Health technology

1,606 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 56

Does home monitoring make a difference in cost and outcomes?

August 15, 2013Aug 15, 2013

Technology in medicine advances at a rapid pace. In the US today most patients have access to mobile phones, smartphones and tablets. Medical device makers continue to innovate and create ways in which these technologies can be used by patients and physicians to monitor complex biologic machinery such as implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) and pacemakers at home — without the need for …

How an iPhone improved patient care in the ICU

Iltifat Husain, MD

August 12, 2013Aug 12, 20132

At iMedicalApps we have traditionally expounded on how smart phones can help us with patient care in regards to providing Physician centric tools at bedside. These range from drug reference tools to various clinical algorithm medical apps. But there are…

But there are also non-traditional methods where smartphones enable us to improve patient care at the bedside. These are subtle, but can be equally or more powerful.

When I was working in the ICU recently, there were …

Boston hospitals go Epic: Hear from a holdout

John Halamka, MD

August 11, 2013Aug 11, 20136

In the Boston marketplace, Partners Healthcare is is replacing 30 years of self developed software with Epic. Boston Medical Center is replacing Eclipsys (Allscripts) with Epic. Lahey Clinic is replacing Meditech/Allscripts with Epic. Cambridge Health Alliance and Atrius already run Epic. Rumors abound that others are in Eastern Massachusetts are considering Epic. Why has Epic gained such momentum over the past few years?

Watching the implementations around me, …

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A deal with the devil: The security of electronic medical records

David Mokotoff, MD

August 2, 2013Aug 2, 20137

With the recent NSA admission of recording phone conversations of US citizens, there has been renewed interest in the right to privacy. For the record, it is worth recalling what the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution says. "The right of…

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported …

Disruptive technology in medicine has the ability to heal or harm

Kunmi Sobowale, MD

August 2, 2013Aug 2, 2013

Disruptive technology is a term used to describe new technology that disrupts the status quo. These technologies displace existing technology—dramatically changing the production, delivery, or use of a product or service. For example, 3D printing is an innovative method of producing three dimensional objects using digital prototypes and will change manufacturing as we know it. Although the term is traditionally used in a positive light, this technology, as its name …

How the government has spurred the adoption health care technology

David Lee Scher, MD

July 31, 2013Jul 31, 201312

Both World War II and the race to the moon were events which pushed commercial development of technologies. I would submit that the ACA and HITECH have had the same effect on the development of many sectors of the digital…

Government mandates usually have unintended consequences and they certainly exist in healthcare. The rapid proliferation of some of these technologies has itself …

3 data driven health technologies I’d like to see

Robin Friedlander, MD

July 30, 2013Jul 30, 2013

The digital health and wellness space is growing a mile a minute, with thousands of new sensors, apps, trackers, and websites promising ultimate health and fitness born every day. Data requests to MyFitnessPal’s API alone – from wearable sensors like Jawbone’s UP and Nike’s Fuelband to GPS-enabled tracking apps like Runtastic – roughly doubled from 28 million to almost 55 million in one month, between March and April of 2013.

We have entered a new era when it …

Weighing the cost of technology advances in medical devices

Wes Fisher, MD

July 24, 2013Jul 24, 2013

A New York Times op-ed entitled "In Cancer Care, Cost Matters," described what may be one of the earliest accounts where doctors at Sloan-Kettering decided not to use a new cancer drug because of its extra cost when they were…

A New York Times op-ed entitled “In Cancer Care, Cost Matters,” described what may be one of the earliest accounts where doctors at Sloan-Kettering decided not to use a new cancer drug because of its extra cost when they were already using equally-effective drugs for their cancer treatments. The article piqued my interest. These days for any doctor who uses expensive technologies, it is easy to see where this evaluation …

5 reasons why music would be great for digital health

David Lee Scher, MD

July 24, 2013Jul 24, 20135

Music as a healing mechanism has been accepted for over 50 years. Music is a source of primal memory similar to that of smell. It has been used in brain injury patient management, as well as to promote wellness, manage stress alleviate pain, promote physical rehabilitation, and enhance memory in Alzheimer’s Disease patients. I have appreciated the power of music my whole life and as a physician and …

Why EMR companies don’t care about usability

David Do, MD

June 26, 2013Jun 26, 201356

I overheard nurses praising the pilot of a new technology with the promise of improving communication, safety, and saving on healthcare spending. The innovation: two-way texting. That’s one of the many indicators that hospitals are stuck the technological stone age.…

Imagine how many eyes light up when you offer providers fewer logins, autopopulating forms, and uncluttered menus. There’s an assumption that technology, in the context of healthcare, has to be bad …

Most companies don’t consider the older medically complex patient

Leslie Kernisan, MD, MPH

June 21, 2013Jun 21, 20134

What user personas do healthcare technology designers and entrepreneurs have in mind as they create their products? And how often is it the family caregiver of an elderly person? This is the question I found myself mulling over as I…

What user personas do healthcare technology designers and entrepreneurs have in mind as they create their products? And how often is it the family caregiver of an elderly person?

