The New York Times reports on a study that family doctors are making an awful lot of mistakes when it comes to routine lab tests such as blood draws. The study, published originally in the journal Quality and Safety in Health Care, was conducted by physicians in the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) research network. It found that errors in testing can happen at any point along the way, from ordering a test to failing to notify a patient when the test results return.
These results aren’t that surprising, but what concerns me the most is the cost-saving potential of …read more

As reported by the Washington Post, CMS is attempting to jump-start the adoption of electronic health records/electronic medical records (EHR/EMR) and e-prescribing with a new program that will pay physicians and practices a bonus for using electronic prescribing tools. Practices that move to electronic prescribing methods will receive bonuses of 2% in 2009 and 2010, bonuses of 1% in 2011 and 2012, and bonuses of 1/2 % in 2013.
At the same time, the New York Times is reporting on Philadelphia area insurers that are offering bonus payments or increased payments to physicians for using tools such as telephone visits, e-mail “visits,” …read more

Health care and technology trends abound… that’s why we keep hearing about things such as electronic health records, Google Health, and Microsoft’s health vault project. But what about using video games to improve patients’ strength and balance as part of rehabilitative therapy? The Wii OT’s blog about ”Wiihab” (OT = Occupational Therapist, Wiihab = Wii + Rehab) discusses the ways that using Wii games such as Mario Kart can actually improve very specific issues for patients, such as problems with coordination and balance.
Is this a trend that we’re going to see more and more of — incorporating video games and more things …read more

 Commenter follow_the_ money had the following to say on my June 24th post about a  JAMA article raising questions about the safety of RFID in hospitals (reprinted from comment section): 
“this appears to be waiting for a good reporter
The “TNO Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, Leiden” is listed as one of the “Author Affiliations” for the RFID study (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/299/24/2884).
A recent announcement (May 2008) was made regarding strengthened collaboration between TNO and Sintef, another research organization in Europe similar to TNO (http://www.mwjournal.com/search/article.asp?HH_ID=AR_5758&SearchWord=TNO) .
Wilfred Booij is a senior scientist at Sintef.
Wilfred Booij is also CTO of “Sonitor Technologies”.
What does Sonitor Technologies do? …read more

I was slightly disappointed to see the news that RFID chips may potentially be harmful to patients with pacemakers and other medical devices. RFID (radio frequency identification) chips/”tags” can be embedded into anything from expensive medications to IV infusion pumps to aid in preventing counterfeiting of drugs or supplies or just to help the hospital track inventory, so nurses aren’t standing around wondering where a piece of equipment is when it was left on another floor. RFID chips have also been pioneered as an addition to regular patient ID bracelets.
It’s important to note that the study (abstract from JAMA here, …read more

The New York Times reports that few doctors have actually made the step to adopt electronic records (aka EMRs or EHRs, with M and H standing for “medical” or “health,” respectively). When almost every sector has adopted technology, what’s standing in the way of doctors doing the same? I think it boils down to a number of factors, some of which are noted in the NYT article. Do you agree? More importantly, what can we do to help doctors adopt IT?
Why I think doctors are not adopting EMRs:
- Many EMR vendors make it tough to determine who is offering what …read more