Mirth MUx Selected By HealthBridge For Next Generation Healthcare Infrastructure.

Irvine, CA and Cincinnati, OH, November 10, 2009 – Mirth Corporation, the leader in commercial open source healthcare information technology, and HealthBridge, one of the nation’s largest and most advanced community health information exchanges today announced the selection of the Mirth Meaningful Use Exchange (Mirth MUx) as the core of HealthBridge’s next generation interoperability infrastructure. By implementing Mirth MUx HealthBridge becomes one of the nation’s first health information exchanges to enable physician access to critical patient information via the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). The NHIN has been developed under the guidance of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to serve as a nationwide, interoperable health information infrastructure. Mirth MUx helps organizations fast-track NHIN connectivity.
Built on the foundation of Mirth’s widely used open source healthcare interface engine, Mirth MUx speeds NHIN connectivity by fully incorporating the open source CONNECT software developed by the Federal Health Architecture program under ONC. CONNECT incorporates all of the standards and requirements outlined for the NHIN, helping organizations more quickly get connected into NHIN-enabled health information exchanges.
“For the past year Mirth has been a key technology partner to HealthBridge in enabling us to make critical patient information available to physicians where and when they need it across our community,” said Robert Steffel, chief executive officer for HealthBridge. “Now, with the addition of the NHIN-enabled Mirth MUx, as a central component of our infrastructure, we can extend our reach to enable information exchange with participating organizations nationally,” added Steffel.
HealthBridge provides connectivity for 28 hospitals, more than 5200 physician users, 700 physician practices, and 17 local health departments, as well as nursing homes, independent labs, radiology centers and others across the Greater Cincinnati healthcare community. It delivers nearly 3 million clinical messages and results to more than 5,200 physicians monthly.
Mirth MUx can help healthcare delivery organizations of all sizes achieve proposed meaningful use criteria for clinical information exchange. Physicians meeting these criteria have the potential to earn up to $44,000 over five years, and hospitals stand to earn millions in federal incentive dollars over a similar period for implementation and use of electronic health record systems. The ability to exchange clinical information is among the central components of these meaningful use criteria.
“HealthBridge has been widely recognized for their leadership in advancing health information exchange across communities and, more importantly, they have demonstrated a model for success both operationally and financially,” observed Jon Teichrow, president of Mirth Corporation. “Mirth Corporation is honored to be working with such a high caliber organization and delighted to play a part in the important work they do to create a safer more coordinated system of care delivery – one that works better for physicians and patients,” added Teichrow.
Mirth MUx enables healthcare organizations to securely exchange clinical information such as patient clinical summaries, lab results, medication histories and other records directly or via the NHIN. Designed to support standards such as HL7 and the Continuity of Care Document (CCD), Mirth MUx enables organizations to go live in weeks, and at a far lower cost than traditional vendor solutions. The Mirth MUx document portal gives authorized healthcare providers secure access to critical patient information via any Internet-connected computer.
Mirth MUx deployments are available on the Mirth E1000 Enterprise Appliance and the Mirth V1000 Virtual Appliance platforms. These enterprise-grade appliance platforms help reduce the time, effort and risk associated with implementation, and offer faster performance for organizations with high transaction volumes. Mirth MUx is also available as a hosted solution.
Since its launch as the Mirth Project in 2006, Mirth Connect – a core component of Mirth MUx – has become the most widely downloaded open source software for healthcare data integration, with over 70,000 worldwide downloads and a user community numbering over 7,000 professionals. Mirth Connect supports all major healthcare data interchange standards, including HL7, X12, DICOM, NCPDP, and XML.
Mirth

Philadelphia Jury Find GlaxoSmithKline Guilty In Paxil-Birth Defects Lawsuit

Philadelphia jury has found GlaxoSmithKline guilty of negligence, but not guilty of outrageous conduct. It Awarded 2.5 million. The verdict is the first of about 600 similar Paxil lawsuits filed across the United States according to the Associated Press
Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline plans to appeal a $2.5 million verdict in a lawsuit that alleged the company's antidepressant drug Paxil caused birth defects.
This lawsuit was launched by a Philadelphia family whose son was born four years ago with a number of heart defects.
In 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warnings that Paxil may be associated with birth defects, the AP reported.

The first study illustrates the potential risk of relapsed depression after stopping antidepressant medication during pregnancy. The authors followed pregnant women who in the past had major depression. During their pregnancy, some of these women were not feeling depressed and stopped taking their antidepressant medicines. Others stayed on their antidepressant medicines while pregnant. The women who stopped their medicine were five times more likely to have a relapse of depression during their pregnancy than were the women who continued to take their antidepressant medicine while pregnant. This study, by Lee Cohen and other authors, was published February 1, 2006 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

A second study suggests there may be additional, though rare, risks of SSRI medications during pregnancy. This study focused on newborn babies with persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), which is a serious and life-threatening lung condition that occurs soon after birth of the newborn. Babies with PPHN have high pressure in their lung blood vessels and are not able to get enough oxygen into their bloodstream. About 1 to 2 babies per 1000 babies born in the U.S. develop PPHN shortly after birth, and often they need intensive medical care. In this study PPHN was six times more common in babies whose mothers took an SSRI antidepressant after the 20th week of the pregnancy compared to babies whose mothers did not take an antidepressant. The study was too small to compare the risk in one drug compared to another, and this risk has not so far been investigated by other researchers. The study, by Christina Chambers and others, was published on February 9, 2006 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

HealthCare At It's Best "CT Scan "Reset Error" Gives 206 Patients Radiation Overdose"

And they worry about malpractice? Via Slasdot

"As the LA Times reports, 206 patients receiving CT scans at Cedar Sinai hospital received up to eight times the X-ray exposure doctors intended. (The FDA alert gives details about the doses involved.)

