Health technology

1,606 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 67

Online physician access is key to future patient communications

June 30, 2011Jun 30, 20117

Imagine using Skype to contact your physician for a consult. In the midst of this rapidly progressing technologic era, our delivery of medical services is being transformed by health information technology (HIT), electronic medical records (EMR), and advanced telecommunications. In…

Imagine using Skype to contact your physician for a consult.

In the midst of this rapidly progressing technologic era, our delivery of medical services is being transformed by health information technology (HIT), electronic medical records (EMR), and advanced telecommunications. In meeting criteria for “meaningful use,” physicians are driven to use these technologies to empower patients with communication through electronic medical records. A primary goal is to allow patients to …

Google Health failed because consumers did not see the value of a PHR

Kent Bottles, MD

June 29, 2011Jun 29, 201117

To measure is to know. -Lord Kelvin If you can not measure it, you can not improve it. -Lord Kelvin Versus: Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry. -Nassim Nicholas…

To measure is to know.

-Lord Kelvin

If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.
-Lord Kelvin

Versus:

Asking science to explain life and vital matters is equivalent to asking a grammarian to explain poetry.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Technology is at its best when it is invisible.
-Nassim Nicholas Taleb

How can technology help us live healthier lives? Why did Google Health fail? Why are Klout and Twitter Grader publicly issuing a number to me …

One more thing: Works for Apple, but killed Google Health

Kevin Pho, MD

June 27, 2011Jun 27, 20114

Google Health is dead. There have been plenty of post-mortems as to why, ranging from the fact that it's not social enough (uh ... no), to the realization that only a minority of practices have electronic medical records, yet alone…

Google Health is dead.

There have been plenty of post-mortems as to why, ranging from the fact that it’s not social enough (uh … no), to the realization that only a minority of practices have electronic medical records, yet alone a patient portal that can incorporate PHRs like Google Health.

I’ll chip in with my own reason — it suffered from “one more thing” syndrome.

PHRs today aren’t seamlessly incorporated into …

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The difference between an ambulatory and hospital EHR

Robert Rowley, MD

June 19, 2011Jun 19, 20116

What difference is there between an inpatient EHR and an ambulatory EHR? The difference is quite significant, actually. Let’s start by looking a little deeper into hospital IT issues, and the evolution of tools that try to address them. The…

What difference is there between an inpatient EHR and an ambulatory EHR?

The difference is quite significant, actually. Let’s start by looking a little deeper into hospital IT issues, and the evolution of tools that try to address them.

The hospital EHR environment

Traditionally, from an IT perspective, a hospital is not really a single system – it is a collection of systems in various departments.

Over the past few decades, each …

How technology intersects with medicine and its impact on patients

Alison McKnight

June 15, 2011Jun 15, 20113

We are surrounded by technology. No matter where you go, you will find technology rearing its face, whether ugly and ungodly or tempting and beautiful. These advances have brought both good and evil to many professions, especially healthcare. Twenty years…

Twenty years ago, you would not have found signs instructing people to turn off their cell phones in physician offices. Now these signs litter both the reception …

Hospital inefficiencies observed during a surgery rotation

Anar Mikailov

June 14, 2011Jun 14, 2011

I recently finished my surgery rotation at a Level 1 Trauma Hospital in Philadelphia and amidst the ephemeral eight weeks I quickly realized the immense demands of a surgical residency. So, as an avid technology enthusiast and a team member, I took note of inefficient workflows with potential for technology driven solutions. By discussing the observed inefficiencies and potential solutions I hope to inspire …

Securing mobile devices in healthcare

David Ting

June 11, 2011Jun 11, 20112

by David Ting With the mobile market exploding, healthcare IT administrators are now faced with physicians and other clinicians requesting to use their personal devices, such as iPads and iPhones, to access patient information from anywhere, anytime. With this ability,…

by David Ting

With the mobile market exploding, healthcare IT administrators are now faced with physicians and other clinicians requesting to use their personal devices, such as iPads and iPhones, to access patient information from anywhere, anytime.

With this ability, clinicians are able to make faster decisions for their patients – improving their overall workflow and patient outcomes. This seductive mobile technology, however, is not …

Read more…

Securing mobile devices in healthcare

How shopping for an EHR is like buying a car

Margalit Gur-Arie

June 10, 2011Jun 10, 20116

So you’ve been hearing all about the recent EHR buzz and decided to give it a try. Whether you are convinced that electronic records are the way to go, or you have reached a point where you are willing to…

So you’ve been hearing all about the recent EHR buzz and decided to give it a try.

Whether you are convinced that electronic records are the way to go, or you have reached a point where you are willing to give it a try, the first thing to do is buy one of those EHRs. You may be staring at a glossy brochure or website featuring a distinguished silver-haired doctor …

How robots will teach us who we are as humans

Kent Bottles, MD

June 10, 2011Jun 10, 2011

Recently, I took a Megabus from Philadelphia to Hunter College in New York City to attend Man-Made Minds: Living With Thinking Machines, a World Science Festival program. Rodney Brooks, who until recently was Panasonic Professor of Robotics at MIT and…

Recently, I took a Megabus from Philadelphia to Hunter College in New York City to attend Man-Made Minds: Living With Thinking Machines, a World Science Festival program.

Rodney Brooks, who until recently was Panasonic Professor of Robotics at MIT and who now is Chief Technology Officer at Heartland Robotics, was the first expert to speak, and he emphasized a very practical approach that was not too concerned with any negative consequences …

Questions to ask before moving from a paper chart to an EHR

Ron Sterling

May 31, 2011May 31, 2011

The transition from paper to EHR is a major policy decision that can have repercussions on patient service, your operations and even your medical professional liability (MPL). Unfortunately, many practices are not taking the time to analyze their options and…

The transition from paper to EHR is a major policy decision that can have repercussions on patient service, your operations and even your medical professional liability (MPL).

