Industry Insight

ONC Selects Accenture to Help Achieve HIT Interoperability

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has awarded Accenture a two-year contract to help identify the standards and specifications that facilitate the exchange of data across the evolving healthcare system.

Under the contract, Accenture will work with the ONC to develop and manage business scenarios called use cases that the ONC will use to help determine the standards and IT systems necessary for peak operation. In cooperation with the ONC and other healthcare stakeholders, Accenture will help identify real-world needs, prioritize them through a governance process, create explicit documentation of the use cases, and provide information for the development of computer system requirements and technical specifications that enable interoperability—the seamless exchange of information among diverse providers and systems.

The use cases will focus on patient-related information, such as ensuring that care providers’ certified EMR systems can handle patient requests for clinical summaries. As part of the framework, Accenture will also create a comprehensive, sustainable process for the ONC’s standards and interoperability framework as well as use cases.

The ONC’s framework will establish a set of tools, processes, and reusable components that enable the refinement and increased adoption of interoperability standards. Interoperability is critical to the expansion of the secure, electronic movement and use of health information across healthcare networks. The framework also supports future standards for regional health information organizations, statewide health information exchanges, and the National Health Information Network.

— Source: Accenture

 

Holt, Redmon Join HMS Executive Team

Healthcare Management Systems, Inc (HMS), a Nashville-based HIT company, has announced that Jack Holt has joined the company’s management team as vice president of client services, and Todd Redmon has joined as vice president of customer support.

In his new role, Holt is responsible for the company’s implementation and education teams. He joins HMS with more than 15 years of executive experience in national HIT organizations. Prior to joining HMS, Holt was vice president of client services for McKesson Provider Technologies, where he was responsible for delivering EMRs, practice management systems, and patient health records to physician offices throughout the United States. In this role, Holt led a team that increased customer satisfaction on EMR implementations to 92%. Before McKesson, he was vice president of client services for Misys Healthcare Systems, where he was responsible for delivery of enterprise clinical systems to the acute care market in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East.

Redmon is responsible for HMS’ customer support center as well as strategic initiatives to enhance customer loyalty and improve efficiency and the customer experience. He joins HMS from Dell, where over a period of 10 years he held a series of leadership positions in operations, manufacturing, and support. Most recently, he was responsible for a 500-employee call center serving global commercial services with technical support and solutions via phone/chat/e-mail for multiple hardware, software, and network customer needs in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Under Redmon’s leadership, this center was the only Dell site globally to achieve and maintain a 90% customer satisfaction score.

— Source: Healthcare Management Systems, Inc

 

Diskriter Announces Staff Additions

Diskriter Inc recently announced two new staff additions: Susan A. Carlson as manager of HIM operations and Andrea Maheras as HIM solutions consultant.

Carlson came to Diskriter with more than 25 years of acute care HIM management and medical transcription experience. She has held the positions of medical records associate, medical transcriptionist, and HIM manager. Her background includes experience in medical records workflow, management, transcription operations, and multiple dictation, transcription, and hospital information systems.

As the manager of HIM, transcription, for the Women’s Christian Association of New York Hospital, Carlson managed transcriptionists; monitored and benchmarked productivity and quality standards; implemented new departments, processes, and work types in HIM and radiology; and developed departmental polices and procedures. She has trained transcriptionists, physicians, and other medical professionals in a variety of technologies, including SoftMed Systems, SMS Invision, and Lanier Digital Dictation Systems.

Maheras comes to Diskriter with more then 10 years of medical industry sales and business development experience. During her career, she developed a reputation for her ability to achieve exemplary sales performance in less-than-favorable market conditions and has been a top producer, receiving recognition for developing highly successful sales and marketing strategies.

— Source: Diskriter

 

Charles E. Christian Named CHIME-HIMSS 2010 John E. Gall, Jr CIO of the Year

As joint sponsors of this annual award honoring a chief information officer (CIO) for lifetime achievement, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and HIMSS recognized Charles E. Christian, FCHIME, FHIMSS, as the recipient of the 2010 John E. Gall Jr CIO of the Year Award. Christian is CIO at Good Samaritan Hospital, a 102-year-old, freestanding acute care community hospital in Vincennes, Ind.

The award recognizes HIT executives who have made significant contributions to their organization and demonstrated innovative leadership through effective use of technology. The award is named in honor of the late John E. Gall Jr, who pioneered implementation of the first fully integrated medical information system in the world at California’s El Camino Hospital in the 1960s.

Christian is now in his 22nd year as CIO at Good Samaritan and his 40th year in healthcare. In his CIO role, he is responsible for all IT activities throughout the enterprise located in southwest Indiana.

— Sources: College of Healthcare Information Management Executives; HIMSS