President Obama promises to use information technology to cut medical errors, avoid unnecessary tests and procedures, and identify better treatments. And his administration is betting that $19 billion of the economic stimulus package will spread the concept from coast to coast.
Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health records, seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for physicians in small offices. The company plans to team its Sam's Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks for software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance, and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information technology suppliers by as much as half.
Patients who can email with their doctors or talk to them on the phone end up making significantly fewer office appointments, according to statistics by California-based HMO Kaiser Permanente.
Kaiser found that office visits per member dropped by about a quarter between 2004 and 2007 in Hawaii. Secure email messaging began in 2005, and in 2007 members sent more than 51,000 messages. Scheduled telephone visits jumped during that period as well.
Socket Mobile, Inc. has launched new antimicrobial versions of its popular Socket Bluetooth Cordless Hand Scanner Series 7 for use by mobile workers in healthcare environments. The new Socket Bluetooth CHS 7NRx and 7XRx plastics are made with similar antimicrobial materials as the Socket SoMo® 650Rx handheld computer. The antimicrobial coating provides an extra layer of protection to the device against the multiplication and spread of potentially harmful bacteria and microbes, according to a release.
There are a variety of electronic systems that are now available to make the conduct of clinical trials more efficient. These systems include interactive voice response systems, clinical trial management systems, and electronic data capture systems. But several questions surround these systems, and the "Electronic Data in Clinical Trials" conference has being organized to address these issues.
An academic says he found thousands of sensitive medical records leaked over peer-to-peer networks from computers at hospitals, clinics, and elsewhere. Eric Johnson, director of the Center for Digital Strategies at Dartmouth College, says he used simple search terms on several filesharing networks and uncovered files listing patient names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, insurance carrier names and insurance diagnosis codes that revealed which patients were being treated for specific diseases.