| KevinMD.com

Patient portals and EMRs: Each requires a different skillset

Brian Manning

Health Technology

January 13, 2015

Most readers know that an EMR (electronic medical record) is the back-end software that runs a health care organization. EMRs have been around for a while. Recently most large hospitals and health systems have begun building out the patient-facing version of their EMR; allowing patients to communicate electronically with their doctors, refill prescriptions, schedule appointments, and view clinical information.

I’ve written at length about the differences between B2B software and B2C …

How to create more primary care role models

Robin Dickinson, MD

Physician

January 13, 2015

When my husband and I stopped watching television a few months after we were married, we often didn’t notice what had changed until we’d compare notes with friends. “I miss my old hobby,” a neighbor might complain, “but I just don’t have the time.” And yet we’d see his head just above the back of the couch, silhouetted against his big screen TV for hours. Not only did we regain …

Patients have changed. How do we manage them?

Andrew Pugliese, MD

Physician

January 13, 2015

In the past half century or so, medicine has changed the complexity of the human population as it has never been seen in the past. Think about it, there are people walking around today that fifty years ago, wouldn’t even be alive. This evolution in medicine has not only brought about transformation in the human population, but it is also changing the approach of how clinicians need to treat these complex …

Digital health in 2015: What’s hot and what’s not?

John Nosta

Health Technology

January 12, 2015

I think it’s fair to say that digital health is warming up. And not just in one area. The sheer number and variety of trends are almost as impressive as the heat trajectory itself. The scientist in me can’t help but make the connection to water molecules in a glass — there may be many of them, but not all have enough kinetic energy to ascend beyond their liquid state. …

Physicians must unionize. Here’s why.

Margalit Gur-Arie

Physician

January 12, 2015

shutterstock_22140319

If F. A. Hayek were alive today, he would support the revival of labor unions in general and professional labor unions in particular. Towards the end of the Second World War, Hayek wrote a book warning us all that allowing governments to engage in extensive central planning of economic activities is nothing more than a road to serfdom for humanity. F.A. …

Read more…

Physicians must unionize. Here’s why.

Airway, breathing, call your insurance company?

Roy Benaroch, MD

Physician

January 12, 2015

The action steps, in any health emergency, are: ABC. Airway, breathing, circulation. The airway has to be open, the patient has to be making an effort to breathe, and the heart has to pump blood. In any emergency, health care people are trained to address these, one by one, in order. Fix what you can before moving on, and concentrate on what’s going to kill the child first. Then, arrange …

Treating the influx of marijuana-associated hospital admissions

Jason Persoff, MD

Medications

January 12, 2015

Welcome to Friday night as a hospitalist in the ultimate Green State, Colorado: Time to gear up for some marijuana-facilitated paranoia, memory loss, nausea and vomiting, and memory loss. I’m not a teetotaler, but I do find the new surge in cases of preventable disease a bit disheartening if not occasionally humorous. Prior to this past year, it wasn’t uncommon for me to encounter an occasional marijuana medical problem, but …

High drug costs. Low drug costs. Each has a price.

Peter Ubel, MD

Medications

January 12, 2015

India is not, yet, a wealthy country. Nevertheless its people experience many of the same expensive-to-treat illnesses as wealthier populations in the U.S. and Europe. Therefore, the country has made a series of policy decisions designed to lower the cost of medical treatments.

For example, until 2005, it offered no — I repeat, no — patent protection for pharmaceutical products, thereby spurring the development of its robust and relatively inexpensive generic …

4 things we can learn from Stuart Scott

Kevin R. Campbell, MD

Physician

January 12, 2015

Stuart Scott revolutionized the sportscasting industry with his unique style and likable demeanor on ESPN. Mr. Scott recently passed away after an 8-year battle with recurrent appendiceal cancer. Mr. Scott was a devoted father and put his relationship with his two daughters above everything else. He was a sensational broadcaster and was passionate about his craft. He inspired many young athletes …

Read more…

4 things we can learn from Stuart Scott

What if the president worked like doctors today?

Hans Duvefelt, MD

Physician

January 11, 2015

Perhaps doctors should be more like the president.

After all, we also carry the ultimate responsibility for our constituents, even though we, too, have team members who do part of that work.

The way I understand things to work at the White House, those other team members collect, review and prioritize the information the president needs in order to manage his, and all …

Blessed to be alive after a gunshot wound

Kohar Jones, MD

Physician

January 11, 2015

“Blessed. I’m so blessed.”

