By  Bernie Monegain, Editor

　　NEW ORLEANS – It's not often the words “information technology” and “hope” are uttered in the same breath. But “hope” is the word Frank G. Opelka, MD, summons to describe the rollout of electronic health record technology under way in New Orleans. By Bernie Monegain, Editor

　　NEW ORLEANS – It's not often the words “information technology” and “hope” are uttered in the same breath.

　　But “hope” is the word Frank G. Opelka, MD, summons to describe the rollout of electronic health record technology under way in New Orleans.

　　the LSU Healthcare Network,?of?is CEO?Seal,?Opelka, a surgeon and former Navy medical groups. He has made it his mission?clinics and?which encompasses LSU post Katrina to help rebuild the city's  – and the state's – crushed healthcare system.

　　The rollout of electronic health record systems to more than 500 Louisiana State University

　　physicians goes hand in hand with the $100 million e-prescribing initiative that big-name high-tech companies, such as Dell, Google and Microsoft, launched last month. The promise – free e-prescribing for all U.S. physicians,

　　Chicago-based healthcare technology company Allscripts, which brought all the big names to the table, is leading the e-prescribing project. It's the same company LSU selected for its EHR system.

　　“We're looking at 12-18 months complete rollout across the system,” Opelka said late last month. That translates into a June 2008 target date.

　　Opelka does not cast the implementation of electronic health records as the be-all and end-all to rebuilding the city's decimated system from scratch.

　　But it is an essential piece.

　　“When you want to rebuild a healthcare system from the ground up, it's difficult to do unless you see a hopeful future,” Opelka said.

　　Jane Olds, LSU Healthcare Network's chief operating officer, the woman on the frontlines, who is charged with making sure the rollout goes off without a hitch, knows exactly what Opelka means.

　　“These physicians are beleaguered,” she said. “They are without their tools. “They've had to start over.”

　　The new technology, says, Opelka, is a way to “notch up care. It's such a new hope for physicians.”

　　It's a new hope for patients, too. When one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history struck the Gulf Coast in the waning days of August 2005, thousands of patients had to be evacuated from hospitals in New Orleans and throughout the region. There were no phones – cell or landline, water, lights or food. Patient records were on paper. In some cases, yellow folders containing name, age and diagnosis, were hung from patients' necks.

　　In New Orleans and elsewhere in the region today, patients continue to be treated without the benefit of their medical histories.

　　Many of these patients, Opelka notes, are cancer patients with chronic pain, all with complication combinations of treatment. Many patients, some with psychiatric illnesses, do not know what conditions they have. They know they take a red pill.

　　“It's mind boggling,” Opelka said.

　　The electronic health record will help deal with these situations, Opelka said, Moreover it is essential for the success of the statewide demonstration project called “Medical Home. ”

　　The model calls for steering people who rely on public assistance for healthcare into an HMO-like system that would be made up of primary-care clinics linked with a panel of specialists and hospitals.

　　To participate in the model, physician practices would have to use an electronic health record that is certified by the federal Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology. Practices eventually would have to be able to link to the Louisiana Health Information Exchange.

　　“You're going to hear a lot about Medical Home, Opelka said. There are four simple points to remember, he said. Its components include the employment of personal health records and electronic health records. It begins with the patient. Physicians are the stewards.

　　“My job is to shepherd your health,: Opelka said, “The linkage that brings it all together is the electronic world,” Opelka said. “It empowers the patient.”

　　In Opelka's view, it is critical for LSU, which includes a medical school, to be at the forefront of the rebuilding healthcare in Louisiana.

　　The cost of LSU's electronic health record is referred to as a “multi-million project,” but no one is breaking down the cost. Opelka does not want to talk about the cost, he said, because he knows “costs varies from one institution to the next.”

　　The deal LSU struck with Allscripts, he said, “very much gave us an opportunity where we could never have reached this before the storm” Today, the cost is part of LSU's capital budget.

　　However, it is not cost alone that drove LSU's choice.

　　“We looked at a lot of information out there,” Opelka said. “We brought in multiple vendors.” LSU was looking for technology that could support physicians that work in both the private and public sectors, as well a something that fit with LSU's research mission and clinical trials.