Healthcare IT News For VARs — January 16, 2015
By Megan Williams, contributing writer
In the news, two more healthcare data breaches are reported, and the long-term care software market is predicted to grow. Also, the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare IT (ONC) released a report on health information exchange (HIE), and a study by AHIMA shows older patients prefer e-prescriptions.
California And Indiana Face Data Breaches
According to Health IT Security, facilities in both California and Indiana have found themselves recovering from data breaches. Inland Empire Health Plan announced last week that an unencrypted desktop was stolen from one of their facilities in October of last year. The computer contained information on 1,030 members, which included names, member IDs, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, and appointment dates. Indiana is also adjusting to the mishandling of 5,600 patient medical records by a dentist, which included them being disposed of in a dumpster. The dentist agreed to pay a $12,000 penalty.
Long-Term Care Software Market Report Released
According to a release from Business Wire, the global long-term care (LTC) software market can be expected to expand at a CAGR of 13.7 percent between the years of 2014 and 2019, to a total worth of $7.6 billion. Elements fueling that growth include a world-wide rise in an aging population that has triggered greater need for healthcare IT solutions in long term care facilities. Unfortunately, LTC providers have been reluctant to adopt software, largely due to maintenance costs. Read more on the report here.
HIE Study Released By ONC
The ONC has released the case study results of their work, The State HIE Program Four Years Later: Key Findings on Grantees’ Experiences from a Six-State Review, which examines the historical progress of state-based HIEs, focusing on six specific states. The case study found both progress, and areas of needed improvement. While the study found wide variations in the challenges faced by Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming, it determined that an appropriate basis for exchange of health info had been established. Context played a large role in how each state approached its exchange and the results that came about because of them. Read more at Health IT Outcomes.
Older Patients Prefer e-Prescriptions
According to a study from AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association), 81 percent of older patients prefer prescriptions in electronic format to paper. The study overall showed high satisfaction rates with the entire e-prescribing process, with 84 percent expecting prescriptions, 93 percent being very satisfied with their physician, and 84 percent citing satisfaction with their pharmacist. The report also outlined communication rates around e-prescriptions between doctors and patients, and appears to reveal that e-prescribing produces positive results in medication adherence. Access the full report here.
Healthcare IT Talking Points
This article in Tech Republic examines the use of Big Data in the healthcare industry to save lives. It cites an example of the lives of 11 UK women being shortened because of doctor negligence — something that could have been avoided if the hospital in question had been watching data around doctor behavior. According to the article, unlike many of the care-related data manipulation that gets discussed lately, avoiding issues like this would only involve very basic data manipulation. It also discusses working with data around patient and family satisfaction collected from friends and family.
According to Politico, physicians and other human users of EHRs (electronic health records) are still frustrated by the use of electronic medical records. Federal plans for the year focus on encouraging areas of human interaction, though fall short of suggesting actual regulatory intervention. Experts have blamed the lack of human factors engineers in the health IT space, and cite the absence of the professionals at levels ranging from universities to vendors. The medical record technology has also been cited as increasing stress in the physician work day.
For more news and insights, visit BSMinfo’s Healthcare IT Resource Center.