Health Technology

Physicians writing on KevinMD about the technology in the exam room: the electronic record and what it did to the visit, meaningful use, alert fatigue, pajama time, human and AI scribes and whether they give time back, ambient documentation, telemedicine, and what AI can do in clinical practice now and who is responsible when it is wrong. Two maintained records draw on this archive: The electronic health record: what physicians say, in their own words and Artificial intelligence: what physicians say, in their own words.

Why the Apple Watch won’t disrupt health care. Yet.

Robert Pearl, MD

Health Technology

October 15, 2014

I had little doubt the long-rumored Apple Watch would be cool. U2′s live concert and surprise album announcement at Apple’s unveiling a few weeks ago only reaffirmed the company’s ability to launch a product unlike anyone else.

Cool or not isn’t the question. Usefulness is. The iPhone and iPad radically changed how people lived their lives. The first generation of the Apple Watch won’t.

The health application

One way Apple hopes to increase …

A physician’s EMR wish list

Tal Raviv, MD

Health Technology

October 12, 2014

In their current form, most (if not all) EHRs kind of stink. I don’t speak from direct experience, as I’ve held off buying and implementing a system to date. But I’ve never heard any of my colleagues say they love — or even really like — their EHRs, and I’ve asked many. The most ardent supporters state that they’ve gotten used to their systems (usually after years of tribulations) and …

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A physician’s EMR wish list

Think your medical data is secure? Think again.

David Mann, MD

Health Technology

October 11, 2014

With the recent discovery of the ShellShock vulnerability affecting a large number of computers, the question comes up again: How secure is medical data? Thanks to the federally mandated push to transfer medical data from paper charts to computer databases, most if not all of this data is now fertile ground for hackers. As pointed out in this article medical data is more valuable to hackers than stolen credit cards. …

The tension between mobile apps and health care

Joseph Kvedar, MD

Health Technology

October 9, 2014

I saw another exciting news story on a mobile health intervention the other day. I honestly don’t remember the company or product, but what stuck with me was the declaration of success based on 10 patients using the product for three months. Success was touted in terms of cost reduction and resource utilization reduction in a before/after analysis. This inspired me to collect some thoughts on some of the challenges …

Who is blocking EMR interoperability? You are.

Margalit Gur-Arie

Health Technology

October 7, 2014

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The Senate Appropriations Committee has defined a new transgression perpetrated in the committee’s expert opinion by vendors of certified EHRs, as well as “eligible hospitals or providers.” Since the committee has no data or evidence of any kind that this transgression is actually occurring, it requires the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to embark on a fishing expedition …

5 ways pharma can incorporate digital technologies

David Lee Scher, MD

Health Technology

October 5, 2014

Few would argue that today digital technology represents a critical part of marketing in any business sector. Though all health care stakeholders are usually late to the technology table, market and customer pressure are rapidly accelerating this adoption. It needs to be emphasized that technologies are not solutions. They must be incorporated into human workflow processes.

To do so in health care, culture must change, specifically with regards to patient participation, …

Will 2015 be the year mHealth takes off?

Joseph Kvedar, MD

Health Technology

September 29, 2014

I’ve been toiling in the field of connected health for 20 years now, watching for signs of adoption that will move us into the steep part of the curve. I have to wonder, with announcements from several huge consumer companies recently, if that time is coming.

By now you’ve heard about Apple’s HealthKit announcement, which involved not only Apple, but Mayo Clinic and Epic.

Samsung is not sitting still, having released increasingly …

Health care fails to adopt technology. Here are 5 reasons why.

Robert Pearl, MD

Health Technology

September 25, 2014

Why do so many seemingly great technologies fail to penetrate the health care system?

I hope the following five answers shed some light on the realities of technology adoption in health care.

1. Many new technologies don’t address the real problem

Tech entrepreneurs often take a backward approach to invention. They start by discovering a nifty technology. Later, they figure out how people can use it.

This technique often teaches entrepreneurs a tough lesson: Technology …

5 examples of what health care IT should look like

Suneel Dhand, MD

Health Technology

September 25, 2014

Over the last year I’ve written a lot about the problems with health care IT and how we need to get better. Unfortunately, unlike other aspects of our life where information technology has actually made life easier, in health care the user experience been nowhere near as smooth. IT solutions, including electronic medical records, are for the most part slow, inefficient and cumbersome. They cause a great deal of frustration …

Why health apps fall short and how to fix them

Samir Damani, MD

Health Technology

September 24, 2014

Searching for health and fitness apps on the iTunes app store turns up approximately 2,200 results. There are calorie counters, activity trackers, heart rate monitors, virtual fitness coaches and every other conceivable permutation.

