On Wednesday, UnitedHealthcare awarded $5.2 million in grants to
several not-for-profit health care organizations in California to
help improve health care services and wellness programs, Payers
& Providers reports.
Providers like Kaiser, the Mayo Clinic, and, interestingly, the
Veterans Administration, have installed sophisticated data
systems, but the difference between a state-run approach and the
market-driven one is stark.
Although many community hospitals in the U.S. are operating under
tight budgets, they still are working to implement a variety of
health IT systems to improve operations, patient satisfaction and
performance, according to a survey from health IT vendor
Anthelio, Healthcare IT News reports.
September 11, 2011Sacramento Business JournalAugust 26, 2011
Imagine a five-foot tall robot helping to diagnose a stroke
victim in a small, rural California hospital. Or you suddenly
become ill on a business trip hundreds of miles from home and the
emergency room (ER) physician needs immediate access to your
medical records. With a simple click of a mouse, your entire
medical history now appears on an ER computer screen so
physicians can check your last treatments and current
prescriptions.
Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest
hospital chains, is working with four other large health
interests to create America’s first major electronic health
records network.
In a technologically interconnected world where yesterday’s
unimagined innovation is today’s standard office tool, the idea
of electronic health records seems obvious. Put patient records
online so an emergency room physician can check when you last saw
your doctor and what lab tests were done? Of course.
Have your doctor send your prescription to a pharmacy
electronically with a system that warns if the drug would
interact with something you already take? A no-brainer.
