The Interpipes are abuzz today about the Houston area organ donation organization, LifeGift, that has been attacked by a former IT director.
The attack shows highlights several classic problems:
- The organization thought that they had locked the IT director out, but they had not.
- The IT director was in charge of both the system AND the backups and so she was able to tamper with both.
- The IT director was not smart enough to completely cover the data, or smart enough to completely cover her tracks, although she tried.
- Generally, people will do crazy things when fired.
- Medical organizations are especially vulnerable to this, with data that is life-giving
Scary.
-FT
Take a look at fosshealth.eventbrite.com to sign up for a conference featuring the luminaries of the FOSS movement.
The excellent Modern Healthcare HIT Strategist (which you should subscribe to if you do not already) writes:
Memorial Hermann wins NQF Healthcare Award
Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Houston, was named the recipient of the National Quality Forum’s 2009 National Quality Healthcare Award. The 16th annual award recognizes a healthcare organization that successfully uses performance measures to drive quality improvement in patient care. Dan Wolterman, Memorial Hermann’s president and chief executive officer said the award “is a wonderful recognition of our employees’ and medical staff physicians’ dedication to ensuring that patients benefit from the best possible clinical outcomes with exceptional patient-care experiences.”
Janet Corrigan, the NQF’s president and CEO said, “In a remarkable group of applicants, Memorial Hermann stood out as a true leader in its commitment to quality in healthcare.”
The NQF, a quality standards consensus-building organization, conducts the award program in partnership with Modern Healthcare and the Studer Group. Modern Healthcare will profile Memorial Hermann and its quality-improvement efforts in a special feature to be published in the May 18 issue. The NQF will honor Memorial Hermann at a gala in Washington on May 19. For more information on the event, visit the NQF’s Web site at qualityforum.org.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Three local Houston hospitals; Memorial Hermann, Methodist and St. Lukes, have been included in HealthGrades list of the top hospitals.
I cannot find the results on the HealthGrade website. Perhaps a reader might leave the link in a comment.
In any case, its great to see these local hospitals topping the charts!
I wonder what Health IT techniques they are using?
-FT
Roger Clemens is in some hot water regarding steroid use.
The artist previously known as “Roger Clemens Institute for Sports Medicine” will now be called “Memorial Hermann Sports Medicine Institute”.
In its statement, the hospital said the decision to take off Clemens’ name was made “to better reflect its commitment to all sports and athletes” and that “the move reflects the desire to promote the broad range of sports medicine services and programs offered by Memorial Hermann.”
Have you seen during the opening or closing credits of a movie the phrase “Any similarities to real people or events, other than those specifically cited, are unintentional” or something to that effect.
Whenever you read that you should mentally translate it like this “This movie is about someone specific. However, we cannot say that without getting sued, so we say this instead…”
The statements from Memorial Hermann should probably be mentally re-written as:
“We cannot have our sports hospital associated with a steroid-using athlete. However we cannot just say that, because said athlete has given a whole lot of money to us, and is currently suing anyone talking about his possible drug use. So we will be saying this instead….”
HTH,
-FT
Monday, November 17, 2008
According to cnbc, RediClinic Opens 15th Greater Houston Location, in Association with Memorial Hermann New Clinic, … Largest Retail-based Convenient Care Clinic in the U.S.
What is interesting about this, besides it being huge. Is that it also features the fact that athenahealth has been selected as the EHR provider for the site. From what I remember, Memorial Hermann has also deployed e-clinicalworks in its physician network. I know some of the internal networking guys at Memorial Hermann and they strike me as a very competent bunch. Perhaps I will see about an interview about how the sites will be integrated
-FT
Thursday, August 21, 2008
From the press release:
…agreement with NuPhysicia LLC for the operation of Telemedicine clinics in select Houston-area Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) Supercenters. In order to ensure that patients can differentiate between the physician directed services provided in the Company’s clinics and the nurse-based services provided by most other retail clinic operators, the parties have agreed to operate under the trade name “Walk-In Telemedicine Health Care.”
The Houston Chronicle reports:
“A low-level Harris County Hospital District administrator probably violated federal law when she downloaded medical and financial records for 1,200 patients with HIV, AIDS and other medical conditions onto a flash drive that later was lost or stolen, legal experts said Thursday.”
-FT
ADVANCE for Nurses has an article covering the Houston HIE conference.
-FT
