A flash drive that will store all of a patient's personal health records is now on sale at 103 Kroger stores in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The product, called MedFlash, will cost $29.95 and is about an inch long. The records can be downloaded through any computer.
For all it spends on healthcare, the United States really doesn't have a healthcare "system" consumers can use to evaluate providers and easily access information the way they can with airlines and banks, says U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt. One way of empowering consumers will be a "network of networks" of electronic medical records that will include quality and price information that will help to drive down costs, Leavitt recently said at the Medical College of Georgia. The school is currently working on a study about whether a secure electronic patient record system helps improve the health of patients. Leavitt also touted his department's work to establish electronic medical record networks in 28 pilot sites, and he thinks that most patients will have access to them by 2014.
Two years ago, infrastructure at Huntsville (AL) Hospital was so maxed out its three data centers had outgrown their own disaster recovery hardware and nearly outstripped the amount of power available from their existing connections. The hospital opted to remedy the situation with virtualization, and in a three-month pilot program Huntsville implemented IBM BladeCenter rack servers and VMware software to set up a scalable infrastructure that could cut costs both on the front end and the back end. The pilot program proved so successful that the hospital decided to go full bore with its virtualization effort.
A Web site developed by the Texas-based Angelina County & Cities Health District seeks to educate the public about the possibility of a future global disaster. In 2007, the ACCHD ran a billboard campaign to promote the Web site and now health officials are advertising again to remind people that there is still a threat looming. On the site, the health district gives step-by-step ways for residents to prepare for the worst.
Hospitals and other healthcare organizations widely use patient information, without patients' explicit permission, to raise funds, and fundraising to benefit medical institutions is allowed under federal law. While patients can opt out after the fact, critics say the practice of soliciting donations from current and former patients symbolizes the erosion of personal privacy in contemporary life.
The American Heart Association and other groups are urging everyone with high blood pressure to own a home monitor and do regular pressure checks. Home monitors can help find the right combination of medicines to control high blood pressure by giving a better picture of pressure variations and the response to a drug, say proponents. As a result, it will spare people the cost and side effects of unnecessary treatment, they say.