The House voted Thursday to advance legislation that would repeal the 2.3 percent medical device excise tax imposed by the Democratic healthcare law in 2010, which would raise an anticipated $29 billion over the next decade. Members approved the rule for the legislation, H.R. 436, in a mostly partisan 241-173 vote, although eight Democrats joined Republicans in support of the rule. The vote came after an hour of debate in which Republicans said the bill would help ensure medical device companies can continue to contribute to job growth and innovation.
Maine doctors will have access to patient X-rays, mammograms and other medical images regardless of their location as part of a new electronic archive described as a nationwide first.The archive is expected to free health care providers from the hassle and cost of copying scans to CDs when a doctor wants to review patient medical images taken by another provider. Piloted by HealthInfoNet, the state's health information exchange, the archive is being tested by three health care organizations. The pilot kicks off formally on Thursday at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta and Waterville, followed by Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and Cary Medical Center in Caribou later this month.
Health IT specialists will soon want to know more about a field called geo-medicine, which combines geographic information system (GIS) software with clinical databases to provide insights that might improve individual and population health. While most of the activity is still confined to academic research, GIS firms have begun to explore its commercial potential as well. A GIS application allows users to plug data into electronic maps to find out where particular things are, measure the quantity or density of those things in certain geographical areas, or find out what's inside a particular area or what's nearby.
In 1991, after six years of practicing family medicine in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Bob Elson hung up his stethoscope to pursue a career in medical informatics. For the next 18 years, Elson successfully navigated that growing field while occasionally seeing patients as a part-time hospital doctor. Elson and his wife Jane Joseph moved to Shaker Heights in 2001 to be closer to her family—and to raise their own. When they moved, Elson, a native New Yorker, completely stopped seeing patients. But recently, the 55-year-old concluded it would be best to dig out his white jacket from the closet.
We're not quite six months into 2012, and numerous headlines have showcased some large health data breaches. Whether it's outright theft, the actions of a disgruntled employee or overall carelessness, 2012 is already chock-full of noteworthy breaches. And according to recent research, the problem is only growing. Here are 10 of the largest data breaches in 2012... so far.
What remains to be addressed is how the total adoption of EHRs in medical practice will impact patients. As a practicing primary care doctor, I feel I am slowly being pulled into the apostate camp. Our apostasy is not about EHRs; that game is all but over. Rather, there's a pervasive sense that our use of technology has become a wedge between doctors and just about everyone else: Nurses. Other doctors. Worst of all, our patients. Further, doctors and nurses are now tethered to computer appliances. However, the technology inhibits doctors and nurses from actually talking to one another.