CHIME Presses ONC on Patient Safety

Monegain, Bernie. "CHIME Presses ONC on Patient Safety." Healthcare IT News, February 6, 2013. 

From the article: "The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is urging the federal government to ensure that patients are matched correctly to their health information.

CHIME said it agreed with ONC that, “the accurate and efficient matching of patients to their health information is critical to ensuring patient safety,” and it urged a more focused effort to address patient data matching, saying that, “despite years of development, no clear strategy has emerged to accurately and consistently match patient data.” Read more

Health Care System To Benefit From Recent HIE Progress

Ahier, Brian. "Health Care System To Benefit From Recent HIE Progress." iHealthBeat, November 26, 2012.

From the article: "The stars seem to be aligned for rapid progress in health information exchange. We are fast approaching a point in the development of the Health Internet where ubiquitous exchange of health data to improve care coordination and health care quality and ultimately lower costs might be possible. We still face some problems, and standards and policies must be aligned, but there is some great synergy in play that will help drive this vision forward. There are a variety of different initiatives which are coalescing, but there is also a great deal of work still left to do." Read more

The Impact of Electronic Patient Portals on Patient Care: A Systematic Review of Controlled Trials

Ammenwerth, Elske, Schnell-Inderst, Petra, and Alexander Hoerbst. "The Impact of Electronic Patient Portals on Patient Care: A Systematic Review of Controlled Trials." Journal of Medical Internet Research 14 (2012).

From the report: "Modern information technology is changing and provides new challenges to health care. The emergence of the Internet and the electronic health record (EHR) has brought new opportunities for patients to play a more active role in his/her care. Although in many countries patients have the right to access their clinical information, access to clinical records electronically is not common. Patient portals consist of provider-tethered applications that allow patients to electronically access health information that are documented and managed by a health care institution. Although patient portals are already being implemented, it is still unclear in which ways these technologies can influence patient care." Read more

Who Are the Doctors Most Trusted by Doctors? Big Data Can Tell You.

Heussner, Ki Mae. "Who Are the Doctors Most Trusted by Doctors? Big Data Can Tell You." The Washington Post, November 19, 2012.

From the article: "By accessing information in government databases through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, healthcare innovators are now able to share connections between doctors that are based on millions of physician referrals — a valuable indicator of who doctors hold in esteem." Read more

Hospitals Use Patient Data to Target Ads

Sutherly, Ben. "Hospitals Use Patient Data to Target Ads." The Columbus Dispatch, November 12, 2012.

From the article: "You might not know it when you seek care from some of central Ohio’s hospital systems, but your health information makes you a potential marketing target.

OhioHealth and Mount Carmel Health System routinely mine health data from their patients’ records to decide who should receive certain mailings. The approach — sometimes called “ customer-relationship management” — has been used for six years by OhioHealth and two years by Mount Carmel. Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center hasn’t used it, but it plans to take another look at the tactic soon, a spokesman said." Read more

Interoperability: Quick Route To Better Care

Versel, Neil. "Interoperability: Quick Route To Better Care." Information Week, November 12, 2012. 

From the article: "Healthcare quality and efficiency could move forward 20 years in a matter of months if only there were true interoperability of electronic health information, according to a noted critic of the health IT industry.

In the opinion of University of Pennsylvania sociologist Ross Koppel, interoperability would help unlock "rich, extraordinary data that would make medicine more wonderful." Koppel offered this assessment at last week's American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) annual conference in Chicago, where he participated in a panel about why interoperability was "taking so darn long," as AMIA put it." Read more 

Mobile Health Starting to Come of Age

Heussner, Ki Mae. "Mobile Health Starting to Come of Age." Washington Post, November 9, 2012.

From the article: "Mobile health is starting to come of age.  In 2010, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported that just 17 percent of cell phone owners used their devices to look up health information. 

But in a study released Thursday, the organization said that figure has climbed to 31 percent.

Mobile health is unsurprisingly even more popular among smartphone users, with 52 percent saying they have consulted their gadgets with medical questions." Read more

See alsoFox, Susannah, and Maeve Duggan. Mobile Health 2012. Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, November 8, 2012.

CMS: $7.7 Billion in EHR Payments through September

Conn, Jospeh. "CMS: $7.7 Billion in EHR Payments through September." Modern Healthcare, November 6, 2012.

From the article: "More than 300,000 physicians and other eligible professionals have signed up to participate in the federal electronic health-record system incentive payment programs, while more than 4,000 hospitals have enrolled in the Medicare EHR incentive program, the Medicaid incentive program or both, according to the latest CMS data.

