Health system receives HIMSS Analytics Stage 7 Award, joining an elite group of hospitals that operate in a paperless environment.

Ed Babakanian, UC San Diego

UC San Diego Health System has received the prestigious Stage 7 Award from HIMSS Analytics, a nationwide system used to track electronic medical records (EMR) progress at hospitals and health systems. The hospital will be recognized at the annual HIMMS conference in February 2012 in Las Vegas.

“UC San Diego Health System is delighted and honored to be designated as a Stage 7 Health System.  We appreciate HIMSS Analytics leadership and energy in focusing national attention on the importance of leveraging technology to help improve health care delivery across the country,” said Edward Babakanian, chief information officer, UC San Diego Health Sciences. “At UC San Diego Health System, we have a tradition of using information technology to help our care teams further improve the quality, safety and efficiency of care that we provide every day.”

HIMSS Stage 7 represents “the pinnacle of an environment where paper charts are no longer used to deliver patient care.”  UC San Diego Health System is one of only 58 hospitals – 1.1 percent, of the more than 5,000 hospitals in the database – to be recognized by HIMSS Analytics with its Stage 7 Award.

[Related: UC med centers going digital]

“Congratulations to UC San Diego Health System for earning the Stage 7 award,” said John P. Hoyt, FACHE, FHIMSS, executive vice president, organizational services, for HIMSS.  “As the first of the five University of California health sciences systems to receive the award, UC San Diego deserves recognition for implementation of the electronic health record across its healthcare enterprise. During our site visit, our team was impressed with the medical staff’s successful deployment of health IT with a majority of physicians truly engaged with and using the technology in this interactive and safety-focused environment.”

HIMSS Analytics developed the EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) in 2005 as a methodology for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems for hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics database.  Tracking their progress in completing eight stages (0-7), hospitals can review the implementation and utilization of information technology applications with the intent of reaching Stage 7, which represents an advanced patient record environment.

“This award recognizes that the success of our IT program depends on the quality of people implementing the system,” added Babakanian.  “This is not just IT.  This is a partnership with the entire organization to make things happen for the betterment of our patients and our employees.”

About University of California San Diego Health System
Launched in 1966, UC San Diego Health System is the region’s only academic health system, with a mission of providing excellent and compassionate patient care, advancing medical discoveries and educating future health care professionals. It comprises UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest, and UC San Diego Thornton Hospital, Moores Cancer Center, Shiley Eye Center, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center and Jacobs Medical Center (slated to open in 2015) in La Jolla, as well as other primary and specialty practices of UC San Diego Medical Group.  For more information, visit http://health.ucsd.edu.

About HIMSS Analytics
HIMSS Analytics is a wholly owned not-for-profit subsidiary of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. The company collects and analyzes healthcare data related to IT processes and environments, products, IS department composition and costs, IS department management metrics, health care trends and purchase-related decisions. HIMSS Analytics delivers high quality data and analytical expertise to health care delivery organizations, health care IT companies, state governments, financial companies, pharmaceutical companies, and consulting firms.  Visit www.himssanalytics.org for more information.

Winners include two health-related projects.

Eleven University of California teams won this year’s Larry L. Sautter Award for developing information technology projects that streamline operations and advance UC’s teaching, research and public service mission.

Winners were honored with plaques and certificates today at the UC Computing Services Conference in Merced. They included two health-related projects that received honorable mentions:

• Real Time Location System Refrigeration and Equipment Tracking uses wireless devices to monitor the temperature in refrigerators where food and medicine is stored and alert staff if something is awry. Created by a group at the UC Davis Health System, it also locates medical equipment in the hospital so staff can find it quickly.
  

• UC Davis School of Medicine Admissions System uses software to transform its medical school admissions process from a sluggish, paper-based model to a nimble, electronic system. The school reduced its annual admissions cycle by five months and notifies students faster so they have more time to make a decision.

The UC Information Technology Leadership Council sponsors the award to recognize innovation and encourage faculty and staff to share creative solutions across the system.

“We try to identify those projects that may not use a new technology but may use a tried and true technology in a new way, that reach out to a broad cross-section of people, that is something that could be promulgated around the university,” said David J. Ernst, associate vice president for information resources and communications who sits on the selection committee and presented the awards today.

“It’s not always things that get a lot of press or the most dollars, but there’s a lot of good work that goes on every day on campuses,” he added.

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The free app is aimed at the public, patients and their families and UCSF students, faculty, staff, alumni and business partners.

