annals of internal medicine

Some hospitals have argued for years that patient satisfaction scores can be misleading when it comes to gauging the quality of the healthcare services they receive. After all, patients are only human, aren't they? And can easily be swayed by factors that have little if anything to do with the true quality of care. A new study out in the Annals of Internal Medicine appears to back this view. RAND Researchers and a team from the University of California Los Angeles surveyed 236 elderly …

> Electronic medical records will change the way the US healthcare system works by revolutionizing the flow of information, argues Philip Longman. That makes medical privacy the "new threshold issue in American healthcare." Article

> New CEO Ronald Williams takes over the helm at Aetna today. …

A study of 455 elderly patients showed that hospital-type care in the home was cheaper, more effective in terms of lower length of stay and favored by over 60 percent of the patients. "The hospital-at-home care model is feasible, safe and efficacious for certain older patients with selected acute medical illnesses who require acute hospital-level care," wrote the authors, led by Johns Hopkins' Bruce Leff in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Report (pdf)

The nationwide electronic medical records system proposed by the Bush administration could end up costing taxpayers as much as $200 billion, according to a new study released Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. A panel of experts who looked at the issue concluded that a national network could cost up to $156 billion to set up and an additional $48 billion to operate annually. The team from the Harvard Interfaculty program for Health Systems Improvement concluded that the …

> A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that patients are often released from the hospital before all of their test results are back. Story

> Another study by University of Michigan researchers finds not charging diabetics for medicines will save lives and ultimately money for the government. …

Responding to criticism that articles and research they publish are frequently biased in favor of corporate sponsors, several leading academic publishers are backing a website designed to help consumers make sense of conflicting claims. When patientINFORM.org officially launches later this month, it will have the help of powerhouses like the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association.

The site will run abstracts of research …

Doctors have complained for years that patients often endanger themselves by failing to follow their prescription orders. A new study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine reveals that the problem may be even worse than suspected. Researchers studying compliance patterns for a large group of patients taking blood pressure and cholesterol drugs over the course of a year found that within three months, 43 percent had stopped taking their medications as …