The adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is essential for modern healthcare delivery systems if they are to gain greater efficiency, reduce overall healthcare costs and improve patient safety.

In recent years, the acquisition of computer technologies by healthcare organizations has increased substantially with the spending, showing an upward tendency placing the industry as one to the major consumers of ICT products and services.

According to Frost & Sullivan estimates, the Health Information Technology (HIT) market (by revenue) in 2008, in APAC (Southeast Asia, China, Japan and Australia) was close to USD5.04 billion with an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8 percent from 2005-2008. Although the APAC HIT market represents currently only 2.1 percent of the total healthcare market, it is very likely that the figure could double if not triple that in the next 10 years.

Frost & Sullivan Senior Consultant, Dr. Pawel Suwinski says, “The HIT is here to stay with even more ubiquitous presence in all aspects of healthcare delivery systems. Moreover, it will be the main factor and driver in the transformation of healthcare industry towards translation care by providing common collaboration platform for information processing and exchange between related sciences and industries.”

The aim of healthcare organization is to decrease the uncertainty of care delivery by providing controls to meet acceptable standards of care. This is due to the fact that medical practice environment has many variables (external & internal) that can affect the quality of care.

Suwinski further elaborates, “50 percent of the medical practice activities can be controlled. The remaining 50 percent depends solely on human judgment and cognitive functions that when unfavourable conditions are present could lead to substandard care. The implementation of HIT can improve the quality of care by providing better control (up to 80 percent). However, while decreasing the legal exposure of traditional medical practice it introduces legal implications related to the usage of HIT.

Medical liability (sometimes known as medical negligence or medical malpractice) is a special component of tort law. It governs the professional relationship between physicians and their patients. Medical liability concerns the duties of care expected between physicians and their patients in delivering health care. A physician’s duty to his or her patients is to practice medicine which meets or exceeds the standard of care.

Hospital or healthcare delivery organization might become the subject of corporate negligence action if they violate the standard of care (through inadequate oversight of its staff physicians) by allowing an electronic health record or other technology of its choosing to be used in such a way to cause harm to patients.

Vicarious liability occurs when there is a design or other type of flaw in an electronic health record or other technology (eg: computerized physician order entry) which results in harm to patients even though the physicians or other caregivers who used it committed no negligence.

The privacy violation occurs when there is unauthorized access to patient’s private information. The information leakage can be a result of misdirected information flow, user negligence or intentional security breach by a third party.

Security breached is recognized as unauthorized sharing of patient’s private information. Inappropriate disclosure can happen in clinical setting when multiple copies of Electronic Health Record (EHR) persist even after destruction of original file is being accessed by unauthorized personnel.

Medical liability actions may arise from acts of commission which breach the standard of care and result in injury and damages to patients as discussed above. One type of act which physicians might commit concerning electronic health records that could involve them in litigation is to turn off the clinical alert systems designed to prevent unsafe treatments.

Physicians could also find themselves in legal hot water by failing to use diagnostic and treatment modalities suggested by the embedded best practice guidelines in certain types of electronic health records. Here there could be an act of omission contributing to patient injury.

Liability related to the use of EHR could be prevented by the selection of an appropriate healthcare information system. Some other preventative measures include proper training of staff to ensure efficient use of system, documenting all information with justification (whether or not care provided), and preventing any further alteration to this records without proper documentation.

Source: Frost & Sullivan


Natural Health information publisher NaturalNews.com has launched a new online encyclopedia of natural health information called NaturalPedia.com.

NaturalPedia.com combines the wisdom of over 400 authors and 570 books that span over 50,000 unique health concepts, displaying collections of knowledge on specific topics such as “chlorella” or “vitamin D”.

NaturalPedia also pairs two-term concepts such as “cancer and lycopene” or “diabetes and sugar”. Almost any pair of terms relating to nutrition, disease prevention, herbal medicine or natural healing is contained in NaturalPedia.com’s over one million web pages.

NaturalPedia is offered free to the world as a research tool for authors, students, researchers, consumers, medical professionals and journalists. It also helps support the authors whose books are cited on the website by publicizing their work, positioning the authors as frequently-quoted experts and linking directly to an Amazon.com page where readers may purchase the complete books to learn more.

