Healthcare IT stimulus funding: Show me where to put the money

张琨

NASHVILLE – Now that the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been signed into law, what does it mean for the healthcare industry, particularly for healthcare IT?
Providers and other healthcare IT stakeholders should focus on five areas that will likely be targeted by healthcare IT funding, said John Tempesco, vice president of Client Services and Marketing for Informatics Corp. of America, or ICA.
Ready-to-go healthcare IT projects that prevent medical mistakes, provide better patient care, promote preventative care, evaluate the most cost-effective healthcare treatments and drive cost-savings efficiencies will not only provide ROI but create jobs as well, he said.
Vendors should encourage their customers to expand healthcare IT projects and get them in place to be "shovel ready" for when the funding becomes available, he said.
"Because the focus is shifting away from automating the business of medicine to the clinical practice of medicine, the emphasis is now on informatics," Tempesco said.
Congress and demonstration projects by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, have been focusing on clinical results and how physicians use information in healthcare IT platforms to reduce errors, make better-informed clinical decisions and deliver workflow efficiencies, he pointed out.
As a result, clinical informatics will be an area of job creation, he said. With increased physician involvement in the selection and deployment of solutions, hospitals should strengthen the relationship between their clinical and IT staffs. That will require clinical application specialists and medical technicians to help train staff.
What's missing in the healthcare industry is the actual teaching and translation of how providers use healthcare IT solutions in their daily workflow to make incremental changes in their businesses, he said. "There are not enough clinical application specialists in most hospitals," he said.
Tempesco expects stimulus funding to flow to community projects. ICA is already seeing a lot of Requests for Proposals from states, including Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana, for statewide health information exchanges, or HIEs. "Any time you talk about HIEs, it requires vendors producing data inputs and outputs, and hospital staff doing integration, implementation and training," he said.
Tempesco has a word of caution for those giddy with the forthcoming healthcare IT funding. "My biggest fear is that we dump money into projects that don't have sustainability plans," he said, referring to the community health information networks, or CHINs, that received government funding but failed in the 1990s.
If initiatives stick to the five key areas, Tempesco said, those projects would glean value.

tangshanren

医疗IT刺激资金：查看我在哪里把钱
纳什维尔-现在，七千八百七十〇万点零万美元美国恢复和再投资法已签署成为法律，这是什么意思为医疗保健行业，尤其是对医疗保健IT ？
供应商和其他医疗保健IT利益相关者应把重点放在五个领域，将可能有针对性的医疗保健IT资金，说约翰Tempesco ，副总裁的客户服务和营销的美国公司的信息，或以控区。
随时去医疗保健IT项目，以防止医疗失误，提供更佳的病人护理服务，促进预防保健，评价的最具成本效益的保健治疗和推动节约成本提高效率不仅将提供投资回报率，但创造就业机会，以及，他说。
供应商应该鼓励他们的客户，扩大医疗保健IT项目，并让他们在被“铲准备”的当资金到位，他说。
“由于重点转向自动化业务从医学的临床实践中的药品，目前的重点是信息， ” Tempesco说。
国会和示范项目的中心医疗照顾和医疗补助服务，或不育系，已集中于临床效果，以及如何利用信息医师在医疗IT平台，以减少错误，作出更好的知情决定，并提供临床工作流程的效率，他指出。
因此，临床信息将是一个地区创造就业机会，他说。随着医生参与挑选和部署解决方案，医院应加强它们之间的关系的临床和IT人员。这将需要临床应用专家和医疗技术，帮助培训工作人员。
什么是遗失在医疗行业的实际教学和翻译供应商如何使用医疗保健IT解决方案的日常工作流程，使增量变化的企业，他说。 “没有足够的临床应用方面的专家，大多数医院， ”他说。
Tempesco预期刺激资金流向社会项目。国际合作社联盟已经看到了很多的要求各国提出建议，包括肯塔基州，密西西比州和路易斯安那州，州卫生信息的交流，或家庭收入。 “无论什么时候你谈论家庭收入，它要求供应商生产的数据输入和输出，医院的工作人员做集成，实施和培训， ”他说。
Tempesco有告诫那些轻佻与即将举行的医疗保健IT资金。 “我最大的担心是，我们转储资金投入的项目不具备可持续性计划， ”他说，指的是社区卫生信息网络，或下巴，得到政府的资助，但未能在上世纪90年代。
如果举措坚持五个关键领域， Tempesco说，这些项目将收集的价值。