Category: Health IT

Health IT Links and Notes: 2013-01-02

Here are my favorite news and commentary links from the Health IT, community health center (CHC), nonprofit, and general IT sectors today.

Are we headed toward the over-quantified self?
Answer: No (unless you’re talking about a tiny number of folks that have mental health issues). Basically the article suggests we’re already going too far with monitoring devices everywhere. But folks: Look at adoption and usage rates before going crazy while reading the flurry of product announcements. Let’s focus on making useful and better “quantified self” tools and techniques before starting a moral panic.

Infographic: Why are ACOs Necessary?
I have a love/hate relationship with infographics. Sometimes they entertainingly put together information that you really need. Sometimes it’s just graphics to make 3 points that everyone already knew. But I’m starting to think that I might use infographics to help educate our staff. Print them out really big, post them in common spaces, and at least get people talking and thinking. In this case, there’s a PDF version available. BONUS: If you’re willing to give up your email address, you can sign up for “Eye on Infographics” to get new infographics specific to healthcare every 2 weeks.

The 20 Most Insightful Healthcare Technology Infographics of 2012
While we’re talking infographics… here’s a nice collection of them. Consider printing out some of them (big) and posting them for staff to see and discuss. Be sure to pass around “How Patients Learn in the Digital Age” to everyone.

Fire The Head of Social Media And Make These 10 Wishes Come True
For Community Health Centers, this is a non-issue — we generally don’t have “heads of social media” to fire. But we may have marketing folks that should heed the warnings and advice in this piece, not to mention CEOs. Social Media needs to move out of the marketing office and into the broader company, both in public social media and internal social media. The best of the Top 10 list: “Make blogging a core way for how the company communicates to each other and the world. You will never need a social media director if a lot of people are blogging. People who write are forced to think. That’s a good thing. It’s actually nutritious for the mind.”
[Hat Tip: Linda Lia / @EMRAnswers on Twitter]

Ten stats to show we’re entering the post PC age
Whether it’s Apple’s device or someone else’s, the market has spoken: lots of folks don’t need full-blown Windows laptops to do what they do the most: email, social media, browsing, shopping. This article has tons of links embedded. If you need to make the case to upper management that it’s time to get iPads, this is your go-to resource. The best 3 stats and facts:

  • Mobile devices make up 13% of global Internet traffic today, up from just 4% in 2010.
  • Desktop and laptop sales dropped 2.6% in 2012, but tablets were up 50%
  • More than 50% of all memory chip manufacturing today is for mobile devices, not desktops, servers, or other systems

Oh, and make your company web site work on mobile devices for cryin’ out loud.

Compliance with HIPAA policies to take on greater prominence [this] year
Might as well start out the new year thinking about HIPAA policies and your own procedures, right? I know 2013 will be a big year for me as we really dig deep into new procedures, training, and so forth. Good to be reminded that the regulations are getting tighter and forgiveness of security sins will be harder to come by as we go along.

Tip: Get your CHC data/voice circuits prioritized for repair in a disaster

I got a fantastic tip from Jason Pomaski at the NACHC conference in Las Vegas back in November. He’s the AVP for Technology at Community Healthcare Network in New York, and he and his team survived the onslaught of Superstorm Sandy not long ago.

One of the things that helped them recover rapidly was registering their voice and data circuits with their telco providers as being high-priority circuits for public health. This is a program run by the Department of Homeland Security, as described here:

Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP)

I haven’t done this myself yet, and being from Alaska, this program may not be available to me because my local telcos may not participate. But you can bet I’m going to dig into this in 2013. We have earthquakes, volcanic fallout, high winds, and ice storms in Anchorage and getting our data circuits restored first in a disaster would allow us to get our public health services running again faster.

This can cover both wired and wireless services. Read up and see if you can get your health center registered. And if you have any experience with the program, hit me up with a comment.

Health Care and Healthcare: One gets you well, the other gets paid

It’s good to know I’m not the only one confused over the use of “healthcare” and “health care” when referring to elements in this industry. Lots of articles out there, including these, that shed light on the controversy:

The general consensus seems to be that “healthcare” is suggestive of the entire system, or the industry, and not specific acts of medical service. When the space is added between the words, it’s more personal, more medical, more health-focused.

If we agree on that, then most of the time I’ll be using “healthcare” in my writing, since I’m usually thinking and working at a systemic level — I’m not a provider. So for me…

  • I’m a “health care” consumer when I see a doctor.
  • I’m at the mercy of “healthcare” when I deal with my insurance company.
  • I’m a “healthcare” practitioner by way of technology, and hopefully my colleagues can provide better “health care” when I’ve done my job well.

Or put simply: health care gets you well, but healthcare gets paid.

Bonus Points: HIPAA
Seeing HIPAA written incorrectly is a particular pet peeve of mine, so I loved this quote from Bob Coffield at the Health Care Law Blog:

As for HIPAA — I always use whether someone spells it correctly to judge how knowledgeable they are about the subject.

Get ready for 2013. It’s time for some changes.

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When I left public media I kept up this blog for a while, but naturally it’s fallen out of favor when competing for my time and attention. I’ve since moved back into the IT world, worked almost exclusively with nonprofits, and now I’m working in healthcare IT within a nonprofit. For me, this has been a great move — I like technology, I like working with nonprofits, and healthcare is a fast-moving industry. Put it all together and it keeps me busy.

But I’ve missed blogging. Even my Twitter habit has fallen by the wayside in the last couple years, especially as I worked on a massive project throughout 2012: opening a new healthcare facility with an built-from-scratch IT infrastructure.

The new facility work is wrapping up now, and while there’s always plenty to do at the office, I figure I’ve got some insights I’d like to share, and I’d like to engage in some conversations with folks out there that do the same kind of work I do every day.

So I’m coming back to blogging. It just won’t be about public media.

I thought about leaving gravitymedium.com behind and getting a new domain. Hell, I actually bought a few domain names and even set a couple up. I created new Twitter accounts, even a unique Google+ account and a Google Apps domain. But I kept coming back to my first domain, where I’ve put in so much work over the years, and I just can’t give it up. So I’m not.

Gravity Medium will remain my blogging home online, but since my focus is shifting, so will the blog. New topics will include healthcare and small business IT, nonprofit and technology management, consumerization of tech, data security, privacy, and so on — all the things I’m busy with professionally and want to share. And naturally, I’m hoping some of the folks out there doing the same work I’m doing will be interested in sharing their comments and ideas, too.

So here we go. The new year is upon us. And I’m taking this blog supernova.