Inaugural Duke Center for Health Informatics Conference at Fuqua Addresses "Meaningful Use"
April 08, 2010
On March 11, 2010, Fuqua hosted the inaugural Duke Center for Health Informatics (D-CHI) Conference. The conference included 150 participants from almost 70 organizations and focused on the concept of "meaningful use," a new requirement for electronic health information systems.
The Federal stimulus legislation in 2009 provided almost $30 billion of incentive payments to hospitals and physicians to implement electronic health records as part of an effort to reduce costs and enhance quality in health care. In order to be eligible to receive these payments, the electronic records systems need to meet two standards proposed in the law: meaningful use and health information exchange. Over the last year, the Federal government has worked to develop the formal regulatory definitions of these terms so provider systems may apply for the first payments in 2011.
The conference focused on four of the five aspects of meaningful use: quality and safety, care coordination, population and public health, and patient-centered care. Panels discussed opportunities to transform care in each of these domains utilizing new technology. They also outlined challenges in developing and implementing standards for each area that will foster rather than retard the development of the technology as investment continues to flow into this field as a result of the Federal incentive payments.
The conference was sponsored by D-CHI, a joint venture of Fuqua's Health Sector Management Program, the Duke Schools of Medicine and Nursing, and the Duke Health System. D-CHI aims to implement three key strategies to achieve its mission of enhancing the meaningful use of informatics and technology to improve healthcare: (1) focusing on outcomes, (2) integrating research into healthcare systems, and (3) involving Duke's medical, nursing, business, and other schools in development of interdisciplinary educational curricula, such as its unique Masters of Management in Clinical Informatics (MMCi) degree program.
MMCi is a new one-year master's degree program at Fuqua, and is the first clinical informatics program at any business school in the U.S. The concept behind this program is to train students on the use of technology to transform the care delivery process in the US. The curriculum includes seven courses in management, five courses in informatics including a practicum experience at Duke, and a required ethics seminar.
For more information on Fuqua's new MMCi degree visit http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/mmci/