-FT

Dr. Murphy agreed to a podcast.

Fred Trotter interviews Memorial Hermann CMIO Dr. Murphy.

Thanks to Google Voice for making this relatively painless…

Here is the Houston Chronicle article.

Apparently, employees of the HCHD looked at a sick colleagues medical record without justification. And they got fired for it.

I wonder what will happen if this kind of thing happens over an HIE?

-FT

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.

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

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

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

…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.”

“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

-FT