M.L. Baker

Rush University Medical Center is scrapping its 20 legacy IT systems in favor of software from Epic Systems Corporation, and as part of the transition, the Chicago-based center will deploy infrastructure from Sun Microsystems. Sun announced the deal on Nov. 28 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, along with a […]

Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt is asking U.S. employers to pressure the health care industry so that doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and clinical laboratories will get connected electronically. Right now, patients, providers and payers do not have the information they need to seek out the best-quality care at the most affordable price, Leavitt […]

Health insurance provider Aetna hopes to use the Internet to make doctors and nurses more culturally sensitive. The company on Nov. 17 announced that clinicians who are part of the Aetna network or who have filed a claim with the insurer can take online courses in cross-cultural care for free. The online course is part […]

A federal workgroup studying privacy issues in health information technology on Nov. 15 released a preliminary set of recommendations for how health care providers and others should verify patients identity before transmitting medical information electronically to a patient. Though narrow in scope, the guidelines are expected to pave the way for broader policy recommendations. The […]

A robot guided by images from a 3-D ultrasound scanner can go to the right spots in a simulated surgery and promises to give surgeons a better picture of organs they are operating on, according to a new study in an engineering journal. Among other applications, surgeons could use the 3-D scanner to spot potential […]

Doctors and nurses are loading up on multiple communications devices, none of them adequate to their needs, concludes a report by Spyglass Consulting Group. According to the report, nearly 70 percent of interviewed physicians and nurses carry two or more communications devices, and some clinicians wear “batman utility belts” that carry a few pounds of […]

Body scans performed by experts using remote control software on personal computers can produce better quality images than those obtained by on-site operators, according to a study published in the November issue of the journal Radiology. Patients, unfortunately, still need to visit the hospital to get strapped into sophisticated scanning equipment. Technologists must also be […]

A year after a federal advisory committee recommended how health information could be shared, the country has moved a long way to harmonizing standards and relaxing regulations that barred hospitals from promoting health IT, but it still needs to implement measures to protect patients information. In October 2005, a commission on systemic interoperability laid out […]

Depressed people can have a hard-enough time getting out of the house to get treatment. Its even worse for those who live far away from treatment centers. Now, researchers at The Australian National University have found that brief Internet-based interventions can have long-term benefits that may be as effective as visiting psychotherapists. Researchers at ANU, […]

Three years after the deadline for compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to protect patients health information, over a fifth of health care providers and over a tenth of payers say they are not meeting the standards. Overall, compliance with HIPAA requirements is lackluster, with the number of health care providers saying […]