In total, $7.7 billion has been paid out in what has been estimated will be $27 billion in incentive payments through the lives of the two programs." Read more 

Wikis Allow Patients to Help Develop Clinical Practice Guidelines

Bird, Julie. "Wikis Allow Patients to Help Develop Clinical Practice Guidelines." FierceHealthIT, October 29, 2012.  

From the article: "Patients can play a key role in developing clinical practice guidelines (CPG) through a specialized wiki, a group of Dutch researchers report in the current issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

The researchers tested their theory by developing a wiki about infertility treatment, according to the article, "Feasibility of a Wiki as a Participatory Tool for Patients in Clinical Guideline Development." Read more

Winning Combo: Social Media and Health Care

Mathur, Charu and Nidhi Mathur. "Winning Combo: Social Media and Health Care." October 14, 2012. 

From the report: "Social Media will be the preferred medium of communication, network and connections in time to come. This paper analyses the co-relationship between Social Media and healthcare sector. The study tried to see if there is link between social media and healthcare. The study found that there is very strong link and ordinary people surf the net to find about ailments and even medications prescribed. The study further found that people even interchange ideas, share issues and queries regarding various drugs, there usage and effect. Even pharmaceutical companies are active across the board. They try and create awareness by developing games, running campaigns etc. For this we studied social media policies of some companies. As healthcare is a vital sector which affects like and quality of life some regulations are required. Study found that US and EU have some regulations already in place. The key recommendation is that the tweets and comments should be carefully made and responded to. The study found that social media and health care is a major winning combo." Read more

HHS Questions GOP Calls to Suspend Meaningful Use

Versel, Neil. "HHS Questions GOP Calls to Suspend Meaningful Use." Healthcare IT News, October 23, 2012. 

From the article: "Health and Human Services officials, who spoke this week at the CHIME12 Annual Fall Forum, are pushing back against Republican questions of the appropriateness of the $27 billion meaningful use EHR Incentive Program.

Four GOP senators sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Oct. 17 questioning whether government-subsidized EHRs sometimes actually promote higher utilization of diagnostic testing and whether wider EHR adoption so far has increased Medicare billing." Read more

Physician, Steel Thyself for Electronic Records

Valinoti, Anne Marie. "Physician, Steel Thyself for Electronic Records." The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2012.

From the article: "At first I thought EMR sounded like a good idea. Then our practice started using one.

Tasks that once took seconds to perform on paper now require multistepped points and clicks through a maze of menus. Checking patients into the office is an odyssey involving scanners and the collection of demographic data—their race, their preferred language, and so much more—required by Medicare to prove that we are achieving "meaningful use" of our EMR. What "meaningful use" means no one knows for sure, but our manual on how to achieve it is 150 pages long.

Now the staff scurry about, rictus-like grins plastered to their faces, trying to hide their underlying stress. The patients, each a Job after completing the elaborate new check-in process—and wondering why the government needs to know if they are an Alaska native, among many other things—arrive in my exam room bewildered by their bureaucratic ordeal.

When the clicks don't get me what I want, I naughtily handwrite a prescription. I skip ordering certain tests I might want because it takes too much time—I'll do it next visit. I dreaded the arrival of this season's flu-shot supply—now there were more orders to input" Read more

Research: Online Pediatric Health Information Is Not Reliable

Hamaker, Paul. "Research: Online Pediatric Health Information Is Not Reliable." Examiner, October 21, 2012.

From the article: "A first of its kind assessment of the reliability of internet web sites as sources of pediatric health information was presented at the October 21, 2012, session of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans. …“The content of each website was scored out of a possible 100 points. Overall, academic websites had the highest content score (mean: 60.8 ± 15.5), followed by physician (57±18), non profit (54.2±20.2) and commercial (46.7±22.2). Among the disease/condition-specific information, osteochondroma websites had the highest content scores (mean: 75.8 ± 11.8), and those on leg length discrepancy had the lowest (39.5 ± 16.5).”

Part of the problem in accuracy and reliability was adjudged to be the fault of the site creator. An unaddressed part of the equation was the pay for placement schemes used by search engines to promote web sites that pay them to rank that web site in the top ten." Read more

See also

American Academy of Pediatrics. "Academic Websites Offer the Most Reliable Pediatric Orthopedic Information Online." October 21, 2012.

Data from Health Care Reviews Could Power “Yelp for Health Care” Startups

Howard, Alex. "Data from Health Care Reviews Could Power 'Yelp for Health Care' Startups." O'Reilly Radar, October 17, 2012. 

From the article: "Combining patients review data with government-collected performance data could be quite powerful in helping to drive better decisions and adding more transparency to health care. 

… More data collected by patients, advocates, governments and industry could help to shed light on the performance of more physicians and clinics engaged in other expensive and lifesaving surgeries and associated outcomes. 