Mobile UCSF is here. The university’s first app designed for a general audience will connect people to a vast array of possibilities, ranging from navigating the Parnassus Heights campus to reading the latest UCSF headlines.

The free app, which is now available in the Android Market and Apple App Store, both accessed from mobile devices, is aimed at the public, patients and their families and UCSF students, faculty, staff, alumni and business partners.

“This is the first time UCSF has taken an overarching approach to mobile applications,” said Elazar Harel, vice chancellor for Information Technology Services (ITS) and chief information officer at UCSF. “It’s really about making everything easier for our patients, students and community.”

For instance, the app can help users schedule a massage, track down anyone on campus, find out the location of Genentech Hall librarian, catch up on news about UCSF or attend a workshop on preparing for surgery.

“It is important that we provide news and information in ways the UCSF community and others can best receive it,” said Barbara J. French, vice chancellor for strategic communications and university relations. “The introduction of this app represents a major new step in providing information to a growing number of mobile app users.

The UCSF app covers eight categories: campus shuttle, directory, fitness, maps, library, events, news and emergency postings. The apps’ maps feature is expected to be the most popular. This feature is now tied to maps of Parnassus Heights and Mission Bay campuses. The app’s next incarnation will likely include Mount Zion, Laurel Heights and San Francisco General Hospital.

Monthly hits to m.ucsf.edu, the mobile-friendly version of ucsf.edu, are averaging 10,000 and trending much higher, with 80 percent coming from mobile devices, said Opinder Bawa, UCSF’s chief technology officer and executive director of ITS.

Of course, the university’s homepage ucsf.edu, which averages more than 550,000 visits a month is not going anywhere. Since the website was redesigned and launched on Feb. 2, traffic to the most visited news stories has increased 30 percent.

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UC Irvine School of Medicine expands its revolutionary digital curriculum.

UC Irvine medical students use their iPads to enrich classroom instruction.

Traditionally, first-year medical students are awarded white coats to signify their entry into the profession. But at UC Irvine’s White Coat Ceremony on Friday (Aug. 5), each member of the School of Medicine’s incoming class of 2015 also will receive an iPad tablet computer.

It’s the second year the School of Medicine is giving new students a tablet computer containing the course outlines, notes, lecture slides and textbooks needed for the coming academic year — a core component of the school’s innovative iMedEd Initiative, which has grown into one of the most comprehensive, fully digital medical education programs in the U.S.

In addition to the donor-purchased iPads, the iMedEd Initiative includes the West Coast’s first portable ultrasound training curriculum, as well as advanced medical simulation and telemedicine facilities in the school’s state-of-the-art building.

“We are committed to using digital technology to benefit the education of our medical students,” said Dr. Ralph V. Clayman, dean of UC Irvine’s School of Medicine. “It is our firm belief that the integration of these technologies into healthcare will be the wave of the future, and UC Irvine seeks to be a leader in preparing students for this future.”

As the iMedEd Initiative enters its second year, several new developments help ensure its continued success:

• A $1.2 million gift from John Tu, co-founder and CEO of Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology, will cover iPad costs until 2015.
• The second-year curriculum has been formatted for the iPad.
• The UniHealth Foundation awarded Dr. John Christian Fox, the medical school’s director of instructional ultrasound, a three-year, $700,000 grant to create a four-year academic program in handheld ultrasound technology. His colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Turner, a critical care specialist, received $50,000 from the University of California Center for Health Quality and Innovation to implement a curriculum on the bedside use of handheld ultrasound.
• Under the iMedEd Initiative, UC Irvine’s School of Medicine and Australia’s University of New England School of Rural Medicine are collaborating on a way for students on both continents to participate jointly in real-time medical simulation and telemedicine training.

During the initiative’s first year, Dr. Warren Wiechmann, the school’s director of instructional technologies, saw students and faculty embrace new opportunities afforded by iMedEd. “Students have a much more personal stake in how content is developed and presented with the iPad platform,” he said, “and our faculty members are more eager to try new technologies to make content more immersive.”

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UC Davis and UC San Diego are recognized for their advanced use of information technology.

Ed Babakanian, UC San Diego

UC Davis and UC San Diego health systems have been designated among health care’s “Most Wired” institutions for 2011 according to the results of this year’s Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study that appear in the July issue of Hospitals & Health Networks magazine. The academic health systems are two of only six institutions in California designated Most Wired in this year’s assessment, which considered responses encompassing nearly 1,400 hospitals around the country.

