Christina's Considerations

Tablets in Healthcare

The July/August issue of Government Health IT had an article about tablets making their way into healthcare workplaces and it suggests that we respond by harnessing these assets - cautiously. The article highlights the first tablet app cleared by the... Read more →

Childhood Obesity: It's Everyone's Business

The National Business Group on Heatlh has released a new toolkit, Childhood Obesity: It's Everyone's Business. It was prepared in response to employer interest in today's realities: Nearly one third of children are overweight or obese. Two thirds of children... Read more →

Health Information Technology Online Seminar

I've been quite impressed by the American College of Healthcare Executives interest in health information technology over the last few years and their desire to spark the imagination of healthcare leaders. It was especially exciting to see us evolve to... Read more →

1135 Waivers and Hospital Evacuation

I completed two evacuation tabletop exercises this month and also have started the review process of our plan template. At the same time I learned about a great educational resource from FEMA & the American College of Emergency Physicians for... Read more →

Data Breach Due to Poor Business Associate Safeguards

Here is a great example of why hospitals need to assess/test the data/information safeguards of their business associates. In this case 300,000 individuals had their health information and SS#'s freely available on a provider business associate's website. As a consumer,... Read more →

Hospital Marketing: Are you ready for the patient experience?

Social media in healthcare is evolving and finding its way into operational and clinical tools and this has been where much of my focus has been lately. However, I do want to check-in with where healthcare social media got it's... Read more →

HIMSS HIE Toolkit

The HIMSS HIE Workgroup is getting started on developing some new tools for the HIMSS HIE Toolkit and I thought I should remind my readers about this resource. Last year a technical architecture checklist and master provider index tools were... Read more →

VA Encourages Employee Use of Social Media

The VA has gotten it right with their June 28th directive and policy on use of social media. It is so perfect, especially the last line, I've quoted it below. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) endorses the secure use... Read more →

Three Steps Towards Adopting EHRs

I'm a featured blogger of Healthworks Collective and they recently invited me to write a guest post putting EHRs into perspective for their readers. The article defines the landscape, addresses a couple of real challenges related to privacy and security... Read more →

Top Social Media Voice for the HIT Industry

For the last couple of days I've been getting a lot of new Twitter followers and their profiles seem to demonstrate a common interest in EHRs and HIE. So I've been wondering... where are they learning about me? Well, I... Read more →

Louisiana State Medical Society: Healthcare and Disaster Planning

I just learned about a resource on disaster planning for healthcare, a project of the Louisiana State Medical Society, and want to share it with my readers. I've only quickly reviewed the 122-pages, but notice it has some great pictures... Read more →

Connecting Healthcare IT and Disaster Planning

Mind the Gap is a blog post I wrote specifically for my friends at Health IT Exchange. I love to combine multiple interests and this one connects my hospital disaster planning and preparedness work with my interest in health information... Read more →

Hospital Reporting of Surgical-Site Infection Rates

California hospitals are required to report surgical-site infection rates for 26 procedures to the CDC, and ultimately the public. Beginning January 2012 the following information will be available on the CDPH website. Information regarding the incidence rate of deep or... Read more →

Healthcare Emergency Codes and Information Technology

I'm not really sure what is happening, but I seem to have had a surge in emergency and disaster posts. I also just submitted an article that will be published soon on disaster planning for information services and technology departments.... Read more →

Integrating Social Media into Emergency-Preparedness Efforts

The NEJM includes an article that addresses the integration of social media in emergency preparedness efforts from the perspective of physicians. I appreciate the examples they share and agree with the authors. Key issues include: The effectiveness of our public... Read more →

Patient Families and Social Media

This article has some wonderful stories about how social media has helped support families with communications after a family illness or injury. Hospitals, take note of how social media is of value to patients, their families and friends! Read more →

Lunch & Learns featuring the HIT Workforce Curriculum

DocNotes posted on his first impression of the HIT Workforce Curriculum and I realized I had covered this in my HIT course for ACHE, but not posted on it here. The ONC has released its HIT Workforce Curriculum, which is... Read more →