Christina's Considerations

4 Best Types of Apps for Hospital Use

Great HealthcareIT News article with advice from your's truly! What are my top 4? 1. Those that free providers from offices or workstations 2. Those that offer access to lab results and medical imaging. 3. Those that convert a smartphone... Read more →

End-of-Life Discussions Do Not Affect Survival Rates

Discussing and documenting patients’ preferences for care at the end of life does not cause them any harm, contrary to recent claims. A new study published today in the Journal of Hospital Medicine found that patients who talk with their... Read more →

Tag Clouds

I've been wanting to create a Tag Cloud and finally had some time. The one below is of my May/June article for Healthcare Executive magazine. Visit http://tagcrowd.com/ to create your own Tag Cloud! access active application apps blogs build care... Read more →

How To: Set up Office 365 with Direct Project

Sean at the Family Health Guy has a great post on setting up Office 365 with ONC's Direct Project. I believe this will take us far and it is a wonderful opportunity for small, independent and/or rural providers to particiapte... Read more →

Social Media in Disasters

September is Disaster Preparedness Month so I'm especially happy to share the new Congressional Research Service report titled Social Media and Disasters: Current Uses, Future Options, and Policy Considerations. It isn't limited to healthcare, but the information is still relevant.... Read more →

Where Good Ideas Come From

Innovation => Ideas: evolve, incubate, hunch, collision, mingle, swap, combine, borrow, connect.... Chance favors the connected mind! Read more →

ICD 10 Transition Guide

CMS has published an ICD-10 Transition Guide to assist providers before the October 2013 due date. The new code sets for electronic health transactions include an increase in codes from 17,000 to 155,000 and there are expanded data fields. My... Read more →

Community Health Needs Assessments

The Health Care Reform Legislation (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) requires non-profit hospitals to perform a community health needs assessment every three years and adopt an implementation strategy to meet the outstanding community health needs identified in the assessment... Read more →

Behind the Mask

This was a good week for me as it relates to reading -- I finished two books! Behind the Mask: the Mystique of Surgery and the Surgeons who Perform Them was written by a general surgeon and fellow blogger (Heard... Read more →

Social Media Revolution 2011

One of my HIT Seminar students gave me a link to this video and it is worth watching, especially if you believe social media is a passing fad! Read more →

Hot Trend for Real Healthy Living

My neighbors and I have had to organize and attend to a desire by the County to up-zone in our semi-rural neighborhood. There are several infrastructure issues we are presenting as arguments against any significant upzoning, but there are a... Read more →

HHS Updating Regulations to Recognize Changing Technology

HHS has released its plan for retrospective review of existing rules that may actually be interfering with the delivery of healthcare services. This review is in response to Executive Order 13563, which is aimed at all federal agencies and the... Read more →

Social Media Toolkit for Telehealth Professionals and Programs

When my full-time role ended with the Northwest Regional Telehealth Resource Center(NRTRC), I began working with them to create a social media toolkit for telehealth and telemedicine organizations, networks and professionals. The fruit of the effort has now been released... Read more →

CTN Announces Model Communities and Training Resource

The California Telehealth Network recently announced their Model eHealth Communities, but also made an eHealth Broadband Adoption Training Program available. It looks like a good resource for healthcare employee training. Read more →

Healthcare Online Trends

HealthLeaders has some interesting stats related to online trends of healthcare consumers. This is greatly impacted by whether one's provider has the functionality desired on their site. But, it is a sign that we are moving in the right direction. Read more →

Increased Prevalence of Stroke Hospitalizations Seen in Teens and Young Adults

Rising trends in risk factors and comorbidities are associated with the increase in stroke hospitalizations of teens and young adults. For those in communities served by telestroke networks, it is important to keep this population in mind. Ischemic stroke hospitalization... Read more →

Emergency Water Supply Planning

Preparations for the CA Statewide Medical Health Exercise are underway and today includes an American Water Works Association (AWWA) web program on Planning for an Emergency Drinking Water Supply and Emergency Water Supply Planning for Hospitals and Health Care Facilities.... Read more →