TEPR Predicts Cell Phone PHRs

TEPR Predicts Cell Phone PHRs
By Neil Versel, contributing editor

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.-Could the cell phone succeed where grand plans for regional health information organizations (RHIOs) so far have failed? Could it be the format that convinces millions of consumers to adopt and maintain personal health records (PHRs) after smart cards, USB drives, and Web sites have elicited a profound yawn from the public?

The Medical Records Institute thinks so.

"By itself, I think it's going to be the biggest change in the last 10 years," chief executive C. Peter Waegemann said before the opening of Towards the Electronic Patient Record (TEPR), the Boston-based organization's annual conference. Read more.

Louisiana Rural Health Information Exchange Counts First Success
By Maureen McKinney

Delhi Hospital, a small rural hospital in Delhi, La., recently became the first successful pilot site of the Louisiana Rural Health Information Exchange (LARHIX) after patient information was transmitted between Delhi and the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport.

The statewide exchange will allow underserved rural patients-particularly those with chronic diseases and mental illnesses-to receive regular treatment from physicians in Shreveport, said Michael Carroll, Delhi Hospital's chief executive officer and administrator. Delhi is one of seven facilities in the first group of the initiative, which will eventually expand to include all 44 members of the Louisiana Rural Hospital Coalition. Read more.

Executive Q&A
ActiveHealth PHR Promises "Intelligent" Feedback
By Cindy Atoji

Among the many flavors of Personal Health Records (PHR) trying to conquer the health care marketplace, few are backed up by clinical decision support. Or so says Frank Norman of ActiveHealth, a subsidiary of Aetna, which offers a Web-based "intelligent" PHR that can work with claims data as well as personal and clinical information, then use real-time technology to offer health and wellness feedback.

The ActiveHealth PHR is part of Microsoft's new consumer-centric health care platform, HealthVault, launched last year. Norman, who is executive vice president and CIO of New York-based ActiveHealth, says that the ActivePHR is available through payors and more recently, directly to consumers. He spoke with Digital HealthCare & Productivity about how clinical decision technology empowers the ActiveHealth PHR offering.

DHP: How do you define clinical decision support?

Norman: We define clinical decision support as identifying opportunities to improve care. Patient data is compiled from a variety of sources, either from claims or from members, and analyzed against up-to-date evidence-based standards. It is scanned and compared to a database of all of the new peer-reviewed medical literature, which is continuously monitored by a research team of physicians, nurses, and pharmacists; this is codified into updated rules and algorithms. Members and their clinicians can receive personalized email notifications that instruct them to log onto their PHR account and see such findings as potential adverse drug interactions, the absence of therapeutically beneficial drugs, and missing lab tests. They can also view reminders for preventative exams such as colonoscopies and mammograms. Each time a member visits physicians, fills prescriptions, or gets lab tests, that information is automatically added to their PHR, producing a longitudinal, evolving view of their health. We have measured and verified that this yields health care cost savings and outcomes improvements across our populations. Read more.

Deals, Deployments, and Short News
By Allison Proffitt

MEDHOST adds patient data sharing capability, McKesson acquires Vivalog, Microsoft releases Health CUI, and more...

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