2010 NAHAM Conference & Exposition - THIS WEEKEND!

National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM)
36th Annual Educational Conference & Exposition
THIS SATURDAY, May 1 through Monday, May 3
Orlando World Center Marriott
BOOTH 320

We will be available for consultations, just stop by the booth! If you prefer to schedule an appointment in advance, please contact Stephanie Speth at 314-878-6050, ext. 143.

View the conference brochure (PDF) here.

Client News: One-Bed, One-Stay Heart Hospital Announced - Trinity Mother Frances Hospital

By DAYNA WORCHEL, Staff Writer - Tyler Morning Telegraph

Imagine a heart hospital where a patient remains in the same bed from the beginning of his treatment through surgery, recovery and release, and the family is actively encouraged to be a part of the patient's healing process by staying in the same room.

This wish will become a reality later this year for heart patients at a Tyler hospital with construction getting under way now for The Heart Hospital at Trinity Mother Frances, officials announced on Thursday.

The 24-bed, state-of-the-art cardiac unit, which will cost about $3 million to construct, will be on the fourth floor of the Mother Frances Hospital-Tyler's Ornelas Tower, John Moore, hospital spokesman said. The current Heart Institute has 14 beds, he said. The funds for the new unit already were a part of the hospital's budget, Moore said.

The unit will be based on a modified universal-bed model, said Trinity Mother Frances' Chief of Cardiology Dr. C. Fagg Sanford III.

"Every heart patient will have a dedicated room throughout their hospital experience, and families are encouraged to be of a part of this process -- the patient doesn't move, we will move," he said.

The patient will arrive, and surgery and recovery will happen in the same unit, Dr. Sanford said. All of the equipment and monitors used in a cardiac intensive care room will fold away when they are no longer needed so that the patient recovers in a regular room.

Patient safety is the chief concern in constructing The Heart Hospital based on the universal-bed model, Dr. Sanford said.

"When a patient is transferred, people must communicate and there are delays -- this eliminates those delays," he said.

The new unit is the culmination of one and one-half years of planning, and the goal of the program is to integrate all phases of patient care, Dr. Sanford said.

Dr. Bill Turner, Trinity Clinic Cardiothoracic Surgery, said he has performed more than 250 robotic heart surgeries since 2004, including bypass and heart valve surgeries. He said the nurses in the new Heart Hospital are all trained to work in a cardiac intensive care unit, and can provide all the levels of care. He said he is excited about the Heart Hospital concept.

"As a heart surgeon, I am very pleased to see the continuing commitment Trinity Mother Frances is making to heart patients," Dr. Turner said.

©2010 TylerPaper.com/Tyler Morning Telegraph

OR Business Management Conference, May 12-14

11th Annual OR Business Management Conference
May 12-14
Hyatt Regency, San Francisco

Gain a better understanding of how you can manage costs in the surgical suite. The OR Business Management Conference, May 12-14, at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, focuses on the financial success of the OR. Here you will get solid, relevant information that you can use to make a difference in your OR. The target audience includes OR directors, business managers, and others concerned with the financial success of the OR.

Marion Sachs, RN, MSN, CNOR our Director of Surgery Systems Products will be attending May 13-14 and is available for consultations. If you would like to reserve some time with her please call 314-878-6050, ext. 143.

Download a PDF of the brochure and register online here.

Client News: Lynn A. Flynn, Corporate Director of Revenue Cycle at Oakwood Healthcare System Speaking at NAHAM

TOPIC:
"Integrated Workflow in Financial Clearance and Patient Access Through Automated Worklists"
Speaker:
Lynn A. Flynn, Corporate Director of Revenue Cycle
Oakwood Healthcare System

NAHAM 36th Annual Educational Conference and Exposition
Learning Lab Series II - A (Process Improvement), B (Revenue Cycle)
Saturday, May 1
2:45 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

A significant benefit for Oakwood has been the integrated use of worklists and managed care rules throughout the scheduling, financial clearance, and patient check-in processes. In this session, learn how the application of automated work lists—applied to and integrated into the access workflow—aids in financial clearance, improved collections, and greater customer (patient) satisfaction.

(The 36th Annual Educational Conference and Exposition has 5 Concurrent Learning Labs Sessions which include more than 25 workshops covering a diverse array of topics.) View the conference brochure (PDF) here.

NAHAM attendees, please visit us next week in BOOTH 320!

National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM)
36th Annual Educational Conference & Exposition
April 30 - May 3, 2010
Orlando World Center Marriott
BOOTH 320

We will be available for consultations, just stop by the booth! If you prefer to schedule an appointment in advance, please contact Stephanie Speth at 314-878-6050, ext. 143.

