Originally Published MEM Spring 2005
FROM THE EDITOR
The advent of electronic health records (EHRs) is a major topic of discussion among insurance and physician groups. Much of the focus is on using EHRs to streamline patient records and eliminate redundant data. Some groups just want to get the correct diagnosis code to the insurance carrier or HMO more quickly. At the Health Information Technology Summit held in San Francisco in February, improving patient care seemed to top the list of goals.
Mark McClellan, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator, reinforced the goal. "Health information technology (HIT) plays a critical role in improving the quality of healthcare. Up to now, there has been no financial incentive for healthcare groups to adopt IT," he said. McClellan noted that CMS is now shifting its reimbursement to pay for quality and efficiency rather than pay for processes and services. "There will be bonuses for organizations that improve provider and patient satisfaction." He also stressed that investing in health IT is essential for these improvements to happen. "It is easy to see how HIT can improve routine healthcare delivery as well as improve the analysis of clinical data through electronic health records," he said. "For the success of the e-health initiative, we want and need partners and widespread adoption of healthcare IT," McClellan added.
"An electronic medical record should help improve the quality of patient care," said Mark Fricker, CFO of Brown & Toland, a physician group based in Northern California. Fricker also spoke at the summit. As medical groups focus on the implementation EHRs, however, little attention is being paid to getting data from medical devices into the electronic records. On page 16 of this issue, Harold Yin and his coauthors discuss wireless options that can transfer data from medical devices into electronic health records. In their article, "Introducing Wireless Remote Control and Monitoring into Medical Applications," they note, "An area that has been much overlooked...is the initial process of gathering information such as vital statistics from a hospital bedside monitor...." They look at how device manufacturers can integrate wireless technologies that enable devices to do many traditionally manual processes such as transmitting test results into a patient record. And, the right technology—whether its Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or ZigBee—is available. The authors examine a number of applications—even for devices already in the field—that can easily make devices a bigger part of the EHR initiative.
Sherrie Conroy, Editor
Copyright ©2005 Medical Electronics Manufacturing
