HP Worldwide Health Symposium - Abstracts

Australia has established a new organization, jointly owned by federal and state health agencies, to accelerate the implementation of e-health. The new body, known as the National E-Health Transition Authority, will develop the building blocks necessary for the introduction of a national system of shared electronic health records. The presentation will cover the agenda for change (who’s driving it and why), what the mandate to drive change is and how this will happen, the challenges and the effects on the system if things don’t change, and the road map for change.

In 2004, President George W. Bush appointed David Brailer, M.D., Ph.D., to the newly created position of The National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. The Office of the National Coordinator will collaborate with the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to meet the president’s goal of widespread adoption of interoperable electronic health records within 10 years.

Automation of the healthcare industry through widespread use of health information technology (HIT) offers a unique opportunity to improve quality and to reduce costs at the same time. HIT is also critical to transforming how healthcare is delivered. Dr. Brailer will provide an update on the building blocks and the strategies that are under way to provide consumer-centric and information-rich healthcare

This presentation will examine the potential health and financial benefits of healthcare information technology (HIT) comparing healthcare with IT-enabled benefits in other industries. It will also look at the investments in HIT and related healthcare system changes, including improved incentives for healthcare efficiency and quality that must occur in order to garner the benefits.

In London, Ontario, the two major hospitals have been working together to find an optimal mix of shared services and to promote regional integration of the health systems in the Ontario province. The leaders of London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care will share their experiences and lessons learned from this endeavor.

Harvard–Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics (HPCGG) is dedicated to bringing about a change in clinical practice through the incorporation of genetic and genomic knowledge into clinical decision-making. HPCGG has been working closely with Partners Healthcare to build the appropriate linkages between the information systems responsible for genetic research and clinical delivery. Early efforts that have been successful include the implementation of an improved Laboratory Information Management System and the integration of genetic knowledge into electronic medical records. The factors that lead to success and the challenges that lay ahead will be reviewed.

The biosciences revolution is providing new insight into the basic structure of life. The result of this revolution is a new set of informatics models and data management challenges. Dr. Fitzgerald will explore the challenges of managing this data and correlating multiple studies across different scientific disciplines. He will also discuss the required connections between the healthcare system and the clinical research community to ensure a mutually beneficial relationship.

In recent years, patients have changed their interactions with healthcare providers based on new sources of information fueled by the advent of the Internet. Recent advances in health monitoring devices and the continued deployment of broadband and wireless networking infrastructures will fuel the desire to include clinical observations from the patient’s home to be included in the electronic medical record. Dr. Jadad will explore the benefits and challenges of dealing with the
communication of information to and from the patient.

A confluence of disparate forces—including growing evidence of poor care, rising healthcare costs, consumerism, and purchaser activism—are propelling a major transformation in healthcare in which payment will be directly linked to performance, consumers will be responsible for paying a greater share of costs, and performance will be publicly reported for all providers.

The rate-limiting step in how fast this transformation occurs is how quickly state-of-the-art healthcare information technology can be deployed throughout the sector. Dr. Kizer will review the genesis and evolution of these forces, who some of the major players are and what they are doing, and why there is an enormous opportunity for a breakthrough technology.

Assessing the implications of the new connectivity movement: an examination of the potential obstacles in the way of creating a seamless information continuum in the healthcare economy as well as potential business, operational and technical strategies for overcoming these obstacles in the pursuit of true information exchange.

As the demand for improved information systems pervades the health market, many organizations have taken up the banner of the "Digital Hospital." This presentation will review the implementation of a broad-based digital communications infrastructure for the new hospital at St. Olav’s in Trondheim, Norway. The discussion will focus on the benefits of creating an inclusive architecture that connects a wide variety of devices, including traditional voice and data devices as well as a variety of mechanical and medical devices.

Many industry pundits have positioned the electronic patient record (EPR) as the holy grail of the hospital organization. This presentation will review the experience of Landspitali–University Hospital in its evolving implementation of an EPR and the organizational impact. The discussion will focus on the benefits and challenges of this effort as well as the feedback from the key constituents of an EPR—the hospital clinicians.

This presentation looks at: RFID technology, RFID healthcare applications, pilots underway and the value of RFID in healthcare.