View the conference brochure (PDF) here.

And the winner is...

Congratulations to Bob Adams, Information Services Manager at Bay Area Hospital in Coos Bay, OR (pictured on left) - he was the lucky winner of our HD TV giveaway at the 2010 Siemens MedSeries4 Vision User Group Conference! Enjoy!

Pictured on right:
Larry B. Grossman, PMP
Vice President, Strategic Market Development
Unibased Systems Architecture, Inc.

Rockford Health Gala 11: "Gowned & Gloved" - Get your tickets now!

Join Rockford Health System for an extraordinary evening in the magnificent Coronado Theatre where you will enjoy live bands, gourmet food, cocktails, "fun money" casino-style gambling, silent auctions and private cellar wine auction.

Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 6:00 PM (CT)

Proceeds benefit the Rockford Memorial Development Foundation to support Superior Care in Surgical Services at Rockford Health System, Rockford, IL.

Each year, the talented physicians at Rockford Health System perform more than 10,000 surgeries. Their surgeons and anesthesiologists are supported by more than 100 registered nurses, technicians and other care staff who constitute our outstanding operating room team. Together they use their skills and advanced technology (including the da Vinci robot) to treat, heal, rebuild and repair our patients – ranging from tiny newborn babies, children and teenagers to adults – all to provide “Superior Care. Every Day. For All Their Patients.”

BUY YOUR TICKETS ONLINE HERE

For more information, contact Rockford Memorial Development Foundation at 815-971-4141 or by e-mail at foundation@rhsnet.org.

Client News: Inova Health System celebrates Earth Day with educational fairs and giving away 4,000 native tree seedlings

This Thursday, April 22, Inova Health System will celebrate Earth Day at its hospitals with a variety of activities for employees and patients, and marks the progress of their "Going Green" initiatives. Inova Alexandria, Inova Fairfax, Inova Fair Oaks, Inova Loudoun and Inova Mount Vernon hospitals will hold educational fairs, give away 4,000 native tree seedlings and hold tree planting ceremonies with the hospitals’ executive leaders. For more information, click here.

PHOTO OF THE DAY: 2010 Siemens MedSeries4 Vision User Group Conference

A snapshot from this afternoon at the 2010 Siemens MedSeries4 Vision User Group Conference in our booth, space 23/24.

Pictured left to right:

George M. Giorgianni
National Director for Perioperative Solutions

Phil Amelung
Principal Consultant

Larry B. Grossman, PMP
Vice President, Strategic Market Development

Marion Sachs, RN, MSN, CNOR
Director, Surgery Systems Products

"Positive Patient Identification and IDN Single Medical Record Number" Presentation by William "Buddy" Gillespie - 4/20 at 3pm, G2I Conference

"Positive Patient Identification and IDN Single Medical Record Number"
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Industry Group, 76% of healthcare executives say information in the Electronic Health Record (EHR) will be their biggest asset in the next five years. The key to this information is correct identification of the patient and medical records. This presentation addresses the coordination and standardization of data access for multiple facilities leading toward a singular, corporate medical record identification with consistent and accurate clinical and demographic data.

Sponsored by Unibased Systems Architecture, Inc.

3:00 pm - Lindell Ballroom A
Gateway to Innovation (G2I) Conference
Tuesday, April 20 at the Chase Park Plaza
212 North Kingshighway Boulevard St Louis, Missouri 63108

SPEAKER:
William "Buddy" Gillespie
Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
WellSpan Health

Mr. Gillespie has been a leading HIT pioneer as a CIO in multiple healthcare organizations. He has a reputation for technological advances in systems, which emphasize the quality of data and implications to healthcare consumerism, patient care, and cost control. All of his experience has been with large multi-facility groups. Mr. Gillespie joined WellSpan Health in 1996 after serving as vice president of information services at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh . As WellSpan's CTO, he is responsible for the strategic planning and implementation of information technology to support multiple vendor-integrated applications consisting of financial, clinical, and administrative systems. Mr. Gillespie holds degrees in physics and mathematics from Athens University . He has been active in healthcare informatics for more than 25 years in both the development and implementation of technology solutions.

For more info, go to:
http://www.g2iconference.com/symposium/agenda

Shannon Clinic Urgent Care Open House (San Angelo, TX)

Tour the newly renovated Shannon Clinic Urgent Care - open house this Thursday, April 22, 2010 from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at 4141 College Hills, San Angelo, TX.
For more information click here.

2010 Siemens MedSeries4 Vision User Group Conference Today through Wednesday

We are at the 2010 Siemens MedSeries4 Vision User Group Conference in booth 23/24, and having a great day!

