John M. Grohol, The Health Care Blog
“While doing some research the other day on personal health records (PHRs), I came across this article, describing Revolution Health’s announcement — without much media attention — about dropping its PHR at the beginning of 2010. (Disclosure: I worked for Revolution Health in 2005-2006, and now have a business relationship with the company that acquired them, Everyday Health.)
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Ano Lobb, Justmeans
“A new approach to health care delivery may well provide a first taste of the value that can be realized when health IT is integrated into systems for delivering care and improving quality. The hope that simply plugging an electronic medical record (EMR) system into existing medical practices is worth the costs and will on its own improve health outcomes has yet to prove itself. But a paper just published in Clinical Trials provides a more enlightened vision for implementing EMR.
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Sade Laja, Guardian Professional
“Dr James Ferguson, the lead clinician at the Scottish Centre for Telehealth, has a theory as to why England has not developed telehealth to its full potential: south of the border, money is used as the justification.
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Neil Versel, mobihealthnews
“Mobile healthcare is on a roll, and you can partially thank the next generation.
Health- and healthcare-related projects took the top four spots in the U.S. finals of the Imagine Cup, an annual student technology competition sponsored by Microsoft.
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Michael, Mobile Marketing Watch
“There’s a contagious outbreak at hospitals across the US.
A rapidly growing number of hospitals and medical clinics are developing and releasing their own unique dedicated mobile applications.
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Tamara Baluja, Globe and Mail
“Three Canadian hospitals are finally taking significant strides in transforming paper medical charts to electronic patient records.
Two hospitals in the GTA – St. Michael’s and North York General Hospital – as well as one in British Columbia have introduced a new barcode technology that allows healthcare workers to prescribe medication, order tests and deliver safer patient care all with a pass of a scanner.
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Doug Fridsma, Health IT Buzz
“Last week, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) celebrated another milestone in the journey toward nationwide interoperable health information exchange. Last Wednesday’s announcement from the Care Connectivity Consortium represents an important step that some of our nation’s largest health care providers are taking in supporting optimal patient care through health information technology.
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Suzanne Tindal, and Luke Hopewell, CNET Australia
“The Department of Health and Ageing (DOHA) today outed its draft operational blueprint for the development, implementation and ongoing operation of personally controlled e-health records (PCEHR).
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Hysong S et al, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 11(1)
BACKGROUND:
Notifying clinicians about abnormal test results through electronic health record (EHR) -based “alert” notifications may not always lead to timely follow-up of patients. We sought to understand barriers, facilitators, and potential interventions for safe and effective management of abnormal test result delivery via electronic alerts.
METHOD:
We conducted a qualitative study consisting of six 6-8 member focus groups (N=44) at two large, geographically dispersed Veterans Affairs facilities. Participants included full-time primary care providers, and personnel representing diagnostic services (radiology, laboratory) and information technology. We asked participants to discuss barriers, facilitators, and suggestions for improving timely management and follow-up of abnormal test result notifications and encouraged them to consider technological issues, as well as broader, human-factor-related aspects of EHR use such as organizational, personnel, and workflow.
RESULTS:
Providers reported receiving a large number of alerts containing information unrelated to abnormal test results, many of which were believed to be unnecessary. Some providers also reported lacking proficiency in use of certain EHR features that would enable them to manage alerts more efficiently. Suggestions for improvement included improving display and tracking processes for critical alerts in the EHR, redesigning clinical workflow, and streamlining policies and procedures related to test result notification.
CONCLUSION:
Providers perceive several challenges for fail-safe electronic communication and tracking of abnormal test results. A multi-dimensional approach that addresses technology as well as the many non-technological factors we elicited is essential to design interventions to reduce missed test results in EHRs.
Justin Fritz, Wall Street Daily
“I’ve never been admitted to an intensive care unit. But if I do end up there some day, I’d like to think that a top-notch team of doctors would watch every blip on my EKG.
Sadly, the real picture isn’t nearly that rosy.
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Patty Enrado, EHRWatch
“Healthcare providers are reportedly flocking to social media as a marketing channel. If this is a trend, is there any synergy between social media adoption and EHR adoption?
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HLN.be
“De invoer van het eHealth-platform komt weer een stap dichterbij. Smals, de vzw die de ICT van de sociale instellingen verzorgt, is rond met de beveiligingstechnologie van de gegevens. Begin 2012 zou het platform van de grond moeten komen.
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David More, Australian Health Information Technology
“A colleague who is trying not to cause too much trouble developed this short commentary on the below named report.
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Isaac Leung, Electronics News
“Medical electronics smacks of the future but is not a new discipline. Electronic devices have been supporting the frail human body for over five decades since the first artificial cardiac pacemaker was implanted in 1958. But, since the turn of the century, medical technology has accelerated dramatically.
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Justin Fritz, Wall Street Daily
“What’s worse than the rising cost of healthcare? How about not having access to a doctor at all?
That’s what 25% of the U.S. population who live in rural areas face every day. With only 10% of the country’s doctors working there, CNN says, “Virtually every rural area in America needs more primary care doctors and can’t find them.”
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Gienna Shaw, HealthLeaders Media
“The field of telehealth is still emerging, and while there’s anecdotal evidence of its benefits to care, there haven’t been a lot of long-term studies to quantify it. That hasn’t stopped organizations from pursuing the model.
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Due to my presence at the WHCC Europe and the bad internet connection, the News Page updates will be resumed on Thursday 14 April.
Lodewijk Bos
Anna Caldwell, The Courier-Mail
“Patients will be able to control their most sensitive health details and, for the first time, read their doctor’s secret medical notes.
The reforms, designed to empower patients, will be detailed today in a blueprint for the Gillard Government’s controversial electronic health system.
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Martin Sizemore, Perficient
“Widespread electronic medical record (EMR) adoption is hanging on hope that social and economic benefits will be received through the reduction of information silos in medical record data. Unfortunately, without interoperability EMR adoption will only further strengthen the information silos that exist in today’s paper-based medical files.
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BigPond News
“The federal government is likely to manage a national database to store the summaries of electronic health records belonging to millions of Australians.
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