Category Archives: New Jersey

Patient-Centered e-Health Summit: Feb 3, 2010

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Patient-Centered e-Health Conference: Feb 3, 2010
Join HIMSS New Jersey Chapter and Stevens Institute of Technology for a half-day conference in which thought leaders and innovators will share their insights and debate how
–mobile clinics and telemedicine for rural and  underserved populations,
–remote health monitoring and IT-enabled chronic disease management, and
–personalized Internet communications & social networks
will (or will not) help achieve the dual healthcare reform goals of lower costs and higher quality outcomes.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010,
noon to 6pm, (includes buffet lunch)
plus 6pm Networking
Pre-registration required 
http://www.njhimss.org/calendar/calendar2.html#NJSTEV

Stevens Institute of Technology campus in Hoboken, NJ
(on the Hudson River directly opposite mid-town Manhattan,
accessible by PATH train or ferry, car, Newark Airport taxi/rail)

AGENDA   (pdf version)
12:00Noon: Check-in and buffet lunch

1:00 pm:  Welcome from Stevens and NJHIMSS 

1:05 pm: Theme: Access to Experts Anywhere
Real-Time Consults and On-Demand Education Across the Globe
     John Riel, President, Medical Missions for Children  
Connectivity Issues in Emerging Nations
     Steven Landman, Entrepreneur, Carego International and LiveWellWireless
Distance Health: From Critical Care to the Home
     Joseph A. Tracy, VP, Telehealth Services, Lehigh Valley Health Network
Panel Discussion moderated by Stevens faculty plus
–Jeb Weisman, NYC Children’s Fund, IT Support Challenges for Mobile Clinics
–Ed Eichhorn, President, Medilink Consulting Group
–Ray Burke, AT&T Healthcare Solutions Practice

2:15 pm: Keynote on Patient-Centered E-Health and U.S. Health Reform
     Paul H. Keckley, PhD, Executive Director
     Deloitte Center for Health Solutions

3:30pm Theme: Disease Management with Patient Involvement
Ethnographic Design Approaches for People-Centered Devices
      Scott Laidlaw, Market Development Manager, Intel Digital Health Group: Kathleen Albright, Strategic Account Manager, GE Healthcare
Patient-Centric Approaches for Post-Acute Care
      John Derr, CIO, Golden Living
The Consumer Perspective: Who, What, When, Where, and Why
      Kim Slocum, President, KDS Consulting and Book Author:
     “Consumer Directed Health Care”
Panel Discussion moderated by Stevens faculty plus
–Jim Tosone, Director & Team Lead, Healthcare Informatics, Pfizer
     –A Pharmaceutical Company Initiative Highlights
–Douglas Ratner, MD, Chairman and Program Director, LibertyHealth System
     –Chair, NJ Disease Management Study Commission: Report Highlights
–Leonard Pogach, MD, Director, Center for Healthcare Knowledge Management, VA-NJ Healthcare System, and Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine, UMDNJ
     –VA Disease Registries and Knowledge Management Initiative Highlights
–Michael McGuire, CEO, UnitedHealthCare of New Jersey [or designee]

5:00 pm: Theme:  IT-Enabled Patient Engagement
Social Networking at Juvenation:  The First Year Lessons
      James Szmak, CIO, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
User-Generated Health Data: Tackling the Integrity Issues
     Sally Okun, RN, PatientsLikeMe
Panel Discussion moderated by Stevens faculty plus
–Thomas Gregorio, VP and CIO, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center
     –Social Media Challenges from a Hospital CIO Perspective Highlights
–Helen Oscislawski, Attorney, Fox Rothschild LLP
     –Social Media Issues from a Legal Perspective Highlights

5:55 pm: Wrapup

6:00 to 7:00 pm: Networking Reception
      Babbio Center Atrium

Please sign up today
$135 for conference participation
Pre-registration required 
http://www.njhimss.org/calendar/calendar2.html#NJSTEV

This program is sponsored by NJHIMSS, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Howe School of Technology Management. 
The conference is produced by Carol Brown, PhD, Distinguished Professor and Program Director, Howe School of Technology Management, Stevens Institute of Technology, joined by NJHIMSS members Al Campanella, VP-CIO, Virtua Health; Tony Ferrante, Director, Bus Dev-Healthcare, Computer Design & Integration LLC; and Mike Squires, Director, Marketing & Communications, BluePrint Healthcare IT.

Quality Not Top Priority For Nearly Half of Hospital Boards: New Survey

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New Study Shows Quality Not Top Priority for Nearly Half of Hospital Boards
From a Health Affairs Press Release: Health Affairs  published a study on November 6, 2009 “surveying a nationally representative sample of board chairs in 1,000 U.S. hospitals. The results found that just half the boards rated quality of care as one of their two top priorities and only a minority reported receiving training in quality. This is the first national study of board chairs linked to quality performance.”