Sheraton City Centre Hotel
150 West 500 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Saturday April 17, 2010 to Wednesday April 21, 2010

For details about this conference, click here.

Gateway to Innovation (G2I) Conference TOMORROW

Gateway to Innovation (G2I) Conference
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Chase Park Plaza
212 North Kingshighway Boulevard
St Louis, Missouri 63108


The annual Gateway to Innovation (G2I) Conference brings together many great IT leaders and thinkers from around the globe and the St. Louis region to inspire, collaborate and maintain the competitive advantage in an industry that demands more for less. More than 500 IT leaders and practitioners attended the event in 2009.

The 2010 conference will explore how IT drives growth in the life sciences, manufacturing, finance, global commerce and industries yet to be discovered. Interactive break-out sessions with regional executives and industry leaders will address the convergence of IT with other business imperatives. An evening gala and awards program will recognize the efforts of local leaders and help foster the region’s most significant economic cluster. For more information about the conference, click here.

Some of the largest U.S. health insurers are changing their accounting practices to book administration costs as medical costs in an attempt to circum

Photo: A monitor in the control room displays hospital data.
[Credit: Reuters/Lee Celano]

Health insurers shifting costs ahead of law: report
by Susan Heavey - WASHINGTON, April 15 (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of the largest U.S. health insurers are changing their accounting practices to book administration costs as medical costs in an attempt to circumvent new industry reforms, according to a U.S. Senate panel's report released on Thursday.

Under the healthcare law passed in March, insurers must adjust their spending habits to meet new requirements. For example, large group plans must spend at least 85 cents of every premium dollar paid to them on actual medical care as opposed to administrative costs, while individual and small group plans must spend 80 cents.

Wall Street closely watches such spending levels, known as medical-loss ratios, or MLRs, as a sign of potential profits. Major health insurance stock indexes fell after the report.

"The insurance industry is beginning to consider the financial impact of the new federally required (medical) loss ratio requirements, including questionable changes in their accounting practices," the Democratic-led Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation said in a statement.

For example, WellPoint Inc "has already 'reclassified' more than half a billion dollars of administrative expenses as medical expenses," it said.

WellPoint spokeswoman Kristin Binns said the company would work with regulators to implement the MLR requirement, but did not comment on whether it had shifted any costs or changed its accounting practices.

A review of companies' expenses for 2009 shows that in some markets, insurers are spending 74 cents per dollar on care on average, according to the report, which was released on the committee's website at link.reuters.com/bas87j.

Cigna spokesman Chris Curran said it was too early to say how the new MLR rules would affect the insurer, and that methods of calculating costs were still being developed ahead of the new rules. Other insurers did not respond to requests for comment.

2011 DEADLINE

Although the MLR rule does not kick in until January 1, insurers so far are "still far below" what the law will require, said Senator John Rockefeller, the committee's chairman.

"This new data makes clear that too many health insurance companies are still putting profits before people," Rockefeller said, "and they have a lot of work to do to meet the consumer protection requirements of the health care reform law by the end of this year."

Regulators at the Department of Health and Human Services, charged with implementing much of the new health reform law, are pushing to apply the MLR changes quickly.

Earlier this week, the agency called on a major health insurance organization -- the National Association of Insurance Commissioners -- to give its recommendations for specific MLR ratio regulations by June 1, six months earlier than the law's December 31 deadline.

"(The agency) is seeking to publish regulations as soon as possible to allow sufficient time for health insurance issuers to incorporate these changes," U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote in a letter the group.

The S&P Managed Health Care Index closed down 0.9 percent on Thursday. The Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor Index, which also fell after the report was released and was largely in negative territory all day, closed up 0.4 percent.

Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Tim Dobbyn
View article online here.

Client News: Brian Doheny, FACHE, Elected to American College of Healthcare Executives Council of Regents

Brian Doheny, FACHE, vice president and chief operating office, Jewish Hospital Medical Center, a service of Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare (JHSMH), Louisville, has been appointed to the Council of Regents, the legislative body of the American College of Healthcare Executives, which serves as the vital link between ACHE and affiliates by approving governance and membership regulations, as well as promoting ACHE programs, services and activities within their respective areas. For more information, click here.

Client News: Nurse Wins Award for Testing Botsford Hospital's Readiness for Mass Inoculations

Tina Marinucci, R.N., employee health nurse at Botsford Hospital in Farmington Hills, has been selected as a recipient of a Botsford Hospital 2010 Safety Excellence Award. The award recognizes employees’ contributions to the hospital’s safety initiatives.

Marinucci received the award for organizing and coordinating the hospital’s first employee mass vaccination drill for the seasonal flu vaccine. The three-part drill vaccinated 2,000 hospital employees in one day and tested the hospital’s ability to cope with a communicable disease outbreak. The first part of the drill consisted of a mass inoculation of all employees. The other two components included lockdown of the hospital at shift change and a screening process for employees coming on to campus to check for symptoms of illness. All employees had to be vaccinated or sign a declination.

Botsford Hospital is a multi-specialty community hospital with 330 licensed beds located in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Botsford Hospital each year cares for more than 17,000 inpatients and almost 60,000 emergency patients with a team of 2,400 employees, 400 volunteers and more than 600 physicians.

View full press release here.

Client News: Shannon Medical Center's Denise Jackson, RN elected to the AORN 2010-2011 Board of Directors

Denise Jackson, RN, MSN, CNS, CRNFA was recently elected to the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses 2010-2011 Board of Directors at the AORN’s 57th Congress in Denver. The AORN is a national association committed to improving patient safety in the surgical setting.

Jackson is a clinical nurse specialist (CNS) and certified RN first assistant (CRNFA). She has been a perioperative nurse and a member of AORN for 26 years. Jackson also serves as a clinical instructor for the department of nursing at Angelo State University. "AORN represents more than 40,000 perioperative nurses across the United States and is the leader in advocating for excellence in perioperative nursing,” Jackson said. “The association’s Perioperative Standards and Recommended Practices are the foundation of clinical nursing practice in Shannon Medical Center’s Department of Surgery."

Condolences to the family of Russell G. Brown and his colleagues at Huntsville Hospital

Russell G. Brown, 66, a former chairman of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce and the 2009 Alabama Hospital Association Trustee of the Year, died today after a year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. He served eight years on the Huntsville Hospital board of trustees, where he was currently chairman. We extend our deepest condolences to the family of Russell G. Brown and his colleagues at Huntsville Hospital.

Please consider making a donation today to support research and development of a cure for pancreatic cancer. Go to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network online at http://www.pancan.org

Client News: Jewish Hospital and St. Mary’s HealthCare is the first hospital in Louisville to develop an iPhone app

Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare is the first hospital in Louisville to develop an iPhone and Blackberry app to serve the needs of their patients. The JHSMH application, available in iTunes (and soon-to-be Blackberry app store), is free and allows you to perform such tasks as:

* Finding a physician near you and even requesting an appointment
* Registering for events
* Keeping track of the latest JHSMH news
* Receiving interesting health news and tips
* Monitoring your food intake with a calorie tracker and food diary
* Determining if you are in a healthy weight range with a BMI calculator

For more info, go to: http://jhsmh.org/socialmedia/

To get the app, go to:
itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jewish-hospital-st-marys-healthcare/id362300180?mt=8
NOTE: To use this link to download and install the app, iTunes is required. If you do not have iTunes on your phone or PC, this download must be done first.

Business Insight: The Critical Path for Improving Decisions - Why Insight Matters (PART 1)

by special guest blogger, John P. Indrigo - President of JPI Enterprises, LLC

“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.” ~ Marshall McLuhan

• Greater insight is 2 times more likely to influence the actions of employees at higher performing organizations than at their peers in all industries

• Sharing of data is viewed as loss of control 2.5 times more often at poorer performing organizations than with higher performing peers

Insight is the power to see into most any given situation. It requires a combination of experience and analytics, and enables organizations to uncover opportunities as well as expose shortcomings - establishing a fact-based basis for corrective action. The balance between experience and analytics is subject to much debate, as evidenced by the different experiences related in the books Blink (Malcolm Caldwell) and Competing on Analytics (Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris).

The two approaches to gaining insight are not mutually exclusive, and there is growing quantifiable evidence that both higher competency and pervasiveness of business intelligence and analytics lead to superior performance. Insight gained from business intelligence and analytics will allow a healthcare organization to better understand their challenges and opportunities relative to patients, providers, payers and procedures, and how each affects profitability. IDC research shows that managers in higher performing organizations are 2 times more likely than their poorest performing peers to supplement experience with analytics.

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” ~ Aldous Huxley

Insight enables better decision making; if information is unavailable at the point of decision or if there is lack of consensus about the meaning of data, organizations will likely face a disconnect between the evidence and actions taken. Organizations can make fast decisions based on poor quality data, for example, or they can capture high quality data with such latency so as to make the data virtually useless. These examples highlight the dilemma facing many healthcare organizations, especially small to mid-size organizations.

Unfortunately the data available about patients, providers, payers and procedures often resides in unrelated (and often stand-alone) databases. Faced with the expense and trauma often associated with the deployment of new “enterprise” information technology systems, the majority of healthcare organizations interested in business intelligence and analytics have opted to implement stand-alone applications that rely on data inputs from multiple disparate sources. While these systems serve a useful purpose, they remain problematic for two reasons:

a) The cost and elapsed time to acquire deploy and maintain such systems is beyond the reach of many healthcare organizations.

b) The latency with which the data becomes available often renders it interesting but irrelevant.

New technologies are emerging that show promise in overcoming the 2 major shortcomings –cost and latency - of business intelligence and analytics tools for healthcare organizations, particularly the small to medium organizations. Based on large-scale database technology, provided via Software as a Service deployment, and using readily available data input sources (such as 837/835 datasets), these tools can help close the insight gap in an affordable and non-intrusive way.

Business intelligence and analytics, leading to greater insight, can now be added to the management tools of virtually all healthcare organizations.

(To be continued - part 2 coming soon)

Author: John P. Indrigo
President of JPI Enterprises, LLC
Phone: 813-503-0400
Email: jindrigo@gmail.com
View Full Bio Here

Not for reprint or other use without author's permission.

PHOTO OF THE DAY: HIMSS 2010

2010 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference and Exhibition - Accepting the awards for "BEST IN KLAS" in enterprise scheduling and surgery management market segments.

Left to right:

Mark Allphin, Senior Research Director
KLAS Enterprises, LLC

Larry B. Grossman, PMP
Vice President, Strategic Market Development
Unibased Systems Architecture, Inc.

L.V. "Skip" Covington
President and CEO
Unibased Systems Architecture, Inc.

Kent Gale
Founder and Chairman of the Board
KLAS Enterprises, LLC


Unibased Systems Architecture's ORMS was ranked #1 for Surgery Management and RMS was ranked #1 for Enterprise Scheduling in the "2009 Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Professional Services report". Both solutions have been the top ranked system in their respective market segments for the past 7 consecutive years (2003-2009).

© 2010 KLAS Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved. www.KLASresearch.com

This week we are launching a series of special guest bloggers who are professionals within healthcare and healthcare IT!

This week our featured guest blogger will be:

John P. Indrigo
President of JPI Enterprises View Bio Here

COMING THIS WEEK, 2-Part article:
"Business Insight: The Critical Path for Improving Decisions"

Client News: Oakwood Healthcare Maintains Orthopedic Excellence

Maintaining its leadership in total joint replacements, Oakwood Healthcare remains the only healthcare organization in the state of Michigan to have four hospitals awarded the coveted Gold Seal of Approval from the Joint Commission for its hip and knee joint replacement programs.

Oakwood’s award winning total joint program has not only received national recognition but is now also recognized as the volume leader in our primary service area. Oakwood Hospital & Medical Center leads all hospitals in the number of total hip and knee procedures performed each year in our service area. Oakwood orthopedics can lay claim to conducting more than 68 percent all total hip and knee replacements performed in our service area.

This designation means we adhere to, and maintain, the most stringent clinical standards of care when it comes to patient education, the use of state-of-the-art technologies and therapy services. We embrace a team approach every step of the way from preventative medicine and treatment to surgery and rehabilitation. This equates to a continuum of care, considered “best in class” by the Joint Commission.

Patients and physicians can be assured that Oakwood’s orthopedic replacement program emphasizes a clinical level of care that results in better outcomes. For more info, visit www.oakwood.org.

Today kicks off National Public Health Week!

View the American Public Health Association "A Healthy America" Survey Results (PDF) - a national telephone survey of 1,000 U.S. adults to measure what Americans know about public health initiatives and to quantify how Americans characterize their personal health as well as their ability to make a personal or community difference. VIEW RESULTS (PDF)

PHOTO OF THE DAY: Dr. Ronald J. Donaldson honored at Neuro Focus symposium

Elmer G. Ellis, President & CEO (right) of the East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare System, honored Ronald J. Donaldson, MD, on April 1 at ETMC’s annual Neuro Focus Neuroscience Symposium, which is now named in his honor. Dr. Donaldson, who brought neurosurgery to East Texas, joined the medical staff of ETMC Tyler in 1972 and was instrumental in developing the hospital’s Neurological Institute. He also was the founder of Tyler Neurosurgical Associates and currently serves on the board of directors of the ETMC Regional Healthcare System. The Donaldson Neuroscience Symposium is held each spring, bringing together noted experts in all fields of neurology and neurosurgery for the benefit of area physicians and related clinical personnel. Visit ETMC online at http://www.etmc.org/.