Industry Insight

Survey Finds Disaster Recovery Tops HIT Priorities

BridgeHead Software’s second-annual healthcare data management survey found that disaster recovery is still the No. 1 HIT investment priority, above other choices such as archiving, virtualization, cloud computing, and digitizing paper records.

The survey asked HIT professionals from all over the world about their ongoing strategies for managing their hospital’s IT systems. Fifty-five percent of respondents listed disaster recovery among their top three IT investment priorities for the next year—an increase of 11 percentage points compared with last year’s survey, which saw 44% of HIT professionals choose backup/disaster recovery as one of their top three IT investment objectives.

The following are some supporting statistics from the 2011 Healthcare Data Management Survey:

• Sixty-four percent of respondents said their organization had a disaster recovery strategy in place, but only 26% of those strategies were “robust, tried, and tested.”

• Sixty-eight percent of respondents said their data volumes had grown over the last year; 30% were unsure whether data volumes had changed; and 2% said data volumes had decreased.

• Sixty percent of respondents said they were managing more than 1 terabyte (TB) of data on primary store, but 35% were unsure how much data they were managing on primary store.

• Forty-five percent of respondents said their organizations were planning a major storage upgrade (1 TB or more) in the next year.

• Fifty-five percent of respondents said some applications had archiving abilities, but only 16% said they had a full archiving policy that migrated data to the appropriate storage tiers.

— Source: BridgeHead Software

 

Philips, Arrendale Associates Announce Integrator Reseller Partnership

Arrendale Associates, Inc and Philips Speech Processing have announced a new Integrator Reseller Partnership relationship. Together, their integrated solutions provide user-friendly, reliable dictation options for authors in any healthcare setting.

Mobile dictation with Philips Digital Pocket Memos allows for on-the-go dictation, while the Arrendale software application DVR+ keeps track of author, work type, and patient metadata details. Digital Pocket Memos are ideal for clinical outpatient settings, enabling busy caregivers to dictate the narrative between patient rounds instead of typing notes into an EMR or handwriting in paper charts.

Arrendale’s Recorder+Pro application and Philips’ SpeechMikes work in concert to deliver PC-based dictation efficiency for radiology, cardiology, and pathology. While dictating and reading at a PC, physicians can utilize the lighter weight and antimicrobial surface of the newly designed SpeechMike III. Better yet, new generation SpeechMikes are purposefully designed for speech recognition technology with noise-canceling microphones that improve recognition accuracy.

Arrendale’s TA+ speech recognition component allows radiologists to continue their preference for dictating narrative with the efficiency of editing and signing transcripts within minutes after dictating. Recorder+Pro dictation integration with major PACS including Philips, Amicas, Fuji, GE Centricity, and McKesson makes the process seamless.

— Source: Arrendale Associates

 

Vice President at Barry Libman Inc Wins MaHIMA Champion Award

Susan Pepple, vice president of marketing and business development for Barry Libman Inc, has been given the Massachusetts Health Information Management Association (MaHIMA) Champion Award. The award honors those whose long-term and enthusiastic support of MaHIMA and the HIM profession has advanced MaHIMA’s capacity to achieve its mission and advance HIM practice.

Pepple currently oversees Barry Libman’s expansion of services to include online education for the HIM professional. She has been a vice president at the company since its founding in 1998.

— Source: Barry Libman Inc

 

AMIA Tabs Fickenscher to Be President and CEO

AMIA recently announced that its board of directors has appointed Kevin Fickenscher, MD, as president and CEO.

“We are very fortunate to have someone of Kevin Fickenscher’s caliber and experience to join AMIA,” says Gilad Kuperman, MD, PhD, chairman of the AMIA board of directors. “We are at a transformative stage in the development of the association, where leadership that combines the professional knowledge of informatics with strong business skills and an understanding of the diverse healthcare and scientific environment is critical. Kevin is a national and international healthcare thought leader with a proven track record in academic, healthcare delivery, and corporate organizations.”

— Source: AMIA