This is the first time the UC Davis Health System has earned the Most Wired designation. UC San Diego Health System earned the honor for the sixth consecutive year.

“Leveraging technology to improve patient care is hardwired into our thinking at UC San Diego Health System,” said Chief Executive Officer Tom Jackiewicz. “Technology enables the kind of efficient exchanges that speed care, increase accuracy of communication and inspire innovative care for patients locally and in telemedicine clinics.”

“For more than 10 years, UC San Diego Health System has invested in information technology to improve the quality of patient care as well as elevate the safety and efficiency of health care delivery. This trend is now echoed in the national health care agenda,” said Ed Babakanian, Chief Information Officer. “In addition to improving patient outcomes, we can also leverage vast amounts of data collected by our health system to drive research and teach our next generation of doctors.”

The annual survey examines how hospitals use information technology to address and enhance patient safety and quality of care, public health, administrative processes and workforce decisions.

Michael Minear, UC Davis

“It is an honor to be recognized for our accomplishments and commitment to integrating information technology throughout UC Davis Health System,” said Michael Minear, chief information officer for the health system. “We have made significant investments in modern information technology because it supports UC Davis’ clinicians in providing safe and high-quality care.”

Health care teams at UC Davis perform a broad range of clinical-care functions online. They check laboratory and imaging results, enter medication orders and patient-care notes, and use technology to carry out a variety of other health-care related functions.

The health system transitioned to a fully paperless, computerized environment over the course of several years. Today, its electronic information system includes digital clinical results and images, computerized physician order entry, sophisticated pharmacy systems and online documentation and care plans. The health system’s complex array of electronic content and functionality recently earned it an Adoption Model Stage 6 Award from HIMSS Analytics (part of the nonprofit Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society) in 2010; a designation only 3.2 percent of the nation’s hospitals have achieved by fully implementing a variety of health information technologies.

UC Davis also is at the forefront of health care providers nationwide in exchanging health data to improve care and potentially reduce health care costs. The recent partnership between UC Davis and Sutter Health to share electronic health records to optimally support patient care is an example of that effort. UC Davis is working with other local care providers to also share clinical information so that clinicians can instantly access important health information when patients are being treated outside their usual care home (in an emergency department, for example).

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UC San Diego

New Calit2 division uses mobile technology to put patients in control of their health.

A glove, outfitted with finger sensors that that generate musical notes is one project coming out of the eHealth Collaboratory. It encourages patients with stroke or hand injuries to exercise by creating music.

Open wide and say “Aah.” Not your mouth – your smart phone or laptop.

Mobile health applications are multiplying like cells in a petri dish. Consumers will soon have 600 million to choose from, analysts say. By 2015, more than a third of the nation’s 1.4 billion smart phone users will run some type of medical app.

At the UC Irvine division of the California Institute for Telecommunications & Information Technology, researchers, computer scientists, engineers, biologists, chemists and game developers in the new eHealth Collaboratory meld their expertise to produce these applications for health care consumers as well as providers.

Calit2 division director G.P. Li calls it a “high-touch” approach.

“High-touch goes beyond developing the next gadget,” he says. “We want to personalize the user experience. Our mission is not to create universal solutions but to lower the barriers to individual support.”

Applications for telemedicine, mobile operating systems, wireless interfaces, and even micro- and nanofluidic diagnostics are in the works. But prototypes are just a step on the road to the ultimate destination.

“We’re trying to figure out how to use technology to empower people to take care of their health,” says collaboratory manager Mark Bachman, assistant professor of electrical engineering & computer science. Advances in telecommunication and the accessibility of inexpensive electronic devices, he notes, “open the door to a great opportunity.”

Multidisciplinary teamwork is paramount. “We have a chance to learn to build things that really work, but we’ve got to collaborate with people in the trenches who know exactly what consumers want,” Bachman says.

For example, two engineers, a neurologist and a computer gaming expert joined forces for “iMove,” a grant-supported initiative that seeks to improve human mobility. Principal investigator/engineering professor David Reinkensmeyer says, “We’re trying to understand the computational mechanisms of human motor learning.”
In another collaboratory effort, pediatric anesthesiologist Dr. Zeev Kain has teamed with engineer Bachman and psychologist Michelle Fortier to develop an application for children undergoing cancer treatment.

“Pain Buddy,” funded by $450,000 from the Hoag Foundation, will prompt kids to report their pain level at regular intervals on a handheld electronic device – a kind of mobile pain diary. The data will be made available to the child’s oncology treatment team, which can respond with instructions and recommendations.