Unfortunately, many practices are not taking the time to analyze their options and responsibilities from a patient care and compliance standpoint. In order to set the correct framework for your effort, you should think …

How the VA looks at population level data to analyze outcomes

Suchita Shah

May 30, 2011May 30, 20113

The VA isn't perfect, but definitely is better than other health care systems I have worked in so far. It embraces the idea of patient-centered medical home, where a primary care physician coordinates and takes responsibility for a patient’s care…

The VA isn’t perfect, but definitely is better than other health care systems I have worked in so far. It embraces the idea of patient-centered medical home, where a primary care physician coordinates and takes responsibility for a patient’s care … the old-school definition of good medical care that has recently become popular again, …

Will an Android or iPad platform dominate hospitals?

Jared Sinclair, RN

May 24, 2011May 24, 201110

Felasfa Wodajo, MD has written a post for iMedicalApps on the iPad’s future role in healthcare institutions. The title says it all: Why Locked Android Tablets Will Beat the iPad for Hospital Use. The gist of his argument is that…

Felasfa Wodajo, MD has written a post for iMedicalApps on the iPad’s future role in healthcare institutions. The title says it all: Why Locked Android Tablets Will Beat the iPad for Hospital Use.

The gist of his argument is that Android’s “openness” and hardware-agnosticism will make it more ubiquitous in the market in general, and a more robust and …

Pros and cons of cloud based or web based EMR systems

Peter J. Polack, MD

May 18, 2011May 18, 201110

As if medical practices don’t have enough to worry about with EMR implementation, now they have to decide what kind of EMR system to get: a client-server-based system or a web-based system. The former is the kind that most of us are familiar with. You purchase a computer server, buy a license for the EMR software, install said software on your server, …

How to use an iPad in the OR during surgery

Felasfa Wodajo, MD

May 9, 2011May 9, 20116

The iPad has received a significant amount of attention in the health care arena since its introduction last year. The attraction is fairly obvious; it is a portable, lightweight, powerful computing device with an intui-tive interface and a large library…

The iPad has received a significant amount of attention in the health care arena since its introduction last year.

The attraction is fairly obvious; it is a portable, lightweight, powerful computing device with an intui-tive interface and a large library of built-in applications. In fact, major medical schools such as Stanford and …

Why quality did not improve with hospital EHR implementation

Roger Collier

May 4, 2011May 4, 201113

The 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) authorized incentive payments, potentially totaling some $27 billion over ten years, to clinicians and hospitals when they implement electronic health records in such a way as to achieve…

But, are EHRs really “meaningfully useful” or are …

Doctors find incentives elusive for meaningful use of electronic records

Scot Silverstein, MD

April 29, 2011Apr 29, 20115

A reader, Dr. Scott Monteith, a psychiatrist, shared his thoughts on government-mandated 'Meaningful Use' of Electronic Medical Records ('MU') with me after reading a number of my EHR posts, and asked if he could share his thoughts via Health Care…

A reader, Dr. Scott Monteith, a psychiatrist, shared his thoughts on government-mandated ‘Meaningful Use’ of Electronic Medical Records (‘MU’) with me after reading a number of my EHR posts, and asked if he could share his thoughts via Health Care Renewal.

Dr. Monteith is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University where he was chief resident.

He is a board certified psychiatrist, clinical assistant professor in the departments …

Organizations that link their IT systems to share electronic health records

George Lundberg, MD

April 29, 2011Apr 29, 20116

Glory be. There's good news tonight in American healthcare. It did not come from laws, regulations, or government edict, although there has been much government activity in the field; it did not come from the behemoths of information technology like…

Glory be. There’s good news tonight in American healthcare.

It did not come from laws, regulations, or government edict, although there has been much government activity in the field; it did not come from the behemoths of information technology like Google, Microsoft, Oracle or Cisco, although much hard work in IT did precede it; it did not come from the for-profit healthcare industry giants like GE, Big Pharma, United Healthcare, or …

When money gets involved, good medical ideas suffer

Dr. Martin Young

April 27, 2011Apr 27, 201115

I read an interesting link via Reuters about how students have developed a smart phone application with a microscope attachment to diagnose malaria. The article shows a picture of a child at risk somewhere in Africa. This is a great…

I read an interesting link via Reuters about how students have developed a smart phone application with a microscope attachment to diagnose malaria.

The article shows a picture of a child at risk somewhere in Africa.

This is a great idea, and one that can go a long way to help people who really need it. But the last word from the project’s software engineer in the article was the one that was …

Using Google Translate in medicine

Graham Walker, MD & Jake Horowitz & Resa E. Lewiss, MD

April 21, 2011Apr 21, 20113

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish was a fish you stuck in your ear that allowed you to understand any language spoken to you. We’re not far off. Google recently released a new version of their…

In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel Fish was a fish you stuck in your ear that allowed you to understand any language spoken to you. We’re not far off.

Google recently released a new version of their (free!) Google Translate app for Android phones, featuring conversation mode, which allows you to have a back and forth conversation with someone …

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Using Google Translate in medicine

Top IT implications of healthcare reform

John Halamka, MD

April 19, 2011Apr 19, 20114

I'm often asked how healthcare reform will impact IT planning and implementation over the next few years. First, some background. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590) and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HR 4872) were passed…

I’m often asked how healthcare reform will impact IT planning and implementation over the next few years.

First, some background. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (HR 3590) and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HR 4872) were passed to address several problems with healthcare in the US. We’re spending 17% of our …