M.L. Baker

New regulations will allow more physicians to accept gifts of technology from hospitals and other organizations. The regulations, announced August 1 by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, are intended to spur adoption of health IT, particularly by small physician practices that could not otherwise afford them. Hospitals could save money if they had […]

Patient privacy advocates are bemoaning the lack of protections in a health information technology bill passed by recorded vote in the House of Representatives July 27. Two committees had originally passed slightly different versions of the bill, now called the Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2006, leading to months of delays. A Senate version […]

Microsofts purchase of a little-known health solutions software company that makes an application based on its own technology framework is a bit like a giant following an ant. It probably wont make much of a difference unless the giant goes to the colony. On July 26, Microsoft announced that it would buy the eccentrically spelled […]

A new Institute of Medicine report estimates that 1.5 million U.S. patients are harmed every year by medication errors, and that information technology and patient education are the best ways of preventing them. Studies assessed by the IOM panel found that 450,000 preventable errors occur each year in hospitals, 800,000 in long-term care facilities like […]

Having created a computer program that seems to help excessive drinkers reduce their intake, researchers said they hope to offer the program for alcoholics to use at home or over the Internet. In a study released July 21, researchers at the University of Wales, Bangor, found that three months after going through the Alcohol Attention-Control […]

Hackensack University Medical Center and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey are recruiting volunteers to have an RFID device implanted under the skin. The chips, made by VeriChip Corporation, will contain a 16-digit identifying number that can be used to bring up medical and family contact information stored electronically in a database. The […]

In a long-awaited announcement, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology released on July 18 a list of 20 electronic health record products that met its standards for functionality, security and interoperability. The hope is that certification can help overcome doctors uncertainties about how to evaluate health IT products and to reassure doctors that a […]

Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government singled out an electronic health information system for praise this week. The Veterans Affairs Department was honored for its extensive electronic medical record system, known as VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture). The system is used at 1,400 VA health care facilities nationwide. The VA was one […]

Online health management “will become the new house call,” said Alden Solovy, executive editor of Hospitals & Health Networks, which just published its eighth annual list of the nations “most wired” hospitals. Four-fifths of the “most wired” hospitals offer patients personal health records into which they can enter and manage their health information, said Solovy. […]

Elderly patients living at home will receive fewer nursing visits, and make fewer visits to the hospital. Thats according to a white paper released this month by Parks Associates, which concludes that “technological advances are making over the home health industry.” According to the report, the digital home health market in 2005 was $450 million. […]