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InQuickER service is designed for patients with non-threatening minor medical needs.

UCSF patients with minor medical needs seeking treatment in the Emergency Department now can make an appointment to be seen – waiting at home rather in the hospital – via a new online check-in service called InQuickER.

UCSF Medical Center’s Emergency Department (ED) at Parnassus Heights is now offering InQuickER designed for patients with non-threatening minor medical needs.

UCSF patients can register online for a $4.99 fee and pick an open slot for an emergency room visit. The fee will be refunded if they’re not seen within 15 minutes.

In April, UCSF did a trial run with the online service, which 22 people used. UCSF Medical Center launched the system a few weeks ago.

“One thing we encountered during the trial was that a lot of patients were using it inappropriately,” said Jennifer Dearman, the Emergency Department’s patient care manager. “The online registration is screened by ED nurses and we have had to advise some patients to come directly to the ED. This service is for a fast-track kind of patient.”

“For example, a cancer patient on chemotherapy with a fever can have complicated issues and should be seen in the regular ED, so InQuickER is not appropriate for that person.”

About 105 patients a day visit the emergency room at UCSF Medical Center on the Parnassus campus, Dearman said, and the average time between arrival and departure, for those not admitted to the hospital, is four-and-a-half hours.

That’s in keeping with the average wait in 2009 for ER patients throughout California: four hours and 34 minutes –  27 minutes longer than the U.S. average, according to a 2010 report by health care consulting firm Press Ganey.

Dearman said patient satisfaction was the main reason UCSF Medical Center adopted InQuickER. “It also helps us control the flow,” she said. “The general population doesn’t think the emergency room ever has slow times. But it does.”

UCSF is one of 55 health care facilities in 13 states partnering with InQuickER, said spokesman Chris Song. The service, based in Nashville, Tenn., began in 2006 after its founder, Tyler Kiley, had to go to an emergency room and spent hours witnessing stasis and frustration.

The service is available online at https://ucsfmedicalcenter.inquicker.com.

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The project will accelerate research into conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancers, mental health disorders and Alzheimer’s.

Neil Risch (left) and Pui-Yan Kwok, UC San Francisco

One of the nation’s largest and most diverse genomics projects has reached its first major milestone in just 15 months. Scientists have genotyped the DNA and analyzed the length of chromosome tips in more than 100,000 Kaiser Permanente members who agreed to be part of the research.

The project will offer a novel resource for the world of health science research by providing scientists with high-quality, genome-wide genetic data on a large and diverse population, according to lead investigators Cathy Schaefer, Ph.D., executive director of the Kaiser Permanente Research Program on Genes, Environment and Health (RPGEH); and Neil Risch, Ph.D., co-director of the RPGEH and director of the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics.

“By funding this project, the National Institutes of Health has significantly accelerated research into conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancers, mental health disorders, and age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease,” Schaefer said.

The genetic information generated by the project will also include data about drug metabolism and drug response, which may help researchers to discover genetic factors that explain differences in the way people respond to medications.

This would, in turn, help doctors provide patients with the best medicines for them individually, with less trial and error, based on their genetic background. It could also help researchers understand why some patients with cancer or heart disease, for example, develop certain symptoms and other patients do not, insights that may lead to new treatments and, in some cases, new ways to lessen the severity of or even prevent disease, Schaefer added.

The project has now completed its first phase, which was to extract and genotype DNA from a cohort of 100,000 participants with an average age of 65 and measure the length of participant telomeres — tiny units of DNA that bind the ends of chromosomes. Telomere length may reflect the degree of aging in a person’s cells and may be a marker for age-related conditions.

Results of the genotyping and telomere length analysis will be linked to a broad spectrum of  California environmental data and to current and historical health-related information from participant health surveys and the Kaiser Permanente electronic health record,the world’s largest civilian electronic health record, the researchers said.

Risch said the pace of the project was only possible because of the alignment of a number of critical factors:  Kaiser’s Permanente’s extensive health records and thousands of willing participants from the diverse Northern California region; new genotyping technology from Santa Clara-based Affymetrix Inc., which produces scalable genomic analysis tools; and a history of collaboration between Kaiser Permanente and UCSF, two research institutions with complementary strengths for this project.

“The truth is that this project would have been impossible at any other time or place,” Risch said. “No single institution could have combined this level of genetic science with such deep health records on this diverse and large a number of patients. And without the funding, we could never have developed the technology to make this happen.”

