Christina's Considerations

Partnership for Excellence

On Thursday, I'm facilitating a session on collaboration at the Annual Partnership for Excellence Conference for Santa Barbara County's nonprofit sector. One of the documents circulated to help us prepare is a paper by David La Piana titled "Real Collaboration:... Read more →

Happy Mardi Gras!

Happy Mardi Gras! This year the masks of comedy :) and tragedy :( have a special meaning, as do the Mardi Gras colors: Purple = Justice Green = Faith Gold = Power Read more →

Hospital IT ROI

A study titled "Hospital Information Technology and Positive Financial Performance: A Different Approach to Finding an ROI" was reported in the January-February issue of the Journal of Healthcare Management The study, funded by the Florida legislature, found that IT adoption... Read more →

Helping New Orleans Hospitals

New Orleans and the healthcare community need a different kind of help these days. People have been returning to the area to clean up and rebuild and the few hospitals that are open are struggling to staff beds to care... Read more →

State CIO Role in RHIOs

Information Week reported on a recent briefing by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) which highlighted the facts that states are large payers of health-care services through programs like Medicaid, as well as, large purchasers of health... Read more →

Hope for Healthcare: In New Orleans and Beyond

The Washington Post reports on Secretary Leavitt's most recent trip to New Orleans. Since the healthcare system has been flooded away, he sees the clear slate as an opportunity to build a new and more effective structure. He is waiting... Read more →

Health Information Management Professionals

The AHIMA has a paper titled "Surveying the RHIO Landscape: A Description of Current RHIO Models, with a Focus on Patient Identification". After reading it, I realized that I have not met many Health Information Management professionals in my RHIO... Read more →

Greetings from New Orleans

I just came across another weblog on Typepad and it has pictures from Mardi Gras 05. You might enjoy the pictures -- I did! Greeting from New Orleans Read more →

How to sell to hospital administrators!

Attention hospital administrators! You might want to review this post from Businessword on strategies for selling IT to hospital administrators. It doesn't say anything earth shattering, but sometimes it is nice to see the world from "the other side." Oh,... Read more →

Dr. Brailer's Comments on RHIOs

There is a lot of debate about Dr. Brailer's recent comments on the role of RHIOs including the following survey on Health Data Management 's website. "David Brailer's recent comments that most RHIOs eventually will become advisory/governing bodies that determine... Read more →

Medseek and AccessPt Merger

Congratulations to Gale Wilson-Steele and Medseek on their merger with AccessPt! Gale and Medseek are friends and neighbors here in beautiful Santa Barbara County. I wish them all the best on their new adventure with AccessPt! Read more →

Employment-Based Benefits and the Nursing Shortage

New study findings were released in Health Affairs (Jan/Feb 06) by Joanne Spetz and Sara Adams. For the most part, the research findings were similar to what we have reviewed in this weblog previously. Recommendations for health care leaders and... Read more →

CA P4P

The Integrated Healthcare Association released a report titled Advancing Quality Through Collaboration: The California Pay for Performance Program. The program uses performance goals encompassing three areas: clinical measures, patient experiences and investment in information technology and it involves 225 physician... Read more →

Hospital Impact Interview

Tony at Hospital Impact interviewed me last week. As Tony points out, we are both interested in finding other hospital/administrator webloggers. If you hear of any, please share their link with us! Thank you, Tony, for asking such great questions! Read more →

Tulane University Hospital Re-opens!

HCA Tulane Univeristy Hospital is open just in time for Mardi Gras! Go Green Wave! See pictures! Read more →

Frisse on RHIOs

Thanks Marc for sharing your presentation with those of us who could not make it to San Diego this week. You have reinforced that I'm not too off track when defining RHIOs. Read Marc Frisse's HIMSS 06 presentation on RHIOs. Read more →

Wyoming EHR Bill

Yesterday the Wyoming legislative committee sent a bill to the State Senate to create a $58-million statewide electronic health records system. The bill includes $37 million for financial assistance to hospitals and health care providers. Congratulations WyHIO! Jan 2006 Report... Read more →

Handheld Medicare Drug Formulary Information

The California HealthCare Foundation and the California Medical Association have launched a special offer to put easy-to-use technology and valuable information about drug formularies—including Medicare Part D—literally in the palm of clinicians' hands. If you are a California physician and... Read more →

Inland Empire RHIO

Dr. Gary Levin has been working hard to pull the stakeholders together for the Inland Empire RHIO. The next meeting is on February 21 in Riverside, CA and the agenda will be posted on their weblog. If any of my... Read more →

Health Information Privacy and Security Week

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) sponsors Health Information Privacy and Security Week (April 9-15) which is designed to raise awareness among the public about the importance of personal health information privacy and security. This year HIPS Week seems... Read more →

Consumer Involvement in Healthcare

I've written about personal health records (PHRs) in past posts, but the audience was primarily healthcare professionals. Today, however, I want to reach consumers of healthcare and increase their knowledge of PHRs and perhaps provide motivation for becoming more involved... Read more →

HIMSS06

Oh, I'm missing the ball! But, I have my reasons and a strategy! To my blogger friends, thank you for your daily posts which make me feel like I'm there (sort of). I may not be in San Diego, but... Read more →

Contributing to an Effective Workplace

I've written about how employers can create effective workplaces, but it takes "two to tango", so employees wanting to help creating an effective workplace should read the following article: Download contributing_to_an_effective_workplace.pdf Read more →

Sample Documents: Cal RHIO Bylaws

Cal RHIO Bylaws Read more →

The eHealth Trust Model

I recently came across Dr. Yasnoff's weblog and include a link here to his recent post on Seven Keys to RHIO Success. I heard Dr. Yasnoff speak last year and was impressed by his creative thinking ability and his innovative... Read more →