Docs need more EHR training, survey suggests

From Modern Healthcare (subscription required):

Physicians need at least three to five days of training to feel satisfied with their electronic health-record system, and being able to easily use the EHR functions required for meaningful-use incentive bonuses took two weeks of training—but almost half of the doctors responding to a recent survey reported that they received three days or less of EHR training.

The survey was conducted by AmericanEHR Partners, an online community developed by the American College of Physicians and Cientis Technologies, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based developer of online tools. Between April 2010 and July 2011, physicians from five different medical societies completed a 139-question online survey with the results being compiled in a new report Correlation of Training Duration With EHR Usability and Satisfaction: Implications For Meaningful Use (Free registration is required for download.).

Emergency Room Patients Tracked With RFID Tags

From InformationWeek:

Awarepoint, a San Diego-based vendor of real-time location systems (RTLS) for healthcare environments, will integrate its technology with Meditech’s enterprise electronic health record (EHR) in an effort to improve throughput and patient safety in hospital emergency departments.

The partnership combines Awarepoint’s awareEDtracker system with the EHR’s ED management module, known as Meditech EDM. As patients present in a hospital’s ED, they are registered in the EDM, then given radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags so awareEDTracker can find them. The RTLS technology also records patient interaction with physicians and other ED staff, who wear tracking tags, too.

As a patient moves through the ED, the Awarepoint system sends real-time updates to the Meditech EHR. Staff can view patient locations on a large-screen electronic tracking grid, at individual workstations, or on mobile devices.

Advanced Payment Model to lure critical access hospitals, rural providers

From FierceHealthcare:

Besides the highly anticipated Medicare Shared Savings Program announced yesterday, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) launched a complementary program, the Advanced Payment Model. To promote participation in accountable care, Medicare will provide additional support to physician-owned and rural providers enrolled in the broader Shared Savings Programs. According to yesterday’s HHS press release, these providers will get upfront investments so that they can implement the necessary infrastructure and health IT systems and, therefore, reap the benefits sooner.

The Advanced Payment Model only is open to physician-owned organizations, critical access hospitals, and rural providers participating in the Shared Savings Program, according to the Healthcare.gov website.

Eligible participants must be: (1) ACOs that do not include any inpatient facilities and have less than $50 million in total annual revenue; or (2) ACOs in which inpatient facilities are critical access hospitals and/or Medicare low-volume rural hospitals and have less than $80 million in total annual revenue, according to the CMS Innovations website.

There’s an app for that: Cardiac consultation for EMS

From eWeek:

AT&T and Washington Hospital Center in the Washington, D.C., area have unveiled a custom application called CodeHeart to allow doctors to examine patients in an emergency using real-time video and audio.

Six hospitals in the Washington area have adopted the real-time CodeHeart application, announced Oct. 19.

Physicians at the health system are using the application on desktops, laptops and tablets as well as Apple mobile devices to view video over the Internet on AT&T’s network.

Before CodeHeart, doctors would use a fax machine to transmit ECG data, a process that takes more than 10 minutes and puts patients’ lives in danger, Dr. Lowell Satler, director of interventional cardiology at Washington Hospital Center, told eWEEK.

Through the application, doctors can communicate with patients’ first responders, examine test results such as ECGs and prepare for a patient to enter an ER. Doctors can view the ECGs as PDFs. Following the session, hospitals can archive the video for future reference.

In addition, ECGs and video files can be stored as part of patients’ electronic health records (EHRs), Satler noted.

By examining ECGs conducted in a remote setting such as an ambulance or the patient’s home, doctors will know sooner, before patients arrive at the hospital, if the diagnosis is a heart attack or another ailment such as trauma.

Expert Witness: Dr. Murray could have saved Jackson with a chin lift

From JEMS:

“Had Conrad Murray been with Michael Jackson during this period of time, he would have seen the slowed breathing and the compromise in the flow of air into Michael Jackson’s lungs, and he could have easily turned off the propofol infusion,” Shafer said.

Murray could have then easily cleared Jackson’s airways and restored his breathing by lifting his chin, he said.

Dolls to help ER doctors diagnose

From the Adobe Press:

Visiting the Arroyo Grande Community Hospital emergency room may be a little less scary for children thanks to a donation from the Arroyo Grande Valley Kiwanis Club.

Recently, club representatives delivered the first.

40 of a planned 150 Kiwanis Dolls to the emergency room, where they will be given to children brought in with injuries and illnesses.

The plain white and off-white cloth dolls come with their own little flannel blankets and two markers children can use to draw on faces and clothing.

“Oftentimes, it’s a very scary situation to be in the ER,” said Amy Eskew, director of emergency services at the hospital. “So it’s nice for the children to have a doll or something to hang onto.”

When they leave the hospital, the children can take the dolls with them.