The quantity should grow even larger thanks to Apple’s latest product release, the Apple Watch, a wrist wearable computer that tracks health and fitness information. One question, though: Are the users of these apps any healthier as a …

5 things EMRs should learn from social media

Val Jones, MD

Health Technology

September 16, 2014

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As a physician who openly despises many aspects of current EMRs (see “How An EMR Gave My Patient Syphilis” or “The Medical Chart: Ground Zero For The Deterioration Of Patient Care” ) I recognize that they are here to stay. And so, since we’re all stuck with these digital middlemen, I have some suggestions (based on popular social media platform functionality) …

Implantables and embeddables: Is health care ready?

Patricia Salber, MD, MBA and Alisa Niksch, MD

Health Technology

September 11, 2014

Are you still wearing your wearable? We must confess that, by and large, we aren’t. This, despite the fact that between the two of us, we own countless such devices. Each was bought with the best of intentions: Walk more, run more, sit up straighter, quit slouching, eat less, lose weight. You know the list, right? You might even have one yourself.

Don’t get us wrong. We love digital health and we love …

Physicians on demand: The Uberization of medicine is underway

Bob Doherty

Health Technology

September 8, 2014

Even if you don’t live in a city yet that offers Uber’s rideshare app, you probably have heard about it, because the media has widely reported on job actions by taxi cab drivers — and the gridlocked traffic that resulted — that has taken place in Washington, DC and in other major cities across the world including London, Berlin, Paris and Madrid.

Uber is an “on demand” smart phone app that allows users …

Disappointing outcomes despite a massive investment in EHRs

Mark Nunlist, MD and Betsy Nicoletti, MS

Health Technology

August 30, 2014

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 committed to the expanded adoption of health information technology, expecting electronic health records (EHRs) to transform medical care while promising dramatic improvements in quality, efficiency and safety. Five years and $25 billion later, the results have fallen short of expectations, and there are multiple reasons for our disappointment.

First, EHRs were designed to document the provision of health care …

Health care big data will fail unless we remove the silos

Jason Giffi, DO

Health Technology

August 29, 2014

A few days ago a colleague of mine was inching south through the mother of all traffic jams: 60 straight miles of construction work on I-95 just south Washington, DC. The three-lane highway was jammed. Route 1, which runs parallel to I-95 was also jammed. Cars were stalled in the middle of the highway having run out of gas from waiting so long.

He looked at the map on his phone …

How much health care data is mined without your knowledge?

Martine Ehrenclou, MA

Health Technology

August 28, 2014

The Business Insider article, “Senator Warns Fitbit is a Privacy Nightmare and Could be Tracking Your Movements,” reports that Senator Chuck Schumer called for federal protections to prevent companies like Fitbit from collecting, sharing and selling consumer data to health insurers, employers and others. Fitbit, like Nike+FuelBand and Jawbone, sells wearable trackers that monitor sleep, health functions and physical activity.

Senator Schumer accused FitBit and Smartphone apps of sharing …

Why can’t an EHR fit into a mobile device?

David Mann, MD

Health Technology

August 27, 2014

It’s been a while since my last rant about electronic health records (EHRs), so let’s remedy that right now. EHRs in their current iteration are — how to put this delicately? — an unmitigated disaster. Nevertheless, much of the criticism of EHRs, including mine, has been in the destructive category. What about some constructive criticism? How could EHR software be made better?

I am not …

Vaginal video games: What to make of mobile Kegel apps

Jennifer Gunter, MD

Health Technology

August 18, 2014

k goal

There are two new high-tech ways that aim to help you with Kegel exercises, both with Kickstarter campaigns. There is the Skea (Smart Kegel Exercise Aid), basically a video game that proposes controlling the avatar with a vaginal probe that uses the pelvic floor muscles and kGoal, a vaginal insert that is meant to connect wirelessly with your smart phone and measures your squeeze …

5 ways mobile apps can impact health care right now

David Lee Scher, MD

Health Technology

August 17, 2014

There is growing healthy skepticism about the past promises of mobile technologies. Issues concerning safety after the release of the FDA guidance of mobile medical apps, privacy and security, and efficacy. Followers of the sector are poised for the rubber finally meeting the road in health care. While most mobile health tools used today are reference apps for health care providers and patients, there are …

Beware the security flaws of health tracking technology

Satish Misra, MD

Health Technology

August 13, 2014

The number of people engaging in personal health tracking is on the rise, as are the number of devices available for that purpose. By some estimates, around 15% of Americans use technology to track a health indicator for themselves or a loved one.

The availability of technology like Bluetooth LE and smartphones have made tracking an ever increasing number of health parameters possible. As we recommend these tools to patients, its …

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