Hospital Administration

At HIMSS10, slated for the first week of March in Atlanta, GE Healthcare plans to unveil remote monitoring technologies that assist point-of-care decision making.

The Veterans Affairs Department is looking for a vendor to modify its computerized patient record system so it can track more physician actions. VA seeks the system to track and report on physicians' actions after receiving critical diagnostic test alerts.

Wireless VoIP and unified communications promise better patient care at homes and hospitals, but the deployment of these technologies is being hamstrung by a piecemeal approach that often ignores or even interferes with that care, according to a new study by Spyglass Consulting Group, a consulting group focused on healthcare IT.

HHS said in November that it would allocate $80 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help colleges and universities develop health information technology courses. Already, some 40 to 50 master's degree and Ph.D.-level medical informatics programs operate in the United States.

Healthcare data is rendered meaningless unless it can be shared, according to industry experts. The Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) North America Connectathon, now in its 11th year, recently showed how to get interoperability done right.

Hospitals looking to automate the reimbursement process for chargeable supplies have a new tool at their disposal from Craneware. The Atlanta-based developer of revenue cycle management tools has launched Supplies ChargeLink, a software solution designed to link the item master and supply items in a provider’s chargemaster platform, identifying supply item inconsistencies and improving the reimbursement process.

Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Calif., has implemented the Voalte One system, a unified communications solution developed for the iPhone that combines phone calls across the hospital PBX, text messaging via a visual user directory, and user-friendly alarm management.

UMass Memorial Home Health and Hospice, based in Worcester, Mass., will implement Thornberry's NDoc home care software platform for its point of care, billing and operational needs with its 90 clinicians and 20 office staff.

Sharp HealthCare's William F. Spooner credited his IT team Wednesday with helping him earn CIO of the Year honors. The senior vice president and CIO of the San Diego-based healthcare network will receive the 2009 John E. Gall CIO of the Year Award on March 2 at the annual HIMSS 2010 Conference and Exhibition in Atlanta.