Afia has two upcoming presentations that we are doing over the next week on how information technology can be used to improve both clinical and administrative aspects of your organization.

The first presentation will be at the Impact System of Care Conference on Friday, October 30th and will talk about how you can use outcome data to both track and encourage a youth’s progress toward improved functioning across life’s domains.  Go to this link for more information:  Impact System of Care Conference.

Then, on Tuesday, November 3rd Afia will be conducting a webinar with the National Council on how to move forward with critical HIT initiatives to improve productivity and service quality even as you grapple with tough budget constraints.  To sign up for the webinar go to:  Health IT:  Doing More With Less.

The National Council for Community Behavioral Health (www.thenationalcouncil.org) has signed a contract with Afia to provide technical support in developing an IT Strategy for the Integrated Health division of the National Council (http://www.thenationalcouncil.org/cs/new_at_the_resource_center), and to provide technical support for the Phase IV Primary Care-Mental Health Collaborative Care Project. Afia will be supporting Phase IV members with how to use technology to track data an integrate information between Primary Care and Behavioral Health. Afia will use its expertise in workflow analysis and EHR vendor selection to support what tools and techniques will work best.

The age of personal health management is upon us. This is only the start of a new revolution is health monitoring and health delivery where the patient becomes a central partner in treatment and delivery of care.

Remember when the iPod made your music collection mobile, letting you access and sort your library from anywhere? Boston Scientific is on track to do the same thing with patient medical data, via an upcoming iPhone app. “It’s all about capturing those micromoments in the day–when a surgeon is waiting for the OR to be prepped for the next implant but can’t sit down at a computer, when a patient’s family member calls at 6 a.m. with a question but the office isn’t opened yet,” says Joseph Weber, Director of R+D for Boston Scientific’s Latitude application. “Mobility brings so many compelling values to the system.”  Read More ->

CBS News’ 10-minute video gives a short but comprehensive look at the issues and the realities of electronic medical records It includes a personal horror story by Dennis Quaid on a medical mistake that almost cost the lives of his then 12-day-old twins, and how simple bar-coding of medications and use of scanners can prevent that from happening. The video covers the benefits, costs, privacy concerns and other issues related to converting to electronic medical records with real-life examples from Kaiser Permanente. David Pogue – New York Times tech columnist and GTC keynote speaker — moderates.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Growing use of social media has government agencies scrambling to develop rules for their employees who blog, Twitter, Facebook or contribute to any number of other Web 2.0 networks. Utah state government is confronting that issue with a newly developed set of rules for appropriate social media use by public employees and state officials.  more ->