Google Org Maps Flu Trends Over 16 Countries.

Google Org has expanded it's flu trends coverage to include 16 countries including most of the Europe. I see the patern of wintering countries of this year but the odd man out is Australia and New Zealand.
While Australia has minimal flu, there is flu activity in New Zealand. But according to Google, both the countries have continued to see a good correspondence between our estimates and official flu activity data. In fact, our analysis of last season shows that Google Flu Trends had a close 0.92 correlation with official U.S. flu data.
May be it is time you got that flu shot! Without being a number in Google Trends!
Official Google Blog: Google Flu Trends expands to 16 additional countries

Google Health Marches Along

Google Health is marching forward slowly but surely and have posted an update, Fall Update on Google Health.
We have kept close watch on the Google Health initiative and our selves have embarked on a quest to liberated certain health related data.
PHR, Personal Health Records were kept in hospital dungeons and were very hard to be shared with anyone but the the original creating hispital staff. Even they had to rumage through record rooms, we know because one of our dear friends made his fortune by designing a system to manage paper health records.
But thanks to initiatives like Google heatlth, the PHRs are becoming readily available any where in the world, as long as they have a connection to the net. Even in the case there is no internet connections, patients are more empowered to carry their own health information with them, say in a USB drive.
But there is more to the Google Health initiative and you might head over to Google Health Blog, to read the detail.

Official Google Blog: Fall update on Google Health

Fight The Flu Wash Your Hands

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Cal Messages to keep the campus updated on H1N1 influenza will be sent to faculty, staff, and other campus groups as circumstances warrant during the flu season. Current information is available online on the UC Berkeley NewsCenter's flu-resource page. From there, click on "Flu resources and FAQ (UHS)" to get to the University Health Services page with information and links to additional resources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.

Health*Matters, the campus Wellness Program for Faculty and Staff, is offering interactive flu-prevention education in campus departments and work groups; materials can be customized to fit department needs. The workshop covers an interactive hand-washing exercise, coughing etiquette, and tips on staying healthy.

To schedule a customized session, contact Kristl Buluran at 643-9082 or visit Health*Matters H1N1 Prevention Workshops.

UC Berkeley Prepares For H1N1 influenza (Swine Flu)

UC Berkeley
BERKELEY — A campus team led by University Health Services (UHS) is preparing for the arrival at Berkeley of an unwanted visitor: H1N1 influenza. First called swine flu, H1N1 flu has already gotten a toehold in Northern California and is expected to hit schools and colleges this fall. Because of the possibility that large numbers within the campus community could be affected, officials here have been planning actively for the fall semester since the initial H1N1 outbreak in April.
The flu, whose spread the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is calling a pandemic, travels from human to human. Fortunately, at this point the severity of illness caused by the H1N1 virus is mild in most people.
To protect the health of students, faculty, and staff, UHS has teamed up with contagious-disease and flu experts from the School of Public Health, the city of Berkeley's public-health office, and campus representatives from housing and dining, academic services, recreational sports, and human resources.
"Active and concerted prevention efforts are going to be key to limiting the impact of this illness on our students and on campus operations as a whole," says Brad Buchman, medical director of University Health Services. "We have pulled together key campus departments and incorporated guidance from the UCOP Pandemic Advisory Board to help us prepare for what could potentially be a significant burden of illness on campus in the upcoming months."

An ounce of prevention

Preventive measures will help ward off the H1N1 flu. Two simple actions (both recommended by UHS) are washing your hands frequently and coughing into your sleeve. The campus is focusing prevention efforts at locations where the H1N1 flu could spread rapidly, including residence halls, dining halls, and the Recreational Sports Facility.
Signs that you're coming down with the flu include a sudden spike in temperature and a cough, says Buchman, while noting that it's not easy to differentiate between seasonal and H1N1 varieties based on symptoms. In either case, he says, the CDC recommends "self-isolation" — staying home — until 24 hours after your temperature has returned to normal.
\In addition to its annual seasonal-flu clinic, this year the Tang Center will provide H1N1 vaccinations — though the targeted vaccine won't arrive until late October. (Seasonal-flu-vaccine clinics will start as soon as that vaccine is received in the latter half of September.) UHS has forwarded its H1N1-vaccine request to the California Department of Public Health, based on estimates of campus population groups at highest risk, which include students, faculty, and staff with underlying medical conditions; the large percentage of students and staff between the ages of 18 and 24 years old; and health workers and emergency-preparedness personnel.
In addition to campus-wide prevention efforts and vaccination, UHS and other departments are planning for the possibility that the illness could become significantly widespread at Berkeley, and for the more remote possibility that the illness caused by the H1N1 virus could become more severe.