Industry Watch

Interoperability

Access HIMSS Innovation Center all year long

Looking for ways to make your health IT challenges all work together? The HIMSS Innovation Center at the new Global Center for Health Innovation in Cleveland, Ohio, may have your answers.

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s 30,000-square-foot Innovation Center includes a Health IT Simulation Center for testing health IT interoperability and a Healthcare Technology Showcase demonstrating the value of IT and information exchange to patient care, clinician and patient satisfaction, population health and the bottom line.

The facility has hosted more than 1,000 visitors since it opened Oct. 8, 2013, according to Sandra Vance, MHA, Senior Director, Interoperability Initiatives, HIMSS, and has brought together more than a dozen collaborative technology vendors from the health IT industry. More partners are on the way. It also offers a welcome theater, meeting rooms complete with the latest audio-visual equipment and an interactive version of the HIMSS Value Suite featuring evidence-based use cases. With dozens of prominent healthcare industry events booked through 2015, the Global Center for Health Innovation and Cleveland Convention Center have a goal of exceeding 140,000 visitors this year. The HIMSS Innovation Center expects to attract visitors from these events as well.

The Simulation Center is the “worldwide hub of interoperability,” according to Vance, producing demonstrations of real-world interoperability scenarios to help healthcare providers, policy makers and the health IT community understand the value of using standards-based transactions to ensure the right information is available to the right person at the right time. HIMSS leverages interoperability test tools from Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and other innovation centers to ensure that both new and existing innovations will have access to the latest in standards harmonization and regulatory conformance testing tools.

The HIMSS Innovation Center is hosting additional events that advance industry by bringing thought leaders together. To date, about 20 such events are scheduled in the Conference Center for 2014. Learn more at himssinnovationcenter.org.

Rankings

Best in KLAS Awards: Software and Services

Released Jan. 27, 2014, this highly anticipated annual report from KLAS reflects feedback from nearly 16,000 healthcare providers about the best-performing healthcare IT vendors for more than 100 market segments. Big winners were Epic (10 top awards); athenahealth (five top awards); and Cerner, CareTech Solutions and Impact Advisors (two top awards each). KLAS made two additional software segments eligible to receive Best in KLAS Awards this year. The recipient of the first Best in KLAS Award for Health Information Exchange (HIE) is Epic Care Everywhere, and the first winner of the Patient Portals Best in KLAS Award is athenahealth athenaCommunicator.

Best in KLAS Awards 2013: Software and Services

Overall Physician Practice Vendor…………………………athenahealth

Overall Services Firm…………………………………………..Impact Advisors

Overall Software Suite Vendor……………………………..Epic

Overall Software Vendor…………………………………….athenahealth

Software Solutions

Acute Care EMR…………………………………………………Epic EpicCare Inpatient EMR

Business Intelligence/Analytics………………………………QlikTech QlikView

Cardiology………………………………………………………….Merge Healthcare Cardio

Community HIS……………………………………………………Cerner CommunityWorks

Document Management and Imaging……………………..Quest Diagnostics ChartMaxx

Emergency Department………………………………………..Wellsoft EDIS

Enterprise Scheduling…………………………………………..Unibased USA RMS

Financial/ERP……………………………………………………..McKesson ERP Solutions

Health Information Exchange (HIE)……………………….Epic Care Everywhere

Homecare………………………………………………………….Thornberry NDoc

Laboratory…………………………………………………………Siemens NOVIUS Lab

PACS………………………………………………………………..Sectra PACS

Patient Accounting and Patient Management………….Epic Resolute Hospital Billing

Patient Portals……………………………………………………athenahealth athenaCommunicator

Pharmacy…………………………………………………………..Epic Willow

Radiology……………………………………………………………Epic Radiant

Speech Recognition…………………………………………….Dolbey Fusion Speech (BES)

Surgery Management…………………………………………..Epic OpTime

Physician Practice Solutions

Ambulatory EMR (1 to 10 Physicians)…………………………..SRSsoft EHR

Ambulatory EMR (11 to 75 Physicians)…………………………Epic EpicCare Ambulatory EMR

Ambulatory EMR (Over 75 Physicians)………………………….Epic EpicCare Ambulatory EMR

Practice Management (1 to 10 Physicians)……………………athenahealth athenaCollector

Practice Management (11 to 75 Physicians)………………….athenahealth athenaCollector

Practice Management (Over 75 Physicians)…………………..Epic Resolute/Prelude/Cadence Ambulatory

Claims and Clearinghouse…………………………………………..ZirMed

Services

Application Hosting (CIS/ERP/HIS)………………………….Cerner

Clinical Implementation (Principal)…………………………..Impact Advisors

Clinical Implementation (Supportive)………………………..Sagacious Consultants

Extended Business Office……………………………………..Cymetrix

IT Outsourcing (Extensive)……………………………………CareTech Solutions

IT Outsourcing (Partial)………………………………………..CareTech Solutions

Planning and Assessment…………………………………….Cornerstone Advisors

Revenue Cycle Transformation………………………………PwC

Technical Services……………………………………………..J2 Interactive

Teleradiology Services…………………………………………Rays (Nightrays)

Transcription Services………………………………………….Precyse

Security

Does SaaS encourage bad computing habits?

A new study by Softchoice says that the use of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications for work can breed bad tech behavior, endangering the privacy and security of corporate data. “Careless Users in the Cloud (and what IT can do about it)” examines the office technology habits of 1,000 full-time employees in the U.S. and Canada, specifically around IT compliance, password security and file transfer. Findings include: 

• More SaaS apps mean more passwords to remember (or disable): 36 percent of employees access five or more SaaS apps on the job every day.
• Easy procurement of SaaS means users are circumventing IT to use them: 27 percent of SaaS users access work files through applications IT doesn’t know they have.
• Bad SaaS behaviors are more prevalent in younger employees: Twenty-somethings are three times more likely to keep passwords on Post-it notes compared to baby boomers.

The study also finds that while IT departments often take action when unsanctioned app use is detected, much of employees’ rogue app procurement still goes unnoticed.

• What’s a challenged IT department to do? Softchoice has these suggestions: 
• Establish a company-wide password policy or single sign-on platform.
• Adopt a cloud-based collaboration solution, and tie in a BYOD strategy.
• Assess your IT environment, communicate risks of unsanctioned SaaS app use and consider an identity management solution.

Learn more at www.softchoicecloud.com/carelessinthecloud.

HHS Updates

Patients can access test reports directly from lab

In February, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made it easier for patients (or a person designated by the patient) to gain direct access to completed laboratory test reports. While patients can continue to get access to their lab test reports from their doctors, new rules give patients the option to obtain their test reports directly from the laboratory while maintaining strong protections for patient privacy. The final rule is available for review at www.federalregister.gov.

SAFER Guides for safer EHRs

A new set of guides and interactive tools available on HealthIT.gov aim to help providers and health IT developers make EHR use safer. The “Safety Assurance Factors for EHR Resilience (SAFER) Guides” from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) include checklists and recommended practices designed to help healthcare providers and the organizations that support them assess and optimize the safety and safe use of EHRs. The release of the SAFER Guides marks an important milestone in the implementation of the HHS Health IT Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan, which was issued in July 2013. The SAFER Guides complement existing health IT safety tools and research developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and ONC. Learn more at HealthIT.gov.

INFOGRAPHIC 

HIT trends for 2014

CDW provides a heads-up on the HIT trends and technology that will have a big impact this year on healthcare’s increasingly competitive and cost-conscious environment.