The genotyping project was made possible by a two-year, $24.8 million grant awarded in September 2009 to the Kaiser Permanente RPGEH and UCSF by the National Institutes of Health. Funding for the grant came from three sources: the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Office of the Director.

”The completion of genotyping on this large and diverse population marks an unprecedented milestone in population-based genetics research,” said Richard J. Hodes, M.D., director of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health. “The genetic information, combined with the longitudinal clinical and health data that are already part of the Kaiser Permanente database, along with California environmental data, will create a unique and powerful resource to help answer research questions about aging, health and disease.”

To complete the genotyping project in two years, as required by the funding, Kaiser Permanente first had to build a new, high-throughput laboratory in Oakland to extract DNA from more than 100,000 saliva samples in 15 months. The extracted DNA was transferred to UCSF’s Institute for Human Genetics, which worked with Affymetrix to create custom Axiom arrays for genotyping 675,000 to 900,000 genetic markers – comprised of single nucleotide (SNPs) and insertion-deletion polymorphisms – across all 100,000 samples.

“This project reflects the incredible advances that have occurred in the past decade in the field of genomics and the speed and cost-effectiveness of genotyping technology,” said UCSF professor Pui-Yan Kwok, MD, Ph.D., who led the SNP genotyping work at UCSF. “Three years ago, we could never have undertaken a project of this size, much less completed it in only 15 months.”

Separate samples of DNA from the same 100,000 individuals were also analyzed in the laboratory of UCSF Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for her discovery of telomeres. The Kaiser Permanente/UCSF project will create the largest resource of telomere data available and will be the first such resource linked to health records of this number and diversity through Kaiser Permanente.

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Service gives patients in underserved communities access to UC Irvine specialists.

Hector Parra at Calit2 uses Telios to confer with Dr. Ira Lott in his UC Irvine Medical Center office.

Debbie McDermott is a pro at navigating complex healthcare systems. For two decades, she has shepherded her daughter Haley through a maze of consultations, exams and procedures – often with less-than-desirable outcomes.

Now, thanks to her six-year experience with UC Irvine pediatric neurologist Dr. Ira Lott, the Bakersfield mother has become an outspoken advocate of telemedicine, a not-so-new but increasingly powerful approach to healthcare delivery.

Every few months, McDermott takes Haley – who has cerebral palsy, severe developmental delays and a seizure disorder – to the local Kern Regional Center to consult with Lott, who sits in front of his computer screen 115 miles away in his UC Irvine Medical Center office.

Head of the university’s telemedicine program, he uses high-speed, two-way audiovisual conferencing equipment to examine Haley and confer with her mother.

For McDermott and her daughter, the results have been dramatic.

The now-21-year-old Haley lacked head and trunk control and spent much of her time slumped down in a wheelchair, McDermott says. One of her legs was contorted, causing painful pressure wounds on her tailbone.

It was Lott who last year, during a routine telemedicine visit, referred Haley to a specialist at CHOC Children’s Hospital, who subsequently performed life-altering spinal fusion surgery.

Haley’s pressure wounds healed; she has better head and trunk control; and instead of crying, her mother says, she smiles all the time. “Now she’s happy. She can sit and be part of the family instead of lying in bed on her stomach,” McDermott says.

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Free app MediBabble conquers language barriers to patient care.

What started as a 2 a.m. conversation over coffee – a commiseration, really – between two fourth-year medical students, ended with the development of a free mobile medical translation application with the potential to profoundly impact patient care worldwide.

Brad Cohn had just finished a long shift at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), during which he had struggled to communicate with a diverse lineup of patients, none of whom spoke English. UCSF’s partner in public health since 1873, SFGH maintains a roster of medical translators proficient in 35 languages, but wait times for this resource vary depending on demand and the language needed.

Later that night at the coffee shop, Cohn’s friend Alex Blau listened intently to his fellow med student’s frustration. Blau had run into language barriers on his rounds, too.

“Ninety percent of diagnoses come from the patient’s self-reported medical history, so the ability to communicate is critical,” Blau said. “Time is not an asset doctors or patients have. You need that information when you need it.”

What was needed, they agreed, was a tool – a software application for a PDA or an iPhone – that would translate medical history questions from English into other languages.

The tool didn’t exist.  So they invented it, inspired, they say, by UCSF’s core values – excellence and efficiency in patient care, a global vision, and dedication to community service.

After nearly three years of late nights, tapping their own bank accounts, and forging new alliances, the duo’s early-morning dream became a reality.

