Even in the vast world of apps, Dr. Patrick J. Gagnon has one with an unusual distinction: it had to be cleared for use by the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Gagnon, a radiation oncologist, uses the app when he sees patients in his Fairhaven, MA, office. He pulls his iPhone out of his pocket, and then he and a patient, side by side, can view images on it and discuss treatment. "It's a nice way to go through a scan with a patient," he said. The app he uses, called Mobile MIM, made by MIM Software, can turn an iPhone or an iPad into a diagnostic medical instrument. It allows physicians to examine scans and to make diagnoses based on magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography and other technologies if they are away from their workstations. Dr. Gagnon says the app will also prove useful when he wants to give physicians at other hospitals rapid access to images for immediate decisions.
The Nemours Foundation's Wilmington-area offices have lost three computer backup tapes containing sensitive personal and financial information on about 1.6 million patients, employees and other people associated with the four-state children's health care provider. The lost tapes do not contain detailed medical records, and patients' treatment information is stored on the tapes in a coded format, according to John Grabusky, spokesman for the foundation that operates the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children north of the city. The tapes do include patient billing and employee payroll data, including name, address, date of birth, Social Security number, insurance information and direct-deposit bank account information. The Nemours Foundation's Wilmington-area offices have lost three computer backup tapes containing sensitive personal and financial information on about 1.6 million patients, employees and other people associated with the four-state children's health care provider. Most of the information on the tapes dates from 1994 to 2004 and was generated at the Nemours facilities in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida. That includes the children's hospital's many pediatricians' offices.
The Nebraska Health Information Initiative has signed 14 critical access hospitals to its statewide health information exchange in recent weeks, with others expected to join as more hospitals roll out digital health record systems. Nebraska, which has a population of about 1.8 million, is one of the most rural states in the U.S., and with 65 critical access hospitals, or CAHs, has more of these facilities than most other states. And while more than a dozen CAHs just joined the Nebraska Health Information Initiative, many of the remaining CAHs in Nebraska "are still implementing e-health records," said Deb Bass, a former nurse and NeHII executive director. "Until these other hospitals get that work done, having all of them part of NeHII is still a pipedream," she said. There are many constraints on CAHs rolling out EHRs, including "a lack of technology skills," she said. "Many have only a part-time IT person," she said. Some of those hospitals in Nebraska are so small that they treat fewer than five patients a day, she said. Still, having the state's CAHs part of NeHII is vital, she said in an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare. Among other government requirements, CAHs must be located in rural areas and separated from other hospitals by at least 35 miles, or less in mountainous regions.
In 1977, while working in the hospital as a third-year medical student, Dr. Douglas Dieterich was accidentally stuck with a needle contaminated with hepatitis. And for the next 20 years, he struggled with regular and debilitating episodes of exhaustion, jaundice and high fevers. But he did not quit medicine. Instead Dr. Dieterich continued to train and then to practice, eventually becoming a national expert in hepatitis C, the very disease he had acquired. Clinical trials of drugs to combat the disease, some led by Dr. Dieterich, have resulted in a better understanding of the virus that causes hepatitis C and, more recently, to cures. About 10 years ago, Dr. Dieterich himself was finally cured with one of the drug combinations that he had helped to study. Now a professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, Dr. Dieterich said recently: "In the dark days of the 1980s, I remember being really sick and thinking, 'Damn it. I hope I can help someone else before this virus gets me.' Now it looks like I can. I think it's the beginning of the end of hepatitis C; and that is one of the happiest statements I can make."
The FaceTime video chat feature of Apple's iPhone 4 and iPad 2 has the potential to be a game changer for doctor-patient communications, health IT experts tell InformationWeek Healthcare, but only if it's secure enough to satisfy federal privacy regulations. InformationWeek asked Apple about reports that FaceTime can be configured so that it meets the requirements of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. In response, Apple said that only HIPAA-covered entities, not software applications, can be HIPAA-compliant. But the company also stated, "Our [iPad 2 and iPhone 4] products can be used by HIPAA-compliant organizations." For FaceTime communications to be highly secure, Apple told a contributor to ZDnet, an iPad2 user would have to configure the device's security settings so that it uses WPA2 Enterprise to access an enterprise wireless network. WPA2 Enterprise has 128-bit AES encryption. Moreover, each video chat is encrypted with unique session keys, and each participant receives a unique ID number, Apple said.
Adult & Pediatric Dermatology, a firm that offers surgical and cosmetic skin care from offices in Marlborough, Westford, Concord and Wolfeboro, N.H., lost more than 2,000 patient records last month when a computer flash drive was stolen from an employee's car. The data stolen included digital photographs of surgical skin cancer procedures, operation reports and copies of consultation letters to referring doctors. The flash drive did not include Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, health insurance numbers, home phone numbers or home addresses. "We are all committed to delivering the highest quality care to our patients and we deeply regret what has happened," COO Glenn Smith wrote. "Our employee was a victim of a crime and this is the very unfortunate outcome of that crime." Company spokeswoman Ashley McCown said the information was contained in a flash drive that was stolen from an employee's locked car outside his or her home in Lowell. Through McCown, Smith declined to say whether the flash drive had been encrypted to prevent access to the data.