She kept repeating this, from her seat on the examining table.

“I’m so blessed.” I unwrapped the bandage holding on the splint that had covered her arm for the three weeks since the bullet went in above her elbow and came out through her forearm, hitting no bone, touching no major artery.

“Blessed.”

Homeless. With diabetes that needed insulin, which needed a refrigerator, that she didn’t have.

Vulnerable. A few years earlier, …

5 health care wishes for the New Year

Suneel Dhand, MD

Physician

January 11, 2015

Happy 2015! Health care in the United States continues to change faster than any of us can keep pace with and this shows no signs of slowing down. Having written a lot in 2014 on a variety of different topics, I wanted to focus on my own 5 wishes for hospital care this New Year. A lot of you may think that what you’re about to read sounds like wishful …

Read more…

5 health care wishes for the New Year

How health IT fails transgender patients

Andy Oram

Health Technology

January 11, 2015

If you delve into the personal stories of health IT innovators, most journeys rest on their personal interaction with the health care system on behalf of themselves, a parent, a child, or perhaps a sibling. Just a few weeks ago, I had a small interaction with the health care system that confirmed many of the impressions I have developed of providers’ strengths and weaknesses.

There’s no way to start except with …

What my rabbi taught me about being a healthier, happier physician

Jennifer H. Mieres, MD

Physician

January 11, 2015

As we welcome another year, many of us make resolutions to live a better life, usually one that is healthier than the year before. As I planned my own resolutions for 2015, I was reminded of a talk given by my rabbi, David Ingber of Romemu. His sermon centered on the Torah portion about the importance of “the Shemittah” or the sabbatical year, noting how we as a society should be observing the “five Rs” …

Why 2014 was a groundbreaking year in digital health

Rosina Samadani, PhD

Health Technology

January 11, 2015

2014 was the most exciting year in digital health since 2000, when the human genome was cloned. In February 2001, The Human Genome Project and Craig Venter’s Celera Genomics published the hallmark event. What followed was over a decade of glimmers of the potential for personalized medicine and new insights into disease, but also realistic mitigations in expectations, as is wont to happen in health care.

There is every indication that …

EMRs can hurt physicians during lawsuits. Here’s how.

Keith L. Klein, MD

Health Technology

January 10, 2015

While the electronic medical record (EMR) has advantages, it also has introduced liability risks. EMRs can lead to lawsuits or result in a weak defense by casting the physician in an unfavorable light.

For example, examine these exchanges in a recent malpractice trial:

Plaintiff attorney: Doctor, if the emergency renal consult was called in at 11:30, why did you wait until 6 p.m. …
Read more…

EMRs can hurt physicians during lawsuits. Here’s how.

Patient satisfaction surveys and accidental pickles

Rob Burnside

Patient

January 10, 2015

It’s tempting to blame it all on Henry Ford. I was standing alone at the empty counter, waiting to order in a fast food joint at 9 p.m. Off to my left, three or four carloads of customers had been served before anyone noticed me and came over to ask what I wanted. After all, Henry gave us the mass-produced (and therefor affordable) automobile. I wondered if the day …

Publish or perish: It’s survival of the fittest

Jacques Balayla, MD, MPH

Physician

January 10, 2015

Ever since the first invocation of the dogma “publish or perish” in the 1930s, modern medical practice seems to have followed in the ways of Darwinian evolution: It’s survival of the fittest. This doctrine, concise yet striking, refers to the competitive nature of the academic profession in which we have been raised and continue to grow. Although obtaining a medical degree reflects many years of effort, discipline, and camaraderie, …

The American Society of Anesthesiologists: Deep roots in patient safety

John P. Abenstein, MD

Physician

January 10, 2015

In a hushed surgical theater in Boston in 1846, anesthesia changed medicine forever. The first successful public demonstration of ether anesthesia allowed patients to undergo surgery they would otherwise not have been able to tolerate. Previously, patients who had been subjected to biting down on cloth or looking into a blue light could finally undergo surgery …

Semantics and the subversive doctor

Eva Berger, PhD and Isaac Berger, MD

Physician

January 10, 2015

An excerpt from The Communication Panacea: Pediatrics and General Semantics.

If one pays attention to the language used in the context of all of these developments, it is clear we have moved into an entirely new semantic environment. Just as in the civic realm the word “citizen” has almost entirely been replaced with the word “consumer,” so in medicine the word “patient” is slowly being replaced by the word …

Read more…

Semantics and the subversive doctor

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts