR sales channel

First it was Dell offering a complete EMR package through Sam’s club. Now, Cerner has announced that it has teamed up with reseller CDW to offer a full suite of ambulatory practice management and EMR software:

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/EHR-39217-1.html?ET=healthdatamanagement:e1051:15369a:&st=email

As we move beyond the early adopter physicians we’ll see more of the traditional software channels being used for EMR software.

Mike

“Failure is not an option”

One of the memorable lines from the movie “Apollo 13″ is “Failure is not an option”. While this sentiment was certainly understandable when three men’s lives were in the hands of hundreds of people on the ground, the stakes are equally high when it comes to eHealth. In an information intense industry such as healthcare not having the right information at the right time is absolutely critical and it seems obvious to me that paper-based systems negatively impact both productivity and patient safety. Hence, I was pleased to open my paper on Sunday and see the headline: “Failure of eHealth not an option”. Amid all the negative news about eHealth Ontario and Infoway it was great to see that there is still support for eHealth as a concept.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Failure+eHealth+option/2116442/story.html

Mike

Australian About-Face

Mark and I have long debated the business model for Microsoft’s Healthvault in a publicly funded healthcare system such as Canada’s. Well, look halfway around the world and you’ll see that the Australians are considering 180 degree shift in their EHR architecture from a centralized model to a distributed model:

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26200249-15306,00.html

According the article, “National E-Health Transition Authority chief executive Peter Fleming said the original vision of a single e-health record system had been abandoned in favour of ‘person-controlled’ records that could be adopted more quickly.” Mr. Fleming is quoted in the article as saying “”Five years ago, there was a strong view that there would be an e-health record for all Australians held on a massive database somewhere. That’s no longer the view.”

Canada Health Infoway has driven important investments in critical eHealth infrastructure. As we seek to leverage these investments perhaps it is time to consider the role of the personal health record (PHR). I suggest that by looking at the Infoway blueprint in a slightly different way we can find ways to take better advantage of PHRs as well as EMRs in physician offices.

Mike

Electronic Health Records – “It’s a job we have to get on with”

A former boss used to sometimes joke that we “shouldn’t let the facts get in the way of a good argument” when our management team was in the midst of a particularly heated debate. This sentiment came to mind yesterday after I read the AG’s report and compared my impressions with what I was reading in the mainstream media. Later in the day, I came across the following article which offered some insights from the AG not reported in the mainstream media:

http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/ehealth-ontario-1b-later-the-apps-arent-done/138941

In the article, the AG is quoted as saying “A lot of the money was well-spent.” He also stated that he believes that the eHealth program is “salvageable” with with “improved strategic planning, time frames for deliverables, and tighter oversight”. Most encouraging, perhaps, is his comment that “I think we need to develop electronic health records. It’s a job we have to get on with.”

Mike

Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery?

I opened my mailbox this morning to find my latest copy of Healthcare Information Management and Communications Canada magazine, the official journal of COACH (the Canadian health informatics association). After checking that my article appeared on the last page of the magazine (yes, I am a little vain), I flipped through the magazine to quickly scan the articles and determine the order in which I wanted to read them. One article in particular caught my eye – “Let’s Not Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water” by Richard Alvarez. This title and the key message in the article are remarkably similar to a blog post I made on August 17th. Now, while I am vain, I don’t think that Richard borrowed my idea or purposely used a similar title. None the less, I was pleased to see that Richard held a similar opinion and, equally important, that he was publicly supporting the need for eHealth.

Mike

ITAC Steps Up for eHealth

I have been waiting for someone to step forward and speak on behalf of eHealth. In the swirl of negative news today, I was pleased to see the following op-ed piece in the Toronto Star written by Bernard Courtois, President and CEO of ITAC:

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/706481

Two comments resonated with me in particular:

“For many years the barrier to this embrace had been the lack of a coherent e-health strategy in Canada’s largest province. But we do finally have a strategy for Ontario that is widely regarded as one of the best in the country.”

“We simply cannot allow the fallout from what is essentially an administrative problem to stall the progress urgently needed to complete the province’s e-health systems.”

Thanks, Bernard!

Mike