This is the question I found myself mulling over as I wandered around the Health Refactored conference recently, surrounded by developers, designers, and entrepreneurs.

The issue particularly popped into my head when I decided to try Microsoft HealthVault after listening to …

EHRs need to talk to each other, but make sure they work first

Deep Ramachandran, MD

June 17, 2013Jun 17, 20138

I’ve written several times before about my love/hate status with my EMR. While I enjoy using mine, I long for it’s usefulness to get to the next level. While the EMR is useful at tracking data, it’s greatest handicap right now, is that it can’t talk to other systems. Data is still locked in individual systems and can’t be shared across platforms. This lack of interoperability has thus far been …

Apps to help manage medications in the elderly: What I’m looking for

Leslie Kernisan, MD, MPH

June 11, 2013Jun 11, 20135

I've been interested in apps for the caregivers of elders, but like many physicians, I've been too busy to seriously research them or try them out. Time to change that. No, I'm not going to exhaustively research and review all…

I’ve been interested in apps for the caregivers of elders, but like many physicians, I’ve been too busy to seriously research them or try them out.

Time to change that. No, I’m not going to exhaustively research and review all caregiver apps on the market.

But, as I’ve been invited to give a technology talk to a local group of family caregivers later this summer, I would like to see if I …

The ultimate DIY project: Create your own EMR

Rob Lamberts, MD

June 7, 2013Jun 7, 20133

There was a hole in the wall of our bathroom that was a painful reminder of a bad encounter with a plumber. Yes, that hole has been there about a year, and it has been on my to d0 list…

There was a hole in the wall of our bathroom that was a painful reminder of a bad encounter with a plumber. Yes, that hole has been there about a year, and it has been on my to d0 list for the duration, daring me to show if I inherited any of the fix it genes I got from my father. Why not hire someone to come fix it? I …

User friendly recording of data often seems like an EHR afterthought

David Mokotoff, MD

June 4, 2013Jun 4, 20132

As I began logging on to my third different hospital EHR (electronic health record) recently, I contemplated how much more of this I could take. Being less than a year from planned retirement, the nuances of learning a new EHR and CPOE (computerized physician order entry) system is not fun. Furthermore, every hour I spend learning a new and unique system is …

How doctors will use Google Glass

Chris Rangel, MD

June 3, 2013Jun 3, 201332

Google Glass will be like the Segway. It’s really cool but it will have only a few practical uses and won’t be a paradigm shifter. Segway never won widespread acceptance in a culture dominated by cars and Google Glass is unlikely to win over people who prefer to wear their smart phones on the waist instead of on their face.

Still, …

Read more…

How doctors will use Google Glass

The burden of frequent technology transitions

Leslie Kernisan, MD, MPH

May 29, 2013May 29, 2013

I made a big decision recently: I decided to give up my Blackberry smartphone. Why? Like a good geriatrician, I considered the benefits and the burdens of sticking with the Blackberry. And since the burdens seem to outweigh the benefits,…

I made a big decision recently: I decided to give up my Blackberry smartphone.

Why? Like a good geriatrician, I considered the benefits and the burdens of sticking with the Blackberry. And since the burdens seem to outweigh the benefits, bye-bye Blackberry.

This was a difficult decision for me, however. To begin with, becoming comfortable with a new device for one’s daily work takes time. During the transition phase, one is slower …

Bedside ultrasound tips for the general internist

Janice Boughton, MD

May 26, 2013May 26, 20137

I first picked up an ultrasound transducer 17 months ago, at an emergency medicine ultrasound course at Harvard University. I had just barely heard about using ultrasound as a clinical tool and was vaguely interested. The course was 3 days…

Emergency physicians have embraced the …

English is the second language of medical documentation

American College of Physicians & Yul Ejnes, MD

May 24, 2013May 24, 20135

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. English is the international language of medicine, according to many. Regardless of whether that is true, what is becoming increasingly clear is that English is the second language…

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.

English is the international language of medicine, according to many. Regardless of whether that is true, what is becoming increasingly clear is that English is the second language of medical documentation. For those of you who blame EHRs for this, the replacement of English by something else started in the pre-EHR era, but EHRs certainly accelerated it. …

The impact of outdated communications technologies in healthcare

Sean Kelly, MD

May 23, 2013May 23, 2013

As a physician, I experience first-hand the impact that internal communication at a hospital—both good and bad—has on patient care. If I am able to quickly access clinical systems, analyze patient information and collaborate with colleagues, I can diagnose and…

As a physician, I experience first-hand the impact that internal communication at a hospital—both good and bad—has on patient care.

If I am able to quickly access clinical systems, analyze patient information and collaborate with colleagues, I can diagnose and interact with the patient much more efficiently and effectively. Conversely, breakdowns and inefficiencies in the communications process can inhibit the delivery of quality patient care by bogging down workflows, creating delays …

Health technology

Articles, page 56

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