Should that be extrapolated across the medical industry, it’s a safe bet that some medical practices or physicians will use whatever tools or legislative influence they have to fight or discredit websites, services or data that puts them in a poor light. This might parallel the reception that Bright Scope’s profiles of financial advisors have received in industry." Read more

Shared Minds: How Patients Use Collaborative Web-Based Information Sharing

Yan, Lu, Sun, Sherry, and Yong Tan. "Shared Minds: How Patients Use Collaborative Web-Based Information Sharing." September 14, 2012.

From the report: "Online social media present a unique opportunity for patients to explore their health issues, share experiential information, and fulfill their need for health. The shared knowledge provides indirect experience of the sensory aspects of a medical treatment that are not available from the description of its tangible aspects alone. In this study, we examine various forms of WOM in online healthcare communities and investigate how patients educate themselves by using other patients’ experiences. We find empirical evidence for the existence of social contagion. More important, we find that experiential learning, a concept describing substantive experience-based information seeking and sharing, is a complex process and that, surprisingly, buzz effects outweigh similarity effects in social interactions about medical information. We also examine the opinion leadership concept and the managerial implications of these findings are discussed." Read more

Winning Combo: Social Media and Health Care

Mathur, Charu and Nidi Mathur. "Winning Combo: Social Media and Health Care." October 14, 2012.

From the paper: "Social Media will be the preferred medium of communication, network and connections in time to come. This paper analyses the co-relationship between Social Media and healthcare sector. The study tried to see if there is link between social media and healthcare. The study found that there is very strong link and ordinary people surf the net to find about ailments and even medications prescribed. The study further found that people even interchange ideas, share issues and queries regarding various drugs, there usage and effect. Even pharmaceutical companies are active across the board. They try and create awareness by developing games, running campaigns etc. For this we studied social media policies of some companies. As healthcare is a vital sector which affects like and quality of life some regulations are required. Study found that US and EU have some regulations already in place. The key recommendation is that the tweets and comments should be carefully made and responded to. The study found that social media and health care is a major winning combo." Read more

The Doctor Can See You Now. Really, Right Now.

Barrow, Karen. "The Doctor Can See You Now. Really, Right Now." The New York Times, October 15, 2012. 

From the article: "That realization led Mr. Oks to create Appointment Status, a Web site devoted to improving appointment efficiency and providing patients with information to avoid long waits. …It’s one of several innovations meant to help patients. While many digital developments — electronic medical records and mobile medical encyclopedias — have streamlined doctors’ work, new tools for patients are starting to hit cellphones and the Internet offering help in keeping track of medications, recording heart rate and glucose levels and managing personal and family medical history, among other tasks." Read more

The Benefits of Open Data – Evidence from Economic Research

Xu, Guo. "The Benefits of Open Data – Evidence from Economic Research." Open Economics, October 3, 2012. 

From the article: "Making information accessible to the public can improve public service delivery. In countries where corruption is pervasive, services and funds often do not reach the frontline provider. And even if services do reach the people, the quality of services provided is often shockingly poor: Survey evidence from Bangladesh, Ecuador, India, Peru and Uganda found absence rates as high as 20% and 35% for school teachers and health workers. In many cases, the staff is poorly trained.

Releasing data on service delivery in this case can help reduce corruption and improve public services. In Uganda, researchers provided information to parents by publishing funding data for a random subset of schools in local newspapers. In consequence, corruption decreased significantly, while schooling outcomes improved substantially. Similar evidence in health delivery and redistributive policies suggest that providing information can help the public to discipline public service providers, improving the quality of services." Read more

Big Data, Bigger Outcomes

Fernandes, Lorraine, O’Connor, Michele, and Victoria Weaver. "Big Data, Bigger Outcomes." Journal of the American Health Information Management Association 83 (2012): 38-43.

From the article: "Big Data has tremendous potential to add value in all healthcare settings. Big Data solutions can help organizations personalize care, engage patients, reduce variability and costs, and improve quality. Once Big Data is managed and integrated, organizations can apply analytics to better understand the clinical and operational states of their business based on historical and current trends, and predict what might occur in the future with a trusted level of reliability." Read more

Protecting Patient Privacy in the Age of Big Data

Terry, Nicolas. "Protecting Patient Privacy in the Age of Big Data." Paper prepared for the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, September 2012.

From the report: "This essay discusses the threats to health privacy posed by “big data;” an ongoing revolution in data collection and processing. The essay takes the position that big data poses an exceptional group of problems for health care, its providers, researchers, and patients. Faced with increased privacy risks an exhaustive overhaul of HIPAA/HITECH is not proposed. Rather, this essay suggests an incremental approach, adopting aspects of the recent privacy proposals published by the White House and the Federal Trade Commission." Read more