The federal government is spending nearly $18 million to hook every Iowa hospital to fiber-optic communications networks, but there's no guarantee that the hospitals all will be able to talk to each other easily. The projects are part of a national push to increase the use of electronic medical records. Supporters say the networks will allow staff members at one hospital to rush medical scans and other vital patient records to their counterparts at a different hospital.
Only about 17% of the nation's physicians are using computerized patient records, according to a government-sponsored survey published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine. That market failure is a principal target of the Obama administration’s plan: A main feature of the legislation calls for incentive payments of more than $40,000 spread over a few years for a physician who buys and uses electronic health records. A crucial bridge to success, according to experts, will be how local organizations help doctors in small offices adopt and use electronic records.
More than 95 million high-tech scans are done each year, and medical imaging has ballooned into a $100-billion-a-year industry in the United States, with Medicare paying for $14 billion of that. But recent studies show that as many as 20% to 50% of the procedures should never have been done because their results did not help diagnose ailments or treat patients.
Physicians at St. Louis Cardiology Consultants have opened a Web portal to a segment of patients, part of a systemwide rollout of electronic medical records across SSM Health Care. Through the portal, cardiology patients can hop online to request prescription refills, check portions of their medical records, or send questions about their conditions. Within a few years, the cardiologists expect to be trading e-mails with patients and possibly holding real-time Web chats.
Avantis Medical Systems, a developer of chip-on-catheter digital imaging devices, reported that its Third Eye Retroscope for the detection of cancerous and pre-cancerous colon polyps has received FDA clearance. The Third Eye Retroscope is indicated for use with colonoscopy to provide the physician with an additional view of the colon for diagnostic and detection purposes.
The 2009 Healthcare Advantage Conference will be held May 5–7 in San Diego. General Session speakers at this year's conference include healthcare economists Jonathan Gruber, PhD, and Uwe Reinhardt, PhD; New York Times bestselling author Jason Jennings; and Kaveh Safavi, MD, JD, vice president and global lead, healthcare practice, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group.