Trinity Health update

Just a few weeks after I posted the podcast crowing about how Trinity Health is building a massive clinical data repository, I get news that the Michigan-based network of Catholic health systems is slowing down its implementation, called Project Genesis.

I don’t know too much about the decision, but I am supposed to talk with someone there on Tuesday morning. Hopefully, I will have the details in time for Tuesday’s Health-IT World.

Meanwhile, this Friday I will be moderating a session on health information technology at the annual Association of Health Care Journalists conference. Believe it or not, IT had been cut from the preliminary program before it was added back a couple of months ago. I pitched a fit to the organizers before I learned that it had been included in the final program. It continues to astound me how little the mainstream press—and even the healthcare trade press—knows and cares about the role of IT in healthcare. I’m making it part of my job to educate my colleagues at daily newspapers, general-interest magazines and even a good number of health-specific publications.

Fortunately, AHCJ has put together a great panel on IT. I will be introducing Linda Dimitropoulos, a privacy and security specialist at RTI International; Mark Leavitt, M.D., chairman of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology; and Sam Karp of the California HealthCare Foundation (and also a CCHIT commissioner). I am planning on recording the 75-minute session for a podcast, so check back here next week.

The file is sure to be huge, so email me if you want a CD copy. Since it’s not my event and AHCJ is a nonprofit, I’ll sell you one for the cost of a blank CD plus shipping. I’ll figure out the cost next week if there is any interest.

Now I shall sign off and go to sleep, seeing that the Trinity people are supposed to call me in less than 7 hours now.