Continue reading »]]> For today’s podcast, I did some research at http://www.recovery.gov , looking for recipient reports for “Health IT”.  The results were pretty interesting.  In the show, I talk about some of the information that I found, some trends that I saw, and talk about a few of the more humorous projects (like one for the study of the efficacy of lifestyle changes for obese men with erectile dysfunction).

One of the common themes that I found was that a significant amount of the ARRA money that was supposed to be used to change the face of healthcare IT  is really only being used to augment systems that are already in place.  This means that a lot of the money is being used for tactical purposes in organizations, and not fulfilling strategic needs.

This podcast is being used for my feature at ADVANCE for Health Information Executives for the month of April as well.

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Spencer Hamons

Continue reading »]]> On today’s show, I talk about alignment of IT initiatives and your organization’s long-term strategic plan and short-term tactical goals.

I also have a talk with Nuance Communication’s Keith Belton about Nuance’s new Dragon Medical product and where Keith feels that speech recognition will continue to be in the future of healthcare IT.

As always, I welcome your comments either here on the blog, or by emailing me directly at spencer@itpodcast.org. If you would like to email Keith, you can reach him at Keith.Belton@Nuance.com. For more information about Dragon Medical, you can click here and a new window will open and you will be taken to their page.

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This week, I did not have any news because the show was getting a little long.

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The next podcast will be available on November 1, 2008.

Continue reading »]]> Today, we talk about how to keep the CIO position relevant in your organization as information and technology becomes more of a commodity, and for those organizations without a CIO, why that is and how to change it.  While this post is a couple of years old now that it is 2011, much of the information can still hold value for you.

As always, I want to hear your comments and any thoughts you have on how to make technology a true part of the executive table, so please email me at spencer@itpodcast.org or post your comments right here.

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On our “In the News” Segment, I reference the following articles:

Universal Music Group Sues and Looses

Google has to turn over 12TB of data to Viacom

Microsoft Critical Patches for Server and SQL

New 2009 Joint Commission Standards

The next show will be released July 19, 2008.

Continue reading »]]> Episode 104, released February 16, 2008.  In this weeks show, in addition to our typical discussion around current news, we have Steve VanWagenen, one of the research directors from KLAS as our guest.  Also, this episode features a discussion of the differences between Research in Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry devices versus Windows Mobile Devices and their use in the healthcare enterprise.

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In the podcast, I reference numerous articles.  Links to those articles are below.

KLAS Research

Top 10 Places to Take Your Techie on a Date (and other interesting items)

Underwater Cable Cuts

New Google Applications Released that can be used without IT Approval

Huge Microsoft Patch Tuesday

Mozilla Firefox Patches

Checkfree online check deposits

Cisco Unified Communications Manager – Call Manager Heap Flaws and other Vulnerabilities

Juniper Networks dumps DX series gear

Thank you for listening.  Please log into http://itpodcast.org and give me your thoughts and comments…let me know what you would like to hear, and if you disagree with any of my comments.  The next show will be released on March 1, 2008.

Continue reading »]]> MARCH 25, 2011 NOTE: Wow, my old podcasts are pretty bad! In this week’s show, we discuss some discussion surrounding inpatient clinical documentation, and also discuss Strategic vs. Tactical IT planning.  The value of the inpatient clinical documentation discussion is likely dated, since this podcast was originally published on February 2, 2008, but some of the concepts about how to consider hardware likely still has some value in the world of EHRs and Meaningful Use now in 2011.  Likewise, the Strategic vs. Tactical planning discussion is still relevant for leaders, regardless of the year we are in.

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In the podcast, I reference numerous articles, below you can find the links.

2008 Scripting Games

SANS Institute Top 10 Security Threats for 2008

EMC offers flash drives in their DMX-4 storage solutions

CCHIT Certifies additional Inpatient EHR products

Contradictory Physician Responses in Survey

802.11b on Mass. Commuter Train Line

Washington D.C. Government works to recover from online porn debacle

Data Farming (otherwise known as Time Motion Studies) at Methodist Le Bonjeur Healthcare in Memphis, TN

Nurses Say IT security puts crimp in their productivity

Thank you for listening.  The next show, which will be posted on February 16, 2008 will feature an interview with the research company KLAS.  KLAS is a research company that independently monitors vendor performance through active participation with healthcare organizations.  I have participated with KLAS for a number of years, and I hope you will find this interview helpful to you.

Spencer Hamons

Continue reading »]]> I posted this response at CIO.com in response to an article surrounding the need for more than one software vendor.  Text of response is below.

READER FEEDBACK

Spencer Hamons Tue, 2008-01-15 17:09

Although I agree with some points made here regarding negotiation position and the relatively small number of large software vendors available, I take issue with just stating that this is the best strategy.

This may well be the best strategy for organizations with mature enought IT departments capable of handling the complexity multiple vendors involves. It is also dependent upon the business of the organization and the risk tolerance and what data integrity means to the specific organization.

For example, I am the CIO of a hospital, and if I encounter a data integration problem that happens to result in some clinical data from one patient being transposed to another patient, I don’t have an upset customer on the end of the support line for an online order they placed. I have the potential for adverse drug interactions, incorrect lab or radiology data, or even death resulting from mistreatment. These are risks that I am not willing to take for the sake of a negotiation advantage. Likewise, if my IT staff were 250 employees capable of monitoring each and every HL7 transaction, my risk tolerance would be different than it is currently with my 10 IT staff members. Additionally, in healthcare, I never have the luxury of taking the entire system down for 24 hours over the weekend…not even a portion of the system. In a 24×7 operation, care must be taken on how do you keep systems active and functioning day and night. If a data integrity problem erupts, for the safety of our patients, we have to take systems off-line. With “one throat to choke”, combined with good contract metrics, the vendor is motivated to resolve our problems quickly rather that point fingers at integration points.

This is a topic that will be discussed on an upcoming podcast at ITPodcast.org for anyone in the healthcare industry (or interested in the healthcare industry) that would like to listen in.