U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee has called for a congressional investigation into medical-device manufacturers and operators who use unproven "energy medicine" machines to exploit patients. Inslee said his request was in reaction to a Seattle Times investigation called "Miracle Machines." The series revealed how manufacturers and practitioners profit from treating people with the unproven machines, some of them potentially dangerous, others illegal. They have used these devices to misdiagnose diseases and divert critically ill people from life-saving care, as well as drain their bank accounts.
The market for Smartphones is becoming fierce, with Blackberry and the new iPhone competing for consumer attention. Now Palm is attempting to make a reentry into the market with the new Treo Pro. The Treo Pro is slimmer and more elegant than current models, and its larger keyboard and screen that is flush with the phone's chassis make it more user-friendly than Palm's old calculator-like design, according to this New York Times article.
Representatives from the Medical Group Management Association, the American Medical Association, and America's Health Insurance Plans say three years is not enough time to transition from International Classification of Diseases Version 9 to ICD-10. The Department of Health and Human Services recently issued a proposed rule that would require healthcare providers to adopt ICD-10 code sets for electronic health transactions by October 2011. AHIP and MGMA said their organizations support transitioning to ICD-10 but object to the proposed schedule. They are pushing for a two-year transition to version 5010 of the X12 transaction standards—a few months more than HHS' proposed deadline.
Rochester (NY) General Hospital has installed a silent call-system that combines vibrating pagers, communication badges, and a light-system that eliminates intrusive overhead pages. The system was developed by Special Care Systems LLC, a company that focuses solely on healthcare communications.
The problem of medical identity theft is on the rise, according to Pam Dixon, who heads a non-profit group called the World Privacy Forum that helps victims of identity theft. Between 250,000 and 500,000 people have their medical identities stolen each year, Dixon says. Most of the perpetrators are "people working in the healthcare sector," such as billing or housecleaning staff or clerical workers at large hospitals who have access to confidential patient information such as Social Security and health insurance policy numbers, she said.
The majority of seniors who visit the Medicare Web site find getting the information they need a frustrating experience, according to researchers at the University of Miami. Participants in the study said the Medicare site is difficult to navigate from page to page, makes it difficult to get the information they needed, and provided confusing information. Although many found the Web site difficult to use, many seniors say the Internet could be a valuable source of medical information.