Their free mobile translation application, MediBabble, made its debut on the iTunes Store in April, and with nearly 5,000 downloads to date, the software is winning critical praise. It was immediately declared a standard-setting “must-have” application by iMedicalApps.com, the premiere mobile health application review site, and was voted number one by public vote in the 2011 Medical App Awards on Scrubdin – a website for choosing health-related software where Blau is now a contributing editor.

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Digital health records being rolled out across UC; helping to improve patient care and safety.

UCSF implemented the first electronic health record APEX at Mount Zion on April 6, transforming how health care providers, staff and patients exchange information.

The system, called EPIC at UCSF, puts increased emphasis on patient safety and medical error prevention by creating one electronic patient chart that’s accessible across the institution, increasing the continuity of care. By housing all patient information in one electronic database, it eliminates the duplication of tests, sends alerts to warn of allergies to medications or contradictions and creates an easily accessible mechanism for sharing information.

“I can’t emphasize enough of how it improves the retrieval of information on a specific patient,” said David Buchholz, M.D., the ambulatory physician who took the lead on the APEX Project.

The system also enables quick access to patient medical information such as prescriptions, visit notes and lab results. All practice management, including billing and communications will be handled by the new electronic system.

[See related coverage: UC med centers going digital]

“We’ve received some very positive feedback from everyone across the board from patients who have used the portal to request appointments to some of the office staff who have said their jobs are more efficient,” said Michael Blum, M.D., chief medical information officer at UCSF Medical Center. “Providers have already done e-prescribing and said that was straight forward and worked well.”

As part of APEX, a new patient portal, called UCSF MyChart, has been created. A link to MyChart also is available at www.ucsfhealth.org/mychart. The portal provides a secure system for patients to request an appointment, communicate with doctors and clinic staff, and view lab test results.

“The idea is the quality of output is much better, the notes are better, orders are readable, documentations are more comprehensive, the whole process is better, which is in turn better for patients,” said Blum. “Patients can now email through a patient portal, see medications, instructions and lab results online. It really empowers the patients to help manage themselves rather than just being a recipient.”

The technology is part of a major push by the Obama administration to transition all doctors and hospitals to electronic medical records within five years. Beginning this year, hospitals and clinics can receive federal funds of up to $11 million per hospital and $63,750 per eligible physician to offset the cost of the electronic systems that meet federal standards. The funds for electronic records were included in the 2009 federal economic stimulus package. Hospitals and physicians who don’t comply by 2015 will face penalties such as cuts to Medicare payments.

The next wave of UCSF clinics implementing the electronic health record system will occur in June and July and extend until the beginning of 2012, with the full conversion of the medical center’s clinical enterprise on the Parnassus campus. The project was executed in just 14 months, what Buchholz calls “probably one of the biggest and most ambitious projects UCSF has ever done in terms of timing.”

UC San Diego’s use of Web-based radiology file sharing saves time, lessens possibility of technical problems.

Jeanne Lee, UC San Diego

An electronic, cloud-based approach to sharing radiology files with other medical institutions is expediting the care of UC San Diego Health System trauma patients. The method is currently being used to speed the diagnosis and treatment of patients sent to UC San Diego Medical Center-Hillcrest from remote area hospitals.

“The efficiency and reliability of cloud computing is excellent,” said Dr. Jeanne Lee, trauma surgeon at UC San Diego Health System. “It is an advance in the way we exchange medical information between health care facilities. This benefits our trauma patients for diagnoses and treatment and cuts down on redundant imaging.”

Hospitals have traditionally shared radiology files by burning images to a CD and then sending the disc via courier or a virtual private network (VPN). Using a cloud-based technology, called Electronic Medical Information Exchange or eMix, crucial imaging files and reports can be transmitted via the Internet in advance of a patient’s arrival.

“The file sharing we’ve done with the cloud-based process has been trouble-free,” said Amy Radonich, assistant director, Imaging Services at UC San Diego Health System. “Burning CDs and using VPNs are workaround solutions that are prone to problems. We’re addressing those issues by using this Web-based form of technology.”

Until recently, files of trauma patients were sent from El Centro to UCSD Medical Center-Hillcrest in the ambulance or air transport. At times, the exchange would fail due to lost or unreadable CDs. In these cases, the patients were often re-imaged upon arrival, which exposed them to additional radiation, and delayed treatment.

Because it is Web-based, cloud-based technology often overcomes the issue of incompatible IT systems. There is no software or hardware for the user facility to maintain and the files can be transferred in minutes with a few computer clicks.