NSU Launches America’s first Center to deliver Health Care Solutions through Social Media and Cell Phones
Posted by Western PA Hospital News on Jan 20, 2012 in Technology | 0 comments
The Center for Consumer Health Informatics Research will use these platforms to help the public make better informed decisions about their health care
Nova Southeastern University’s College of Pharmacy recently launched America’s first Center for Consumer Health Informatics Research to deliver health care solutions through social media and cell phones.
The center’s mission is to make new health discoveries using consumer health informatics (integration of patient preferences, behaviors, and technology) to improve health. It will use the participatory medicine model to gain insight about patient habits and other trends in health care. These discoveries can then be used to help the public make better informed personal health care decisions.
The center plans to deliver health and wellness information such as tips to manage diabetes through social media and mobile phones. It will also analyze whether health interventions delivered on those platforms can help patients better manage chronic health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, etc.
The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh Receives IT Services and $35K In-Kind Donation from Ascent Data
Posted by Western PA Hospital News on Dec 22, 2011 in Technology | 0 comments
Pam Schanwald, CEO at The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center and Steve Shangold, CEO at Ascent Data, pictured with a fun piece of technology. Ascent Data provided a $35K in-kind donation as part of its outsourced IT Infrastructure support of The Children’s Home
Ascent Data, Pittsburgh’s trusted provider of Cloud Computing, Colocation, Data Encryption, and Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, has been selected by The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center for IT Virtualization, Digital Data Backup and Disaster Recovery.
Established in 1893, The Children’s Home & Lemieux Family Center is an independent, non-profit licensed organization whose purpose is to promote the health and well-being of infants and children through services which establish and strengthen the family.
“We evaluated several vendors and selected Ascent Data for its excellent reputation, first-class data center and extensive experience working with healthcare providers,” said Pam Schanwald, CEO at The Children’s Home.
Creating Game-Changing Communication and Interactive Tools
Posted by Western PA Hospital News on Dec 16, 2011 in Technology | 0 comments
TrueFit is an innovation firm that helps entrepreneurs and enterprise-level companies bring new technology products to market quickly. The company considers innovation as part of its core DNA. Enabling others to harness innovation is what they do, and they are passionate about it.
“We’ve helped entrepreneurs with a raw idea on the back of a cocktail napkin, all the way up to an enterprise-level client who looks for extension of their own development staff to help with development, or inject new technologies into their mix such as Smartphone, Web, Social Media and Commercial Software apps,” says Christopher Evans, vice president of TrueFit. “This all occurs through our proprietary Idea Launch™ methodology. Dialing up the value of an idea to get investment funding, or to gain executive approval. TrueFit helps take product ideas from vision to reality—from the whiteboard to the marketplace.”
Evans took some time to respond to our Q&A to let us know how they are leveraging mobile apps as well as the role apps plays in a healthcare organization’s overall marketing and communications strategy.
What role does mobile apps lay in a healthcare organization’s overall marketing and communications strategy? What are the benefits? Mobile and tablets are game-changing communication and interactive tools for healthcare organizations, practitioners and patients. The benefits for the organization are determinant on how much disruption, in a positive sense, a healthcare organization can provide to the market with an app; for example, if you enable a patient to proactively and personally monitor health and wellness on a mobile device, you are literally enabling the entire healthcare system to evolve. As for communications, healthcare organizations can reach patients faster, and with potentially more meaningful interactions. Most importantly, devices like iPad enable healthcare organizations to do more internally and externally, in ways never seen prior. More portability and functionality at one’s fingertips.
Suggestions for the EHR Selection Process
Posted by Western PA Hospital News on Oct 24, 2011 in Technology | 0 comments
By Dan Mattson
Vice President, WOW Global
The EHR market is flooded with products and solutions. Selecting the right EHR can be one of the most important decisions a practice makes over the next few years. Because each practice has its own nuances and workflow, what works for one practice may not necessarily work for another provider. Therefore, each practice should carefully evaluate and select the EHR that best suits their workflow and requirements.
The driving force for implementing an EHR should be to provide better patient care using technology. EHRs that are implemented and interfaced properly will allow providers and patients to quickly access information so that they can make better informed healthcare decisions.
Prior to calling vendors it is important that the practice prepare itself for evaluating multiple EHRs. Many times the EHR selection responsibility is placed on the shoulders of the office manager or administrator. Now, in addition to managing the office, they are expected to be experts on Electronic Health Records, Practice Management software, firewalls, wireless routers, internet bandwidth, HIPAA, tablet PCs, servers, etc. Therefore, it is important that the entire practice be involved with the EHR selection process. Everyone in the office will interact with the EHR and will have a different perspective on the EHR.
Physician’s Practice Management—A Wellness Program for Your IT Infrastructure
Posted by Western PA Hospital News on Sep 14, 2011 in Pediatric, Technology | 0 comments
James Troup
By James Troup
Much like a Wellness Program is key to maintaining physical health and longevity, a proactive approach to protecting data integrity and managing your primary IT infrastructure can make all the difference to your business and bottom line. Equally important is a prescription for a Disaster Recovery Plan. This secondary level of preventative maintenance provides peace of mind and could prove to be the lifeline that will rehabilitate your Practice in the event of a disaster.
As CEO of Pediatric Alliance, one of the largest physicians’ practices in Pittsburgh, I recently went through the process of evaluating our IT infrastructure. When Pediatric Alliance moved patient records to an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system about 2 years ago, we rolled out each of our 14 practice locations one at a time, making adjustments along the way. During this implementation, it became readily apparent how much time I was spending worrying about our physical IT infrastructure, and how little time I had to focus on customizing the new EHR system and teaching our docs how to use it.
New Software for Hospital Facility Managers
Posted by Western PA Hospital News on Sep 10, 2011 in Technology | 0 comments
We recently came across this video about FASTTAC software. It’s a product that we thought would be of some interest to our audience. The Cleveland Clinic is currently using this software. It has also been used on a new hospital in Portland and most recently at Passavant Hospital in the North HIlls.
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