Regional health information organizations are popping up across the country in response to the “Framework for strategic action,” published by Dr. David Brailer, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Department of Health and Human Services.

Hype took center stage in an education session at the HIMSS meeting, “Hype aside, what’s really happening in U.S. healthcare IT?”

In its second survey of data warehouse use in healthcare organizations, the HIMSS Data Warehouse and Data Mining Special Interest Group reports that hospitals are branching out in the ways they use data repositories to improve their business operations.

Finding success in the world of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is much easier with the System Development Life Cycle to guide the implementation process, according to an e-session presented at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting taking place in Dallas this week.

When it comes to the daunting task of adopting an electronic medical record, healthcare facilities should identify their information needs before making an EMR purchase, according to a health information management consultant.

The 2005 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference played host this week to a virtual regional health information organization. The society claimed it was the largest interoperability demonstration ever.

The success of PACS is not in dispute. One-half of all U.S. hospitals in the HIMSS database either have PACS installed or are in the process of implementation.

The current healthcare delivery system produces enough pain that a change to an electronic medical record (EMR) makes sense, according to an e-session presented at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting in Dallas.

Although decision support alerts may help to reduce errors and improve efficiency, many physicians choose to ignore them, according to a study conducted at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Running a hospital isn’t much different from running an airline, according to Howard Putnam. The former CEO of Southwest Airlines was a last minute stand-in at the opening session of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society meeting Monday morning. Sun Microsystems’ CEO Scott McNealy could not appear as scheduled.

The explosion of medical data amid federal regulations regarding patient privacy and long-term storage has galvanized the IT community to come up with better ways to handle sensitive information. Communication Synergy Technologies is showing how its new document preservation and archiving technology tackles record-keeping problems.

IntegradWeb is a new fault-tolerant grid architecture from Dynamic Imaging designed for its Web-based PACS. The architecture assures continuity among multisite PACS deployments if the network crashes, allowing each site to function independently. Once the connection is reestablished, the architecture automatically resynchronizes each site with the central server to ensure integrated image access and workflow across all locations.

Siemens Medical Solutions is exhibiting its Sienet Cosmos at this year’s RSNA meeting as a commercially available integrated radiology IT suite. The company is also showing enhancements to its Novius RIS.

McKesson has united image and information management with a RIS/PACS workstation that automates workflow by streamlining the assessment of images and patient data.

InSiteOne, a provider of on- and offsite secure DICOM storage, is expanding its disaster recovery offering to provide data protection beyond DICOM images. The new service addresses all medical data, including the databases that drive a PACS or HIS/RIS.

MR findings show that commonly diagnosed causes of groin pain in soccer and rugby players -- conjoint tendinitis and osteitis pubis -- are far less common than believed, according to a pair of papers presented Thursday.

Whether it scans in four slices or 16, CT is the method of choice for detecting pulmonary emboli, researchers said Thursday. Even four-slice technology boasts a negative predictive value greater than 99%, better than ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) studies or conventional pulmonary angiography.

The use of MR imaging to screen adolescent baseball and college basketball players may avert injuries that could take them out of the game, according to a pair of research papers presented Thursday.

Merge eFilm is demonstrating two new software products, one for its Fusion PACS and RIS/PACS, the other for workstations. The newly enhanced RIS/PACS Fusion eFilm 2.0 uses an advanced hanging protocol engine that enables automated, tailored display of diagnostic images.

Agfa is taking image management to the next level of performance with its release of the latest Impax ES (enterprise suite) at the RSNA meeting, according to company executives. Impax Web1000 5.0 ES features a Data Currency capability that improves communications by continually synchronizing information from the Impax Server to the Web1000. This translates into faster log-ins and image display speeds, as well as greater memory. Conference mode allows authorized users to work interactively.