 | |
| |
TechnologyDaily Mobile
Wyoming Tackles E-Health Records
by Chloe Albanesius
On the heels of a two-day telecommunications conference last month, Wyoming officials this week began three days of public meetings on the state's electronic health initiative.
The Wyoming Healthcare Commission, the Information Technology Technical Management Subcommittee and consultant John Snow interviewed 40 key stakeholders and held more than 30 focus groups to develop a draft version of an e-health plan, which will be presented to the public starting Tuesday night.
In the report, project coordinators detailed challenges officials will face during the transition, including resistance to a mandated, statewide health information technology (HIT) system and putting information into a centralized database. They also found that professionals throughout Wyoming have different levels of expertise with HIT systems and there is a limited pool of IT professionals in the state who can work on the implementation.
The report stressed that an effective HIT system relies on high-speed Internet access, making continued broadband deployment important. The e-health rollout also will have to be supervised by a central, coordinating organization, the report said. Additional "strategic imperatives" include standards promotion, financial incentives and technical assistance.
There are several ongoing e-health initiatives in Wyoming, including an effort by the state's Health Department to consolidate disparate electronic health systems and the Wyoming Integrated Database project, which takes health information from several state agencies to identify duplicative processes. Learning from these projects, the report said, "will be an important part" of developing a statewide e-health system.
In the future, the report recommended the development of an organizational structure and cost estimate and called for public feedback. Meanwhile, organizers suggested holding a series of educational sessions throughout Wyoming on the importance of e-health records and urged doctors to compile summaries of critical patient health information.
In other news, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin on Wednesday appointed Julian Bailes, a professor and chairman of West Virginia University's department of neurosurgery, chairman of the state's e-health working group. The Louisiana native helped establish a specialty telemedicine network and took the lead on the National Medical Practice Knowledge Bank, a $52 million bank health computerization effort that was initiated in 1995 under the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Advanced Technology Program.
Meanwhile, the state of Michigan Tuesday unveiled a Web site with prescription drug pricing information. The Michigan Community Health Department will post information on the top 25 most commonly used drugs, as reported by First Health Services Corp.
Illinois Lawmakers Approve Lifetime Sex Offender Monitoring
The Illinois Senate on Wednesday passed a measure requiring lifetime supervision of convicted sex offenders.
Under H.B. 2386, those convicted of their second or subsequent sexual assault or felony sexual abuse, or those who abused a minor, will be required to wear an electronic monitoring device upon release for at least two years of their four-year parole period.
The state currently has 18,000 registered sex offenders and approximately 12,000 of them are unsupervised, according to Attorney General Lisa Madigan. She drafted the legislation in order to track "sex offenders based on the risk they pose to communities, not for an arbitrary period of time that has nothing to do with the likelihood of an offender committing another horrible assault or heinous crime," Madigan said in a statement.
The House passed the measure March 10, so the bill now heads to the desk of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich for his signature.
In other news, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) on Tuesday unveiled a revamped Web site that allows residents to pinpoint the location of sex offenders who live nearby. Pitney Bowes donated software for the effort, which will allow users to find sex offenders in a particular neighborhood or those located near a school.
"The number of visits to our Web site has soared in recent months," FDLE Commissioner Guy Tunnell said in a statement. The software update will "help parents and law enforcement do a better job of protecting innocent citizens across the state."
In Washington, Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire this week signed a bill, H.B. 1136, allowing for a study of electronic monitoring of offenders as an alternative to jail time.
And in North Carolina, two special agents with the state's Bureau of Special Investigation were honored Wednesday by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for their efforts in breaking up a child pornography ring.
Vermont House Targets Online Hunting
The Vermont House Tuesday approved a bill that would ban remote-control hunting, making exceptions for disabled hunters who might need some sort of remote technology to help them hunt.
At issue is a Web site, liveshot.com, set up by a Texas man that allows Internet users to manipulate a gun set up in a remote location and fire on animals that come within the gun's range.
Democratic state Rep. David Deen told the Rutland Herald that while a majority of lawmakers oppose the practice of online hunting, they made the exception for disabled hunters who might need technical assistance in the wild.
The Senate already passed the bill, S. 166, without the amendment for the disabled and will now have to reconsider the measure.
Virginia is the only state so far to enact an online hunting ban into law, while U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., has introduced legislation on the federal level to ban the practice.
The California Senate last month passed a bill, S.B. 1028, that would ban online hunting. The measure was transferred to a House committee on Monday.
The California Senate also passed S.B. 682 on Monday, which would prohibit the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in driver's licenses and other state IDs.
In other state legislative news, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Wednesday called for an update to the state's identity theft laws. The Republican governor's proposal would require companies that do business with residents to notify them if their personal information is compromised and allow consumers to freeze their credit reports if they suspect they are victims of ID theft.
Romney's plan also would allow officials to liquidate seized items like computers and document production equipment in order to cover investigation costs and provide restitution to victims.
On the tax front, a Wisconsin Assembly committee last week approved a bill, A.B. 330, that would allow the Revenue Department to post a list of delinquent taxpayers on the Internet. And AP reports that the city of Portland, Ore., is considering a 5 percent tax on revenues from wireless phone and traditional land-line services like call waiting. An existing 7 percent tax on land-line service would drop to 5 percent.
California, Texas Governors Laud Security Bill
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week sent a letter to Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, to voice support for a bill the senators introduced that would allocate homeland security funding based on risk rather than population.
The measure, S. 1013, better recognizes the "risk and vulnerabilities faced by larger states like California and Texas," the Republican governors wrote. The duo was particularly pleased with the continuation of the law enforcement terrorism prevention program and the central role allocated to the states.
In other news, San Diego last week organized a homeland security response drill using wireless Internet technology in which terrorists detonated a chemical bomb on a docked cruise ship.
NEW FEATURE
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
