By Nancy Feris http://www.govhealthit.com A new study finds that despite the widespread interest in regional health information exchanges in recent years, only 20 RHIOs in the United States are fully functional and a dozen are self-sustaining. Calling RHIOs’ survival in their current form “tenuous at best,” the study questions many of the prevailing assumptions about […]

Author: Martha Lagace http://hbswk.hbs.edu What used to be rare is now commonplace: traveling abroad to receive medical treatment, and to a developing country at that. So-called medical tourism is on the rise for everything from cardiac care to plastic surgery to hip and knee replacements. As a recent Harvard Business School case study describes, the […]

By Liz Welter Marshfield News-Herald http://www.wausaudailyherald.com Not many small towns can support a medical practice. Athens, with a population of about 1,000, now has two. After working for 10 years as the physician at the Marshfield Clinic Athens Center, Dr. Vinoo Cameron on Aug. 2 opened Hope Clinic just across the street. The Internet, computers […]

http://www.healthimaging.com One of the objections to the implementation of speech recognition software in a radiology practice is that it generates more errors than traditional transcription methods. According to a scientific presentation at the 93rd scientific assembly and annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the opposite is true: transcribed reports show higher […]

Julie Deardorff http://www.chicagotribune.com Tagging along with the holidays come ailments that challenge most Western doctors: stress, back and joint pain, head colds, heart attacks, anxiety, depression, upset stomachs and insomnia. Is it time to try acupuncture, hypnosis, meditation, guided imagery and massage? Surprisingly, even the most conservative mainstream research hospitals now answer “yes!” Twenty years […]

By DAVID AMMONS AP POLITICAL WRITER http://seattlepi.nwsource.com OLYMPIA, Wash. — Gov. Chris Gregoire on Friday proposed tougher policing of health care professionals and more transparency of hospitals’ patient safety records. The governor, who has made expanded health care a centerpiece of her term in office, said patient safety is “the next logical step on the […]

http://www.businesswire.com Data Also Suggests Current Patient Safety Goals Are Focused on the Right Strategies to Help Improve the Healthcare System In an effort to determine what impact health system errors1 have on medical malpractice claims, The Doctors Company, the nation’s leading physician-owned medical malpractice insurer, conducted a closed claims analysis and found that system errors […]

By Jeffrey Young http://thehill.com The Bush administration has issued an eleventh-hour challenge to the physician lobby’s efforts to prevent a pending 10 percent cut in their Medicare fees, in the form of call for a mandate that doctors use new information technology standards. The administration wants to tie any legislation blocking the cut, scheduled to […]

At a time when the U.S. spends more than double what other countries spend for medical care, a new Commonwealth Fund, seven-nation survey finds that U.S. patients are more likely than any others to report experiencing medical errors, to go without care because of the cost and to say that the healthcare system needs to […]