Each book included in the site is given a unique page featuring a listing of key concepts covered in the book. See example at: http://www.naturalpedia.com/book_Encyclopedia_of_Natural_Medicine.html

To help users browse other books of interest, NaturalPedia also calculates and recommends conceptually-related books in the right column of each book page.

In all, NaturalPedia.com is a platform that helps inform readers with invaluable health wisdom gleaned from the pages of the industry’s top books, but also a place where authors and publishers receive the proper credit for their work as well as free promotion that translates into more book purchases by interested readers.

NaturalPedia.com works hard to protect the intellectual property interests of authors and publishers. The site offers no way for readers to browse or copy the full text of any book. No more than five citations from any one book are used on a concept page, and each book is fully referenced with the authors’ names, title and a clickable link to the book page where a “buy at Amazon.com” button is highly visible.

Furthermore, visitors to NaturalPedia.com who use the website for research are specifically reminded that if they use such quotes, they are required to cite the original author and title of the book, in addition to the NaturalPedia.com page.

In this way, NaturalPedia partners with the industry’s top authors to publicize and promote their outstanding work while helping share extremely important knowledge with the world.

Source: NaturalPedia.com


Gene Smart Omega-3 Index(TM) Assesses Risk of Heart Attack

A new blood test, measuring the level of omega-3 fatty acids in red blood cells, is now broadly available for the first time to the public everywhere as a consumer-friendly, at-home “finger stick” test. While scientists have long known of the benefits of fish and fish oil for overall heart health, over the past decade research has proven that the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish dramatically reduce one’s risk for cardiovascular disease. Further, recent research indicates that omega-3 levels may be among the best predictors of future coronary heart disease – providing much stronger correlations to the risk of sudden cardiac death than traditional indicators, including HDL and LDL cholesterol.

The Gene Smart Omega-3 Index measures the amount of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids in red blood cell membranes and is expressed as the percent of total fatty acids. The results of the test are represented as a score that a significant body of research indicates may be an independent predictor of heart disease – with a score of 4 percent or less indicating a high risk, and a score of 8 percent or more indicating a relatively low risk.

“The research suggests that the levels of omega-3 fatty acids should be routinely measured, especially in vulnerable populations such as those at risk of cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases,” said Floyd “Ski” Chilton, PhD, a pioneer in inflammatory disease and omega-3 research and a professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “This test is the most convenient, affordable and effective way to measure omega-3 levels.”

However, very recent studies suggest that individuals have varying capacities to metabolize omega-3s. “So even if a person eats fish or takes fish oil supplements, they may not be getting enough,” Dr. Chilton added. “It is important to measure omega-3 levels, so individuals can determine whether their dietary intake of this important nutrient needs to be adjusted.”

In introducing the Gene Smart Omega-3 Index, Gene Smart has partnered with a pioneer of omega-3 research and cardiovascular disease, William S. Harris, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and Basic Biomedical Sciences at the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota and a co-author on the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Scientific Advisory on Fish and Omega-3 Fatty Acids published in Circulation (Vol. 106:2002).

Dr. Harris has published over 80 scientific articles on omega-3s, including his ground-breaking study, published in Preventive Medicine (Vol. 39, 2004) with co-author Clemens von Schacky, MD, a cardiologist from Munich, which first proposed the Omega-3 Index as a cardiovascular risk factor.

The Gene Smart Omega-3 Index(TM) uses Dr. Harris’s proprietary HS-Omega-3 Index methodology — the same methodology used in the clinical studies that validated the correlation between the Omega-3 Index and heart disease risk. The science behind the Index has been tested and validated by data from numerous large-scale human clinical studies, including the highly-regarded Physicians’ Health Study (PHS), which involved 14,916 healthy male physicians.

“The strength of the association between omega-3s and heart disease is really quite remarkable,” said Dr. Harris. “And the benefits of having a high Omega-3 Index, in the 8 to 10 percent range, speak for themselves. Individuals with a high Index have a decrease in the relative risk for sudden cardiac death by as much as 90 percent.”

