Comments on: Innovation Principles: What Might Healthcare Sector Learn from Others

By: Heidi Burnett

Heidi Burnett — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:26:17 +0000

Mr. Moore,
I am chairing the veterinary Electronic Health Records task force, sponsored by the American Animal Hospital Association. I have been reading with interest your Chilmark posts and hoping to learn which well-indexed human-type HIT groups/association blogs and proceedings to monitor. Any pertinent groups or conferences you’d think are “must-sees and must-do’s” (especially with veterinary applicability (read: inexpensive and applicable to small hospitals with less than 20 docs) )?

Our task force has been charged with developing a collaborative effort amongst veterinary software vendors to promote standards and drive the market towards EHRs before our little branch of health care gets any more fragmented. (I’ll duplicate your eye-roll… nothing like trying to close the barn door after the horses are galloping over the prairie!…)

At any rate, our profession needs to learn from the deeper-pocketed human medical side and avoid painting ourselves into any corners, EHR-wise. Veterinary HIT is a field still in it’s infancy, with less than a hand-full of post-doc level students, all of which I believe have crossed over the proverbial academic cliff face from clinical practice to vHIT (More eye-rolling is appropriate, but so far they are the only folks we have, and you won’t find a more passionate or dedicated crowd.)

Although I am only a veterinary clinical practitioner myself, I have drunk the KoolAid of HIT and desperately would like to move veterinary healthcare along in an intelligent manner.

Would you be willing to point us towards some good resources/people? …answer very intermittent questions on various applicable topics? I would sincerely appreciate any advice you’d care to offer. With Kind Regards, Heidi Burnett, DVM, ABVP

By: EmTech Session on EMRs « Chilmark Research

EmTech Session on EMRs « Chilmark Research — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:09:52 +0000

[...] pretty big names to discuss where we are today and where we are headed. For the first day, I had one continuous and long post, which in retrospect, I am not fond of – just too much to wade through to get to what may be [...]

By: John

John — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:57:24 +0000

Thanks Sean for the quick follow-up and clarification. I was confused by Halamka’s statement, at least with regards to HealthVault for I knew that indeed, there was more than just meds and allergies that you were able to import.

By: Sean Nolan

Sean Nolan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:48:40 +0000

John, I just spoke with Dr. Halamka and he confirmed that there was a miscommunciation here.

He was speaking specifically about DICOM images — x-rays, MRIs, CT scans, etc. — neither HealthVault or Google supports these types today.

However, that applies ONLY to images — all of the other rich clinical data is fully supported: lab results, discharge summaries, procedures, conditions, diagnoses, and much much more.

BIDMC is an incredibly forward-thinking institution — we are very proud to have them as an early partner … and I am sure they will continue to grow their integration as their patients ask for it. That is my job — to get people asking for it!

Take care …
—S

By: Sean Nolan

Sean Nolan — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:41:52 +0000

John, great recap as always.

However — two pieces I wanted to call out relative to BIDMC and HealthVault:

1. Allergies and Meds are actually two of the KEY pieces of information most critical to have available when entering into a new care scenario. While I grant that it seems a small first step — it is a first key step — and one with real value.

2. Dr. Halamka’s comment about our data model is inaccurate — we are more than ready to receive other clinical data: lab results, discharge summaries, procedures, conditions, diagnoses, etc… all available for inspection at our development site at http://msdn.com/healthvault. Our understanding is that the limited set used by BIDMC was simply the result of it being a phase 1 integration.

I have asked Dr. Halamka for more details on his concerns; it is certainly possible there are new issues to overcome, and if so we will address — but I suspect this was simply miscommunication.

Thanks for the ongoing coverage and skeptical eye…
—S