“Hospital Governance And The Quality Of Care”
By Ashish K. Jha and Arnold M. Epstein
Abstract
Author affiliations:
Jha and Epstein are affiliated with the Harvard School of Public Health

“In identifying the factors that affect the quality of hospital care, leadership and governance have emerged as areas of particular interest. Since boards of directors could have an impact on quality of care, this study evaluated how hospital leadership values quality. The authors collected their data during the winter of 2007-08 by randomly selecting 1,000 institutions from a group of over 3,000 nonprofit acute care hospitals that reported quality data to the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) in 2007. They reached out to their board chairs, and achieved a response rate of 78.3 percent.

“Of those surveyed, a little over half identified quality as one of the two top priorities for board oversight, and only 44% reported that quality of care was important for evaluating the performance of the chief executive officer (CEO). For 63% of the institutions, quality performance was consistently an agenda item at board meetings, compared to financial performance, which was consistently on the agenda at 93% of the hospitals.

“In contrasting hospitals that had scored well in on quality measures with their lower-performing counterparts, the data revealed major differences in attitudes, priorities, and activities around quality of care. “Our data provide clear evidence of an association between an engaged board and high quality care, although we cannot yet pinpoint a causal link,” said Ashish Jha, the study’s lead author. “Most boards have primarily focused on financial issues, mistakenly assuming that their hospital’s quality of care is adequate. Major opportunities exist to shift the knowledge, training, and practices of hospital boards to promote a focus on safe, effective care.”

“This project was funded by the Hauser Center for Non-Profit Governance at Harvard Law School and the Rx Foundation.”

States Get Involved:
New Jersey Hospital Boards–Governance and Quality
In story titled ”This is a test: Exams for governance boards on quality measures could be a way to improve care, accountability in hospitals,” Modern Healthcare’s  Melanie Evans on November 16, 2009, spoke with Sally Roslow, New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA) vice president of development and trustee relations. According to the story, NJHA ”is expected to give more weight to quality training to promote further education on the issue” in a voluntary training program for trustees on hospital governance that NJHA anticipates launching in 2010. Over 95% of New Jersey hospital boards met a new state requirement that trustees and directors attend seven hours on basic governance by August 2009.

Cheryl Clark reported in HealthLeaders Media on November 9, 2009,”Carlin Lockee, managing editor of the Governance Institute, which assists hospital boards, says she was surprised at the study’s results. She says they differ from the Institute’s similar surveys of nonprofit hospital CEOs.”

New Jersey Plan for Health IT, HIE Application to ONC Published

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New Jersey Plan for Health IT, HIE Application to ONC
Published Oct 27, 2009
On October 27, New Jersey joined the list of states publishing their State HIE application to ONC. The New Jersey Plan for Health Information Technology recognized the readiness of four out of ten regional projects within the state as the foundation of the statewide proposal.

The four regional HIE projects, expected to be the “centerpieces for North, Central, and South Jersey,” are:
1. Camden HIE
2. Health-e-cITI-NJ
3. Northern and Central New Jersey HIE Collaborative
4. South Jersey HIE

Regional HIE Highlights:
1. Camden HIE
The Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers has built a Citywide Health Database with 8 years of claims data from the three main hospitals within the city: Cooper, Lourdes, and Virtua.
2. Health-e-cITI-NJ
The Health Systems Workgroup of Newark comprised of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark Beth Israel, St. Michael’s and the regional FQHC have adopted the HIE effort of Newwark Beth Israel. This will be opened up to inclooude East Orange, Elizabeth and Jersey City.
3. Northern and Central New Jersey HIE Collaborative
The Collaborative is to-date an ad-hoc collaboration of many hospital systems, provider organizations, and long term care facilities, and has come together to leverage existing Health Information Exchange capabilities used by Atlantic Health System. Members represent 29 facilities within health systems which include Atlantic Health, Saint Barnabas, Robert Wood Johnson, Hunterdon, Solaris, St. Clare’s, Somerset, VISTA IPA, Summit Medical Group, Trinitas, , and Aristacare.
4. South Jersey HIE
The South Jersey HIE is the collaboration between InfoShare, which is the  implementing RHIO and the Electronic Medical Record Exchange of South Jersey. Participing care systems include AtlantiCare, Shore Memorial, Cape Regional and South Jersey Health System hospitals, and Crestview and Seashore Gardnes Nursing Homes.

