Christina's Considerations

Modernizing Rural Health Care

Earlier this week, United Health's Center for Health Reform & Modernization released a working paper, titled Modernizing Rural Health Care. It notes that in recent years, rural areas in the South and West are attracting both younger populations and new... Read more →

Social Media and Telehealth

I'm really pleased to have been invited by Tom Brewer, Program Manager, and the Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center (NRTRC) to prepare a social media toolkit for telehealth professionals and networks. In addition to a guide and telehealth-specific examples, it... Read more →

Stanford Team Ready to Mobilize for Disaster Relief

@StanfordHosp just tweeted the link to their YouTube video describing their role in Haiti disaster relief and preparedness for responding to future events. For more information on SEMPER (Stanford Emergency Medicine Program for Emergency Response) call 650-736-7373. It is a... Read more →

Disaster Planning: Water Supply

I'm starting to prepare for the statewide health and medical disaster exercise in November and want to share the CDC's Emergency Water Supply Planning Guide for Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities with my readers. I look forward to reading it and... Read more →

Book Sale: Social Media in Healthcare

I'm cleaning out my office today and organizing. I just pulled 40 copies of my book Social Media in Healthcare: Connect Communicate Collaborate out of the box and put them on a shelf. It got me thinking that I should... Read more →

CMS Proposed Rule: Reimbursement for Telestroke and TeleICU

I posted the news about CMS' new proposed rule on the Telestroke Initiative site, but not here. It could improve reimbursement of telestroke and teleICU because of the consideration of broader factors in determining what procedure codes are approved for... Read more →

Social Media Best Practice: Hospital Evacuation

It has been a while since I highlighted one of the best practices from my book companion and I'm really surprised I didn't highlight this one sooner. This example comes to us from Children's Memorial Hospital Chicago and involves their... Read more →

Ventura County Operation Medical Shelter

One of my former Ventura County co-workers and Public Health's lead for healthcare disaster response sent me a link to their YouTube Video from their recent exercise and training. I'm glad he did, because I couldn't attend and I appreciate... Read more →

Connecting California to Improve Patient Care

I finally made it to Redwood MedNet Health Information Exchange Conference and share my learnings and thoughts below. I first learned about their activities when still working for the Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange back in 2005. It is... Read more →

Social Media: Law and Risk

I recently came across two papers addressing social media risk and the law for healthcare organizations. The first is from the HIPAA Collaborative of Wisconsin Security Networking Group and the second is from an attorney on the American Health Lawyers... Read more →

Most Beautiful Hospitals

I went to San Diego this weekend and while there toured the USS Midway. Of course, I couldn't resist a couple pictures of the ship's hospital. Below you see the 20-bed unit with the two-bed ICU is in the room... Read more →

FDA Proposed Guidance on Mobile Health Apps

The FDA will release its proposed guidance on mobile health apps Wednesday with a 90 day comment period. They propose overseeing those apps that: Are used as an accessory to an FDA-regulated medical device. For example, an app could enable... Read more →

Disaster Planning HPP Grant

HHS released $352 million in grants for hospital to improve their disaster planning and response capabilities. This is the grant that I work under with each of the hospitals and public health here in my own county. We have accomplished... Read more →

LSU Tigers in Print

The LSU Alumni Magazine included my book, Social Media in Healthcare: Connect Communicate Collaborate in the Tigers in Print section of their Summer issue. It might be cool for people who knew me when to see it and maybe I'll... Read more →

Healthcare Unbound and Redwood MedNet

I'm attending two conferences next week. The first is to speak on social media and join a panel at Healthcare Unbound in San Diego. I'm really looking forward to it, because the audience will be non-traditional for me and I'm... Read more →

Innovators and Quality of Care in CAHs

I'm having a really busy month, but just saw two documents I don't want to lose. I hope you don't mind me just saying "hello" and leaving them here until I can breath again! Innovators' Guide to Navigating Medicare Quality... Read more →

Red Tape and Telehealth for Cost Savings

I read my current issue of Modern Healthcare this weekend and saw a good idea for helping to cut down on the cost of some personal protective equipment (PPE) and the time needed to don and safely remove PPE when... Read more →

New eHealth Initiative HIE Toolkit

eHI has released its new HIE toolkit. I'd recommend reviewing the tools if you are establishing health information exchange within your system or across providers in the region. Also, I also still recommend the HIMSS Guide to Establishing a RHIO.... Read more →

Critical Care in Disasters

I read the stories that came out of Joplin, MO after the tornado and evacuation of St. John's Hospital and then pulled out some of the lessons learned for a handout for some of my local disaster connections. Around the... Read more →