Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Last month’s Wall Street Journal (“Faltering Family MDs get Technology Lifeline“) has an interesting article about how small-practice physicians are using technology as a weapon against the economies of scale which physicians working for large-scale practices enjoy. The article tells the story of Dr. Gordon Moore. When he worked at a large, hospital-owned medical practice,…
According to the Economist magazine (“Bit by bit“), firms such as Wal-Mart, Pitney Bowes, and Intel are announcing plans to launch an online patient-information service next year with the non-profit firm Omnimedix Institute. The consortium aims to develop Dossia, which—according to the institute—is “a secure, private, independent network for capturing medical information and delivering it…
The Health Care Blog has a very interesting post (“Healthcare and the Long Tail“) by Jim Walker. Mr. Walker is a lifelong Philadelphia resident who is the Director of Business Development for the social networking site called MyMedwork. He uses concepts developed in Chris Anderson’s book The Long Tail and applies them to the healthcare field. …
You may be used to calling your doctor and being told by the staff that you must wait weeks to see your family practice physician. Now imagine calling your doctor and hearing, “I can see you this afternoon…or tomorrow if you like…which one is best for you Mr. Shafrin?” How can a practice be able to do…
We are now in the information age. Let’s take a look at the following numbers: Internet World Stats reports that approximately 70% of Americans now have access to the Internet. (This puts it 7th in the world in terms of Internet penetration). Over 85% of physicians have access to high speed internet in their offices.…
A very interesting book I recently came across is Arctic Village by Robert Marshall. The book recounts the author’s two year stay in Wiseman, Alaska during the 1930s. Wiseman is a town (if you could call it that) located above the arctic circle and is made up of less than 200 people. The book details…
MedPage Today reports that the National Academy’s Institute of Medicine (IOM) claims that preventable drug errors are widespread in the U.S. It is estimated that 1.5 million American are harmed each year from preventable drug errors; the treatment of these cases adds $3.5 billion of yearly cost. How can we fix this problem? The authors…
The National Governors Association (“Florida Invests $308 Million in New Medicaid Computer System“) reports that Electronic Data Systems (EDS) has won a contract to “develop a new Medicaid computer system beginning March 1, 2008” for the state of Florida. The system is supposed to help participants navigate Florida’s Medicaid system, file claims, and report fraud.…
Fard Johnmar of the Healthcare Vox blog has written a post regarding the introduction of Google Co-op. Google Co-op allows users to perform detailed searches regarding medical issues. You can search by symptom, condition, medical test, etc. Johnmar states that: Whatâs interesting about this service is that Google is not taking responsibility for vetting healthcare…
Here’s one for The Healthcare IT Guy… MedPage Today reports that “Computerized Drug Ordering Reduces Chemotherapy Errors.” Some excerpts: Using the system reduced the likelihood that a child would get the wrong daily chemotherapy dose by 74%, and virtually eliminated the risk of dose calculation errors, wrote Christopher U. Lehmann, M.D., of Johns Hopkins, and…