A state-wide HIE will be established in Phase Two to integrate the regional HIEs and cover the whole state. The plan projects a need for 8,500 additional health IT workers over the next five years to implement planned roll out of EHRs and HIEs in the state. The plan estimates $30 million will be required to implement the first phase of regional HIEs, $15 million to integrate hospital organizations not included initially, plus $8 million as startup costs for the state-wide HIE. The office of the governor has committed to put up to $4 million in the calendar year to get the plan moving.

NJ Plan for HIT Download Page (NJ HIT Commission Page)
NJ Plan for Health IT (785 page–pdf)

Additional notes/analysis to come later.

For other State HIE Plans and Applications to ONC, see this post on e-Healthcare Marketing.

NJ Posts Framework for HIE Application to ONC

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New Jersey Posts Framework for HIE Application to ONC
At the New Jersey HIT Commission meeting on October 1, 2009, the state presented the preliminary framework for its proposal to Office of National Coordinator (ONC) for the State Health Information Exchange (HIE) Cooperative Agreement Program application (pdf).
Presentation  (pdf)
NJ HIT Commission Page: http://www.nj.gov/health/bc/hitc.shtml

The preliminary framework does not yet show how the specific HIE grant proposals made by New Jersey organizations to the state will be folded into the framework for the proposal to ONC. It was noted at the commission meeting that a new board, separate from the commission, would be established to govern the NJHIE. The commission would provide standards and guidance for the NJHIE board.

Several other key points in the framework include:
–Planned used cases include Accurate Patient Identification, State Databases, ePrescribing, Lab Results, Clinical Messaging Services to Provider Portals, Emergency Department/Hospital Discharge Summaries; and Chart Summaries and Radiology Reports to Emergency Departments/Hospitals/SNFs, Physicians and Clinics.
–Hybrid technology approach.
–NJHIE will provide gateway for Community HIE’s to access the national NHIN and gateway between NJ Community HIEs.
–A single Community HIE (designated NJ‐CHIE) should be developed or sponsored by the agency that operates the NJHIE. This “default,” Community HIE would provide connections for entities that have no other way to connect, and would be operated, at least on an interim basis, as an adjunct capability of the NJHIE.
–NJHIE will provide statewide Master Patient Index (MPI).
–Privacy and Security Standards.
–Kurt Salmon and Associates is updating environmental scan on HIE from NJHA plan they produced in 2007.

Presentations from Rutgers and a survey of CIOs by NJ HIMSS were also presented at the Commission meeting.

NJ HIT Commission Meets Thurs, Oct 1, 2009

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New Jersey Health Information Technology Commission
Meeting:  Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 3:00pm
For state presentation and additional notes from meeting, see new post on e-Healthcare Marketing blog.
Location: Dept. of Health and Senior Services,
Health and Agriculture Building, 1st Floor Auditorium
369 South Warren Street
Trenton, NJ 08625 
Meeting Notice Page: http://www.state.nj.us/health/bc/hitc.shtml

NJ Health Information Exchange Program Grants FAQs Posted

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NJ Health Information Exchange Program Grants FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions Posted Sept 21, 2009

Questions and Answers, see
HTML version as of Sept 21, 2009 on e-Healthcare Marketing.
Official PDF version.

FAQ Topics Covered
1. Master Patient Index/Record Locator Service:  software purchase or integration with state MPI/RLS.
2. Division of ONC funding of NJ HIE between state and RFA applicants.
3. Composition of  multi-departmental Review Panel.
4. NJ HIE Program Grants matching formula.
5. Number of budget years.
6. Retroactive expenditures.
7. Delayed consensus on sustainability mechanisms.
8. Definition of availability of ‘real-time’ data.
9. Definition of Regional HIE not necessarily geographic.
10. Timing of “Statement of Local Governmental Public Health Partnership.”
11. Current level of implementation.

For full FAQs Questions and Answers:
HTML version as of Sept 21, 2009 on e-Healthcare Marketing.
Official PDF version.

For additional information, see previous post on e-Healthcare Marketing.
Add info and links will be added.

NJ Provides Guidance on Sep 18 Call-in#2

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Guidance to Be Provided on the RFA for Health Information Exchange Projects –Sept 18, 2009:
Phone-in details below. State issues Sept 17 press release  about call.
Per NJ HIMSS Sept 17, 2009 e-mail: “The State of New Jersey will host another conference call, jointly sponsored by the New Jersey Hospital Association and the New Jersey Chapter of HIMSS, to answer questions and disseminate information about next week’s upcoming Health Information Exchange Request for Applications deadline.

The call will be taking place tomorrow, September 18th, at 1:30PM.  Anyone interested in submitting an application for possible Federal funding for a proposed Health Information Exchange in New Jersey or anyone desiring more information about this process is strongly urged to attend this call.” 

