June 7th, 2011 by Felasfa Wodajo, M.D. in Health Policy, News
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In a nod to the reality of rapid physician adoption of tablets and smartphones, the CIO of the VA system recently stated that the VA must find a way to accommodate iPads at a conference on federal information technology.
According to Baker, the fact is that 100,000 residents rotate through the VA each year and “they’re all carrying mobile devices”. In order for them to do their jobs, they want to be able to access resources on the internet.
In an article published at nextgov.com, CIO Roger Baker said:
I’ve told my folks I don’t want to say ‘no’ to those devices anymore…I want to know how I say yes.
The key, according to Baker, is security. While the iPad can be secured, proper protocols need to be developed. Otherwise, the device can be likened to a “huge unencrypted USB stick with no pin”. In order to facilitate development of security protocols, a pilot program has been launched giving out iPads to select employees in situations where security is looser. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
June 3rd, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Opinion
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The Health Tech 2011 Conference, held earlier this month in Boston, featured presentations from startup CEOs in the health and wellness space. The conference had nothing to do with gender issues or leadership per se. Yet the Twitter feed from the conference (#ciht11) contained this:
@ml_barnett By my count, only 3 of 27 speakers are women. RT @taracousphd: where are the female entrepreneurs? It’s healthcare!!!
taracousphd and @ml_barnett reminded us of a painful fact. There aren’t many female CEOs in Health IT. Why is this?
Women certainly aren’t short on content knowledge in health care. In fact, they dominate men in this area. More than 40% of all practicing physicians and 50% of all medical school graduates are women. Women earn nearly 3 times more PhDs in psychology (useful content knowledge for startups in the space covered by Health Tech 2011). Nearly 94% of nurses and 74% of physical therapists are women, and they rule the workforce in public health, social services and pharmacy as well.
The problem–and it’s a big one–has to do with the ‘IT’ part of ‘Health IT.’ In 2008, only 6% of Fortune 500 technology companies had female CEOs and 13% had women corporate officers of any kind, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology. Among tech startups that raised venture capital in 2009, only 4.3% were led by female chief executives. A recent Business Week list of the ‘best young entrepreneurs in tech’ included 45 people, only 3 of which were women.
Among the many explanations for the gender disparity among chief executives in IT, the 4 that make the most sense to me are these: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
May 30th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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The development and use of an electronic medical record is extremely important for communication, rapid diagnosis and clinical decision making, increasing efficiency in working up patients, decreasing the cost of duplication of testing and time delays in medical care and treatment.
There are many other advantages of using a functional electronic medical records. A person could be anywhere in the world and have his medical information immediately available. The results of all testing should immediately be communicated to the treating physician. All imaging studies should be digital.
Patients’ physicians could immediately read and use them for their clinical decision making.
These are only a few of the advantages of the electronic medical record. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
May 29th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Opinion
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I have been in Hamburg, Germany for the past five days. I enjoyed an amazing opportunity to visit one of the world’s most respected heart rhythm labs. Among other things, the main purpose was to learn a new way to ablate atrial fibrillation.
It was an incredible learning experience, one for which I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the kind and generous people of Dr Karl-Heinz Kuck’s EP lab. Though these people are famous, they treated me as a respected colleague.
Details of all that I learned regarding this newly-approved ablation technique is a matter for future posts. Suffice it to say, I already feel like a better AF doctor.
For now, may I highlight a few of the more striking differences between Europe and the States, as noted by a Kentuckian on his first trip across the Atlantic? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
May 29th, 2011 by DavedeBronkart in Research
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The Society for Participatory Medicine was well represented last week at the 14th ICSI/IHI Colloquium. (ICSI is the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement, a small midwestern think tank that’s way too poorly known.) SPM members who presented:
- Jane Sarasohn-Kahn of Health Populi gave the keynote for Day 2
- Jessie Gruman, four time cancer patient and founding co-editor of our journal, gave an important breakout session, about which I’ll be writing soon. (Jessie is founder and president of the excellent Center For Advancing Health.)
- Brian Ahier presented on the status of health IT, as Meaningful Use rolls out. (“You can’t measure the improvements that you gotta measure, unless you have computers keeping track of it.”)
- I gave a half-day pre-conference workshop titled “Participatory Health: Reshaping Patient Care.” I’m told the workshop had 40-50% higher registration than usual: interest in participatory medicine is strong.
An unexpected bonus was that right outside the workshop door, a poster presentation addressed some questions people often ask about patient participation and online health records:
- Will patients with problems actually use a PHR (personal health record)? (Many observers say PHRs are a non-starter, a pointless exercise.) Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at e-Patients.net*
In a nod to the reality of rapid physician adoption of tablets and smartphones, the CIO of the VA system recently stated that the VA must find a way to accommodate iPads at a conference on federal information technology.
