Comments and discussion regarding allergy post

My post from yesterday about allergies spurred some great comments on Twitter from @omowizard and @psweetman. I read the discussion between @omowizard and @psweetman with great interest and wish I would have been awake to participate. Unfortunately I was already counting sheep when the conversation took place. The discussion also made me realize how difficult it is to carry on a serious conversation with the 140 character limit imposed by Twitter. What we need is a place where a conversation can extend beyond the 140 character limit. Oh, wait, we have that; friendfeed. I digress.

Read more

Are e-patients better informed or just harder to treat?

I found an interesting article at EHR Bloggers that talks about the possibility of easy access to information via the internet resulting in difficult-to-treat patients and higher healthcare costs. The concern raised in the NPR article describes the effect of information dissemination without context or interpretation – it happens anyway, with direct-to-consumer advertising in all … Read more

LIJ Health System to subsidize EMR deployment in New York

InformationWeek Healthcare: “The rollout is believed to be the nation’s largest EMR deployment to date, said North Shore LIJ CIO John Bosco. The health system serves five million people in the New York metro area, operating 14 hospitals, 18 long-term care facilities, five home-health agencies, dozens of outpatient centers, and a hospice network. Under the … Read more

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is not without risk

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has created quite a flutter of activity in healthcare during the past several months. I can’t remember a time when something was such a popular topic. Everywhere you look, Twitter, Facebook, personal blogs, professional blogs, and so on are talking about how to demonstrate “meaningful use” and get … Read more

Hypatia research study only states the obvious

EMR Daily News: “Hypatia Research, LLC today released a report entitled “What Healthcare CIOs Need to Know About ARRA & EHR: Healthcare Technology Solutions & Service Providers”. Beyond the obvious value of centralized access to patient data, Hypatia Research discerned that electronic records systems provide health providers with multiple benefits: 1. ACCURACY& ERROR-CHECKS; 2. REPORTING; … Read more

Yep, there’s an EMR app for the iPhone

Healthcare IT Consultant Blog: “It appears Caretools has thought of this, offering its iChart EHR for the iPhone, immediately available to anyone on the iTunes store. Before you scoff that it must be a limited-functionality, toy of an EHR, consider this: it offers ePrescribing, transmission of lab reports, ICD9-compliant billing code functionality, and a sophisticated … Read more

Apparently some pharmacists are worried about personal health records

Healthcare IT Consultant Blog: “Pharmacists’ representatives have claimed that use of private health record services such as Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault could risk fragmentation of electronic patient records. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain said “the proliferation of these systems and indiscriminate use” could lead to information on drug allergies, possible interactions, duplications … Read more

One physician’s less than stellar opinion of EMRs

The Healthcare IT Guy: “Physicians know that better exists. They have experienced Google, Amazon and e-Bay. Game lovers know that Electronic Arts’ “Tiberium,” now 15 years old, exceeds the capabilities of their professional health care software. They know from Yahoo and MSN the value of configuring a home page suited to delivering niche-information of their … Read more