This Thursday, Microsoft Health Solutions Group vice president Peter Neupert will be testifying in front of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions in the US Senate on Thursday, January 15th.
The hearing will occur at 10:00am ET in 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building.
Mr. Neupert has been in the news quite a bit of late relative to Healthcare IT, and recently with joining the The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) and with many clients and recent posts about the Microsoft HealthVault. 
Great comments from his blog below relative to electronic records being a “cure all” as that is only representing one part of the entire puzzle that needs to come together. Learning “how to share” is one big priority as well and much of the healthcare community today can certainly stand to be educated on what is available and secure out there today. BD
The team at Microsoft believes that information technology can play a role in healthcare reform but it is not the silver bullet. They believe that successful reform must be driven by a focus on the right outcomes supported by the right technology.
“The question is; what will generate the most benefit and how can we accomplish it? We should be building an asset with this investment - and the asset is not an application per se -- but a health data asset that can be used to improve both individual outcomes and the performance of the institutions and the system overall. Individuals should be encouraged to create and manage their health data asset and to learn how to share it to achieve better outcomes and interactions with the health delivery system. Similarly - health enterprises should invest in building and sharing health data assets that enable them to have a culture of process improvement over time.”
“But to achieve this transformation -- we have to acknowledge the reality of the institutions and systems currently in place; we have to invest in the new kinds of architectures and IT systems that will deliver real value over time. This report is bi-partisan and a timely reminder of key principles by experts -- one that I hope informs the health reform spending debate before folks finish their HIT shopping list and count too much on electronic health records as a simplistic cure-all. “
“Individuals should be encouraged to create and manage their health data asset and to learn how to share it to achieve better outcomes and interactions with the health delivery system. Similarly - health enterprises should invest in building and sharing health data assets that enable them to have a culture of process improvement over time. “
He is urging both public and private sectors to come together to ensure investment in health IT includes a “serious discussion of principles, desired outcomes and alternatives to achieve a good return on investment.”
For more information about the hearing, please visit: http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_01_15/2009_01_15.html
Related Reading:
Solution for High Risk Medications with Minimal Barcode Space.Elevating Patient Safety through Technological Innovation for the eHealth Initiative
ReplyDeleteOne of the major initiatives outlined in the eHealth Initiative is to address the devastating effects of medication errors within the US healthcare system. Medication errors result in thousands of deaths annually. The human toll is heavy and the monetary fallout is in the billions of dollars.
Eliminating Medication Errors through a Multi-Layered System
Numerous strategies to thwart medication errors have been implemented including procedural safeguards such as double checks and the five rights. Mechanical systems such as computerized physician order entry and bedside bar code scanning are also becoming increasingly helpful. Certainly, the eHealth Initiative will go along way to reduce the number of medication errors. It seems the best solution to elimination of medication error is, in fact, not a single solution at all but instead a multilayered system with numerous opportunities for errors to be identified before they occur. No doubt ubiquitous barcode scanning at the time of medication delivery is clearly able to have the greatest impact.
Full-sized Bar coding on the Smallest Vials is Now Feasible
It is during this time of great planning that attention needs to be given to methods that ensure barcode scanning can be implemented under all circumstances of medication delivery. After years of use one serious roadblock to complete utilization of barcode scanning in medication administration has been identified. Many of the most potent, most potentially lethal medications are packaged in vials whose diameter is smaller than that of a dime. Small vials have not only the hazard of exceptionally small print but also leave little room for bar coding. The space available for bar coding is only large enough to accommodate a few bits of information and is not nearly large enough for a barcode that has all the necessary and beneficial bits of information.
The Impetus for Preventing Tragedy &
Improving Patient Safety
I practice anesthesiology in Indianapolis. A few years ago, my husband, a product developer, and I recognized the significance this roadblock posed to the complete implementation of barcode scanning. Three infants died in an Indianapolis hospital after incorrectly receiving a heparin dose that was ten times what was intended. The error occurred because the automated drug cabinet was incorrectly stocked. Several nurses went to the cabinet to remove what they thought was the lesser strength medication. Both the correct and incorrect vials of medication were of the smallest size available with corresponding small difficult to scan barcode labels. Barcode scanning was not utilized in this instance, and sadly the outcome was tragic. It was after this event that we set about devising a system to eliminate these kinds of errors.
Forced Function: The Foundation
for the Drug Index Safety System
The solution became known as the Drug Index Safety System (DISS). Employing a strategy used in high-risk environments known as forced function, the system prevents one medication being mistaken for another. A unique plastic key is permanently attached to each vial of medication. The plastic key is large enough to hold a full sized bar code, an RFID tag and is able to easily accommodate larger lettering. Numerous vials of the same medication are packaged in a docking station that is forced to only accept one specific drug at one specific dose because of its unique keyed label. Permanently affixed platforms in automated drug cabinets located throughout the hospital are then forced to accept a specific keyed docking station ensuring the right drug is restocked in the right location every time. This is the science of forced-function in action— virtually eliminating human error in drug dispensing.
Primary Patient Safety Benefits:
• eliminates stocking errors
• DISS will reduce errors from manual entry of the label
• provides large area for bar code
• provides large area for readable type size
• solves the drug and dose differentiation problem through DISS’ ability to
create 10,000+ distinctly shaped keys
• provides vastly improved organization
• allows the use of RFID transmission, keeping the chip off the vial
• provides item-level tracking
• eliminates cross-contamination issues by precluding the need to physically handle each vial to read labels
• provides complete electronic integration of all drug information,patient record keeping systems alerting health care workers about patient allergies, dangerous drug interactions and preventing them from administering a wrong dose or drug
• prevents human error in drug dispensing
• reduces financial exposure to hospitals, clinicians, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies
Ensuring a Full and Accurate Pedigree for each
Patient’s Electronic Medical Record
DISS adds two layers of safety in one product. First, it makes barcode scanning of the most highly concentrated and potentially lethal medications feasible under all circumstances. As a result, without exception all medications a patient receives can become part of the electronic medical record (EMR). Moreover, each patient’s medical record will contain not only which medications the patient received but because of the opportunity for a more sophisticated barcode the EMR will also contain the expiration date and lot number ensuring a full and accurate pedigree. Second, it employs the gold standard for high-risk environments, forced function. Inventory assessment, accurate electronic medical record implementation, pharmaceutical replenishment and dispensing are all improved with DISS. Together, these two added layers of safety have the ability to make a great impact on patient care.
Medication Error Recognized by World Health Organization as Threat to Patient Safety
The system is currently patent-pending in 128 countries around the world. The global reach is important because like the eHealth Initiative task force, the World Health Organization’s Joint Commission on Patient Safety has also clearly identified medication error as an everyday threat to patient safety on all continents.
Who is Willing to Place Patient Safety First?
The effectiveness of the new universal IT Healthcare System is predicated on the premise that all products in the system can be scanned into an EMR for shared and accurate information downloading. So where do we at DISS stand? We stand on the threshold to a tomorrow of safer healthcare where each patient has an accurate EMR. We simply want to pass the baton to stakeholders that have an interest in bringing the Drug Index Safety System to market.
The Business Advantage of Changing Healthcare for the Better
Please retain this information and pass it along to those who not only see the enormous business advantage but also are interested in changing health care for the better. Though we are open to discussing various proposals on the sale of our company and its intellectual property, our primary strategy is to find a single buyer for this intellectual property, so this technology can be brought to fruition expediently—for the express purpose of saving lives and eliminating the costs associated with medication error.
To contact us or learn more please go to www.drugindexsafetysystems.com
Tracy W. Dallman, M.D. Brent A. Dallman Co-Product Developers