This month's issue examines what healthcare CIOs are doing to tie together a vast patchwork of imaging technologies. With picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) and radiology information systems (RIS) firmly established in a plurality of healthcare organizations, many CIOs are taking the next step: creating bridges that will give referring physicians ready access to images and data.
What are hospitals doing to improve the quality of patient care? One indication of how hospitals are forging ahead in this area is the ascendency of the chief quality officer. The article on page 24 takes a look at CIOs at leading organizations who have established a close working relationship with their quality officers to leverage exciting clinical IT initiatives around improving patient safety, care quality, and clinician effectiveness.
On page 30, an interview with Dev Culver, executive director of HealthInfoNet, provides the inside scoop on Maine's statewide health information organization as it wrestles with sustainability challenges and the search for new revenue streams. For a look at what's going on in the regional extension center (REC) space, turn to page 37 for a profile of two New York RECs that are frontrunners in this arena, and which rely on collaboration to conquer the complexities of meaningful use.
On page 45, Dirk Stanley, M.D., chief medical information officer at the 140-bed Cooley-Dickenson Hospital in Northampton, Mass., which has achieved 65 percent adoption of computerized physician order entry (CPOE), gives his perspective on the evolving role of the CMIO.
Rounding out the issue on page 47 is an interview with Jennifer Meddings, M.D., who speaks about a recent study by a group of University of Michigan physicians on preventable urinary tract infections, and how appropriate use of clinical information systems can reduce the incidence of UTIs.
Healthcare Informatics 2010 November;27(11):6
