This is a photograph of 14th Street, in Washington, DC. The street is currently undergoing a rejuvination, and reflects some of the beautiful shades of spring that Washington reveals to passers-by.

• Characterizing the Health Information Technology Workforce - An analysis of the HIMSS Analytics Database about the FTE currently deployed and recommended nationally for HIT. The issue of MD's in HIT (e.g. number present and needed) is still unknown. From OHSU's Informatics Team.

• The CMIO–A New Leader for Health Systems — Leviss et al. 13 (5): 573 — Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association - Helpful overview of the qualities of CMIO. I didn't realize how "new" this position is in health care. Nice to see confirmation that good CMIO's are good physicians primarily.

• SEEDIE.ORG - Society for Exorbitantly Expensive and Difficult to Implement EHR?s - Satire of the HIT industry. It's important to laugh once a day.

• Facts about the 2008 National Patient Safety Goals | Joint Commission - Goal 13A - Involve patients and families in their care as a patient safety strategy

I am in Besthesda, MD, attending the Institute’s intensive training seminar. The quote above is from Roslyn Marshall, RN, Nurse Manager for the Neurosciences Unit at Medical College of Georgia, who placed a sign with the words in the title near the place where nurses used to do their shift changes. They now do shift changes at the patient bedside. The other quote I liked was from Terry Griffin, who said:

No one more than parents wants to make sure their baby’s care is error free

In reference to including parents in hospital rounds and nursing rounds. I also learned to not call “Carts on Wheels” “COWs” - “WOWs” (”Workstation on Wheels”) is better.

• NAHIT Releases HIT Definitions | News | Healthcare Informatics - Long awaited, and helpful. The difference between "P" and "E"HR appears just to be control. "P"HR is controlled by the patient. I still believe that the customer of both is the patient, and these definitions are consistent with that idea.

When in California last week, I went to visit Larry Leisure, President, North America, and Deryk Van Brunt, DrPH, Senior VP of Business Development for iMetrikus.

images: click on any to see larger size

iMetrikus is part of the Continua Alliance, and has expertise in collecting and processing patient derived biometric data using FDA-cleared gateways, and in presenting the data to support clinical workflow. Here are a few images of the devices. The MetrikLink device connects many different devices via a phone line or PC, but it is not required if the device has standard connectors. There is also a mobile platform, especially interesting for patients who may rely on a cell phone for Internet connectivity.

• NEJM — Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy - Discussion of conflict of interest in publishing research in journals.