Molly Merrill

Pay-for-performance programs could increase medical disparities experienced by racial and ethnic minorities and people of low socioeconomic status, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Researchers at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine are saying a new study shows – for the first time – that using a computerized physician order entry system can significantly decrease hospital-wide mortality rates.

A medical center in Kentucky is notifying 5,418 patients of a data breach that occurred when computer equipment was stolen from its mammography suite. Hospital officials reported that the information on the hard drive was not encrypted, but was maintained in a locked, non-public, private area.

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is calling for the government to focus "adequate attention and resources" on the proposed program to certify electronic health technology in order to ensure its success.

As more organizations join the social media sphere, it's important that they know how to "mitigate the risks while maximizing the rewards," according to the authors of a new white paper. This is especially true in the healthcare arena, where issues such as patient privacy and HIPAA can weigh heavily on all involved.

Researching errors in computerized prescriber order entry in order to boost patient safety is the focus of a year-long research project to be conducted by the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The copy and paste function of an electronic health record is "one of the most egregious dangers of electronic charting," according to a recent editorial in the American Journal of Medicine.

The top ten challenges that eligible professional practices must address to meet Stage 1 meaningful use criteria are outlined in a new report. Among them: the need for creating proper workflows to meet criteria, and the ability to "keep an eye on the future" to meet Stages 2 and 3.

Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy (D-RI) and Congressman Tim Murphy (R-PA) introduced legislation Thursday to extend the incentives for the meaningful use of electronic health records to behavioral health and substance abuse providers.

A new hospital recently opened in Botswana is being touted as a paperless hospital "without borders."