Molly Merrill
The benefits of the National Demonstration Project on the patient-centered medical home, an initiative by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and its subsidiary TransforMED, are still being realized two years after the project ended.
Recent surveys show patients want to be able to e-mail their doctors, but this type of communication is largely "still in the waiting room," even when the technology to make it happen exists.
“You can’t find a provider that doesn’t want more patients paying in cash,” says the president of a new Web site that aims not only to link cash-paying patients to providers, but also to offer patients greater transparency for making a decision about where to seek medical care.
Less than one in 10 American adults use electronic medical records or e-mail their doctor, according to a new Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll.
Making the assumption that electronic medical records can improve healthcare costs and errors is premature, according to a dermatologist practicing in Florida.
Electronic prescribing allows physicians to monitor their patients medication use in detail, and although this may require more time, a new study of asthma patients finds it can have a significant payoff.
Tragedy struck a critical access hospital in Maine, when a medical overdose killed a man earlier this month. Hospital officials are reportedly calling the death a result of human error, and a spokesman for the hospital says it is difficult to say whether or not having an electronic health records system in place would have prevented this from happening.
Investment in healthcare IT is one priority of the $20 million in funding that was awarded to 39 hospitals and community health centers in Massachusetts.
Although nearly half of all Americans are ready to toss the paper and believe electronic health records will enable more efficient healthcare, they are largely in the dark about what it actually means for them as a patient, says a new survey.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have extended The Joint Commission's requirement to implement CMS telemedicine standards for both general and critical access hospitals until March 2011.