Hospitals that subscribe to widely used clinical knowledge support system UpToDate show modestly improved length of stay, mortality rates, and quality of care. A recent study suggests that hospitals that use the service do better on all these measures than those that don't provide UpToDate to their physicians. But, as the researchers admitted, it's not clear whether the physicians' use of UpToDate to answer their clinical questions is responsible for these benefits, or whether higher-quality hospitals are more inclined to use UpToDate. UpToDate is one of several online services that provide frequently updated monographs incorporating the latest, most relevant medical knowledge. Clinicians can access them directly through Web browsers or launch them from electronic health records using desktops, laptops, or mobile devices.
It has been little more than a month since Illinois began posting online profiles of the state's physicians, and judging by traffic, public appetite for the information is strong ? even though some profiles are missing crucial information. Since going live in mid-October on the website of the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, idfpr.com, the physician profiles have generated more than 750,000 hits. Nearly 85% of all doctors and chiropractors with active Illinois licenses have signed off on their public information, which must include whether they were fired, convicted of a felony or class A misdemeanor, or forced to make a malpractice payment within the past five years.
Hospitals around the country have been spending millions of dollars to buy automated defibrillators to save the lives of more patients who go into sudden cardiac arrest. The purchases were spurred by a 2000 recommendation from an American Heart Assn. committee that said the equipment would bring patients speedier emergency medical help. But today the costly investment increasingly seems to have been a mistake. Research suggests that the new gear, now found in nearly all hospitals, saves fewer lives than the old, lower-tech defibrillators. By one estimate, the switch to automated defibrillators means that close to 1,000 more hospital patients die of cardiac arrest every year in the U.S.
The theft of a computer containing information on more than 4 million patients of a major Northern California health care provider may be among the largest breaches of healthcare data in recent years, but it's far from the only incident of its kind. Over the last two years, healthcare organizations have reported 364 incidents involving the loss or theft of information ranging from names and addresses to social security numbers and medical diagnoses on nearly 18 million patients _ equivalent to the population of Florida. A thief stole medical information on more than 4 million patients of Sacramento-based Sutter Health last month by the simple act of breaking a window with a rock at the affiliated Sutter Medical Foundation. Stolen over the weekend of Oct. 15 were monitors, keyboards and a desktop computer containing patient information dating to 1995.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will award up to $1 billion in grants for ideas that can deliver quick benefits to the Medicare program in terms of cost savings and higher-quality care. The program, funded by the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, will provide three-year grants of $1 million to $30 million--potentially hundreds of awards--to healthcare providers, payers, local government entities, and public-private partnerships, including collaborative efforts among multiple payers.
As the importance of exchanging patient data through health information exchanges grows, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the eHealth Initiative have released a guide that offers practical assistance on measures to successfully implement these exchanges. The HIE Guide for CIOs is a Web-based tool that executives at CHIME and eHI hope will be used to help healthcare organizations demonstrate one of the core requirements of Stage 1 Meaningful Use, which is to electronically exchange key clinical information among providers of care and patient authorized entities.