Beyond Omega-3: The Critical Omega-6/Omega-3 Ratio

In addition to measuring the amount of omega-3s in the bloodstream, the new Gene Smart blood test provides a measure of a person’s omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. Leading experts believe that the marked shift in omega-6/omega-3 fatty acids in the Western diet over the past three generations has led to an overall increase in chronic whole body inflammation and a higher incidence of allergic and inflammatory disease including cardiovascular disease, asthma, allergies, diabetes and arthritis. This is of concern because omega-3s tend to be anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective, while consuming too many omega-6 fats can lead to an overproduction of inflammatory messengers.

Dr. Chilton’s latest research in nutrient/gene interactions, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (June 5, 2009), demonstrated that shifting ratios of omega-6 to omega-3 from greater than 15:1 to less than 5:1 in humans can positively influence genes that provide protection against allergies and other inflammatory diseases. According to Chilton, the increased omega-6 fatty acids in the typical U.S. diet is due in large part to the industrialization of our food supply and increased consumption of omega-6 rich foods such as vegetable oils, salad oils, margarine and fried foods. Combined with a reduced consumption of omega-3 rich fish, this has resulted in omega-6/omega-3 ratios often well in excess of 10:1. Anthropological evidence suggests that our hunter-gatherer ancestors maintained a ratio closer to 2:1.

“The best news in all of this is that a low Omega-3 Index is an easily modifiable risk factor,” added Dr. Chilton. “By simply eating more oily fish like salmon and albacore tuna, or taking a quality omega-3 supplement with the right levels of EPA and DHA, anyone can improve their Omega-3 Index score which research suggests will reduce their risk of heart disease – the number one killer of men and women in this country.”

The Gene Smart Omega-3 Index test is now available through Gene Smart Wellness at www.genesmart.com as a convenient, at-home “finger stick” kit which is sent by the user to a lab for a comprehensive analysis. Research suggests that the Gene Smart Omega-3 Index may be an independent risk factor that is not influenced by other heart disease risk factors like cholesterol or blood pressure. All risk factors, including the Omega-3 Index, should be addressed as part of an overall heart health risk reduction strategy.

Source: Gene Smart


Hospital campuses going smoke-free: What’s the trend?

  • Author: Health Informer
  • Filed under: Health News
  • Date: Aug 21,2009

oint Commission study examines policy adoption nationwide

A new study from The Joint Commission projects that a majority of U.S. hospitals will have a smoke-free campus by the end of 2009. The study, “The Adoption of Smoke-Free Hospital Campuses in the United States,” appears in the latest online issue of Tobacco Control, a British Medical Journal Group publication.

By February 2008, more than 45 percent of U.S. hospitals had adopted a smoke-free campus policy — up from approximately three percent in 1992 when The Joint Commission first introduced standards requiring accredited hospitals to prohibit smoking within the hospital; an additional 15 percent of hospitals reported actively pursuing the adoption of a smoke-free campus policy. The study reveals that non-teaching and non-profit hospitals were more likely to have smoke-free campus policies, and private, non-profit hospitals were three times as likely as for-profits to have a smoke-free campus policy. There was little relationship, however, between the adoption of smoke-free campus policies and the rate at which hospitals provided smoking cessation counseling to their patients.

“From a public health perspective, the benefits of stricter anti-smoking policies are well established,” says Scott Williams, Psy.D., associate director, Department of Health Services Research, The Joint Commission. “This study represents the first systematic evaluation of hospitals that have or have not adopted these policies.” To download a podcast about the study, visit http://www.jointcommission.org/NewsRoom/Podcasts/smokefree_podcast.htm.

The study was conducted to determine the national prevalence of smoke-free hospital campus policies and the relationship between these policies and performance on nationally-standardized measures for smoking cessation counseling in U.S. hospitals. More than 1,900 Joint Commission-accredited hospitals responded to a survey assessing current smoking policies and future plans. Smoking cessation counseling rates were assessed through nationally-standardized measures. To date, little has been known about smoke-free policy prevalence and its impact. To view the study’s abstract, visit http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/onlinefirst.dtl.

The research was supported through grants from the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute. It was conducted in partnership with researchers from the Henry Ford Health System’s Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in America, accounting for more than 440,000 deaths each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Cigarette smokers have a higher risk of developing fatty buildups in arteries, several types of cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Source: The Joint Commission


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