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Ellen Lanser May

Publications and source records attributed to Ellen Lanser May.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
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The case for bar coding: better information, better care--and better business.

Bar coding, pervasive in almost all other industries, has been slow to infiltrate the healthcare setting. for years, disparate systems, a lack of standardization, and an absence of significant market incentives have hindered healthcare providers, IT vendors, and drug manufacturers alike in adopting bar coding technology. But thanks to a proposed FDA rule issued last Spring, bar coding is is edging its way to the top of many IT priority lists. By mid-2004, the final rule should be passed, which will require all drugmakers to bar code prescription drug products at the unit dose level. The bar code will identify the drug, manufacture, strength of the medication, and dosage.

Alabama↗
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Strengthening the safety net.

If you've ever built a house of cards or played a game of Jenga, you know how quickly an ill-timed move can destroy your goal of maintaining equilibrium. The consequence of upsetting one piece of the whole is a common metaphor many safety net providers use to help other healthcare organizations understand their role in the system. The fiscal and physical pressure on just one safety net provider can create a dangerous ripple effect in a community, threatening the stability of other area providers and access to care for the patients they serve. "We have created a complicated tension within our healthcare system," says Stuart H. Altman, Ph.D., HFACHE, professor, National Health Policy, at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. "If any single major sector of the system is out of balance, the others will be affected in a very negative way." Depending (in part) on geography as well as local and state politics, the fate of "non"-safety net providers can hinge on the success of those organizations whose primary mission is to provide indigent care. "If the safety net fails, the whole healthcare system could potentially collapse because the remaining providers simply cannot handle all of the demand," says C. Duane Dauner, FACHE, president of the California Healthcare Association in Sacramento. The current situations in Washington, D.C., Dallas, and several California counties illustrate this domino effect Dauner describes.

Cooperative Behavior↗
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Choosing an IT vendor.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Contract Services↗
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The transformational power of IT: Experience from patient safety leaders.

Late last year, David J. Brailer, M.D., Ph.D., National Health Information Technology Coordinator for the Department of Health and Human Services, visited Evanston (IL) Northwestern Hospital (ENH) to observe its electronic medical record system. ENH is the first in the nation to put such a system into an acute care setting, including all three of its hospitals and its 70 medical offices and ambulatory sites. "It's been truly transformational for our processes, our delivery of care, our communications, and our way of doing business," says Mark R. Neaman, FACHE, ENH's president and chief executive officer. What's more, ENH has demonstrated at least a 20 percent reduction in medication errors, and the remaining errors have shifted from wrong medication and wrong patient to errors of timing, which are almost always less severe.

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