DATE:           Friday, September 18, 2009
TIME:            1:30pm
CALL-IN #:   877-214-6371
CODE:           953415
Please note that the line can hold 125 people so if there is excess, the State will accept email questions.

“The RFA solicits innovative, community-level health data exchange projects to submit to the federal government for potential grant funding, and is available at http://nj.gov/recovery/grant/”

See earlier e-Healthcare Marketing post on NJ Grants.
For context, you may want to review New Jersey’s Letter of Intention to ONC for NJ’s HIE Cooperation Agreement or LOIs from seven other States that have been published online.

New Jersey Health Information Technology Act (pdf)
NJ P.L. 2007, c.330: Approved January 13, 2008

New Jersey files Letter of Intent with ONC for New Jersey Health Information Exchange Program Sept 11, 2009

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New Jersey Health Information Exchange Program
Named and Filed (pdf) on Sept 11, 2009
Along with states and territories across the country, New Jersey filed its Letter of Intent (pdf) to Office of National Coordinator about the Health Information Exchange Cooperative Agreement Program on September 11, 2009. The letter declared the state’s plan to develop the “New Jersey Health Information Exchange Program,” to include a “fully self-supporting statewide exchange” and  “the most comprehensive, promising, complete and clinically meaningful health information initiatives.” The state fully intends to supply both Strategic and Operational Plans to ONC by the October 16, 2009 deadline.

In addition to providing a history of HIT and HIE programs in the state, New Jersey’s leadership roles in the Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration (HISPC), regional exchanges of Immunization Registry data with Pennsylvania and New York City, and State Level Health Information Exchange interstate initiative were described.

The letter also noted the state-wide health information network plan developed by New Jersey Hospital Association in 2007 could “be used as the basis of a more comprehensive model which will integrate the subsequent work of various regional health information exchanges that have or are being formed throughout New Jersey.”

The two signatories, Jed Seltzer, Executive Director of the NJ Health IT Commission, and William O’Byrne, State Coordinator of NJ Office of e-HIT,  led a guidance teleconference in the morning answering questions about the New Jersey State grant program for HIE projects within the state that could be folded into the October 16, 2009 filing.

The Letter of Intent was posted on the Health Information Exchange Grants page of the NJ 2009 Recovery and Reinvestment Plan Web site.

See prevous e-Healthcare Marketing post about New Jersey’s initiative to find the best HIE projects to fold within its statewide HIE program proposal to ONC. That internal program has a filing deadline of September 25, 2009 ahead of the October 16, 2009 federal ONC deadline.

New Jersey Provides Guidance on Sept 11 Call-in

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Additional Guidance to Be Provided on the RFA for Health Information Exchange Projects Tomorrow–Sept 11, 2009:
Phone-in details added
Per Press Release “The State of New Jersey will provide additional guidance on the request for applications seeking health-information exchange projects via a conference call on September 11, 2009.

DATE:           Friday, September 11, 2009
TIME:            10:30 am to 12 Noon
CALL-IN #:   866- 812-0464
CODE:           115300“The RFA solicits innovative, community-level health data exchange projects to submit to the federal government for potential grant funding, and is available at http://nj.gov/recovery/grant/

See earlier e-Healthcare Marketing post on NJ Grants.

New Jersey Health Information Technology Act (pdf)
NJ P.L. 2007, c.330: Approved January 13, 2008

HIT September 2009 Calendar

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September 2009 Health Information Technology Calendar
National Dates
3: CCHIT Town Call on New 2011 Certification:
               Presentation Materials Available
8: ONC: HIT Extension Program: Regional Centers:
              Prelimimary Application Due
10: HITSP Webinar on Medication Management Real World Sites
11: ONC: State Health Information Exchange Program:
               Letter of Intent Due
15: HIT Standards Committee Meeting
18: HIT Policy Commitee Meeting
21-25: National Health IT Week: One Voice, One Vision:
               Transforming Health and Care, Washington, DC.
22-23: HIMSS 8th Annual Policy Summit, Washington, DC.
29: ONC HIT Extension Program: Regional Centers:
               Preliminary Approval

New Jersey Dates
3: NJ HIT Commission Meeting
10: NJ Senate Legislative Oversight Committee Hearing:
Electronic Medical Records: 10 am Meeting – Committee Room 4, 1st Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ: The committee will meet to take testimony from invited guests on the issue of electronic medical records.  The committee will also hear from the Department of Health and Senior Services and the Department of Banking and Insurance on the implementation of the NJ Health Information Technology Act.

11: State of NJ HIE Project Grants: Guidance Conference Call 
               10:30am to noon. Call-in details to come.
23: HIMSS National Advocacy Day: NJ Chapter goes to Washington, DC.
25: State of NJ HIE Project Grant: Applications Due

Additional Dates to Come.