About 80 percent of Internet users in the United States have searched the Internet for information on medicine and health, according to a 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. While the Internet is a great tool to look up symptoms, research specific conditions, look for drug interactions and join discussions with other people with the same ailments, doctors and other health experts say it's no substitute for a doctor.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is set to test a personal health record program for Medicare recipients in South Carolina. The South Carolina project will offer PHRs to 100,000 participants in Medicare's fee-for-service program. Until the South Carolina program, Medicare offered PHRs only to participants in certain plans that were already making PHRs available to their members.
Carol.com is the first attempt in the country to create an online medical marketplace. The sitewill allow people to "buy" on an à-la-carte basis the medical services they want done. In doing that, the site's creators are riding the leading edge of a wave of change headed toward consumers just as questions about how to cure the nation's chronic healthcare crisis are resounding.
The Forbes Regional Campus of West Penn Allegheny Health System has provided rapid intervention cardiac care monitors to its servicing ambulance companies in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties of Pennsylvania. The monitors can transmit electrocardiogram data over wireless Internet service before a patient leaves home. By the time an ambulance delivers a patient to the hospital, a physician will have been able to review the EKG results and activate a catheterization lab team if indicated.
Investment in new healthcare companies in Northeast Ohio nearly tripled last year, bringing more than $240 million to the region. Greater Cleveland has the potential to be one of the nation's top five centers for health care innovation. Northeast Ohio already has taken a big step in that direction--its health care companies have attracted an average of more than $100 million in investments during each of the last five years.
California has become the second state to introduce a Web site that helps consumers find out how much hospitals are willing to discount care for uninsured patients. New York previously gave consumers a tool to shop and compare charity care or discount payment policies. The California site, called the Hospital Fair Pricing Program, is a result of a 2006 law authored by former Democratic Assemblywoman Wilma Chan of Oakland.