patient records

Hospitals that focus too tightly on cutting costs may create preventable problems such as medication errors and hospital-acquired infections, according to a new study by two Boston-area hospitals. To gather data, researchers studied four hospitals, including two urban teaching hospitals and two suburban hospitals, looking at 6,841 patient records over 12 months. The study found that when patient-to-nurse ratios at one of the four unnamed hospitals studied climbed 10 percent, the hospital …

Almost 80 percent of hospitalized children get meds only approved for adult use, according to a new study. Researchers with the Pediatric Health Information Systems Research Group looked at patient records from 31 major children's hospitals from the year 2004, focusing on 90 drugs that are often prescribed for children or have been targeted by the FDA for pediatric study. Children are most typically given adult painkillers, nutrients and gastrointestinal agents, the study concluded. …

What happens when doctors are unable or unwilling to pay the bills for the patient's electronic medical records (EMRs)? In Boca Raton, FL, one EMR vendor cut doctor's access to the records when the medical group refused to pay higher support fees. This has created concerns about EMRs in the midst of a major push for doctors to digitize patient records. Currently, there is no law preventing companies from restricting physician's access to the records for financial reasons. But Dr. Joseph …

The debate over privacy rights and electronic medical records (EMRs) is heating up. After changes made this week, the Johnson-Deal bill looks as though it will probably not include protections designed to limit the ability of insurers and others to access patient records. That's led to controversy in Washington, where privacy rights groups are clashing with lobbyists representing health plans and other groups. A spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) said that consumers …

Federal inspectors are launching an investigation of Kaiser Permanente's kidney transplant center following last week's series in the Los Angeles Times detailing widespread problems during the program's start-up phase. The newspaper reports that CMS investigators are examining patient records, examining documents and interviewing staff in an effort to find out if federal laws were violated. In the worst case scenario, the transplant center could be dropped from Medicare and Medicaid programs. Article

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 …

Quebec will spend $525 million--that's Canadian dollars--to develop an electronic health record system that will provide all of the region's doctors and pharmacists  access to patient records and other medical information by 2011. The province is considering adopting technology developed by Alberta's NetCare project. Article

> Oracle said a company study found nearly 80 percent of healthcare providers expect to adopt an EHR. Most expect the process to be completed within 5 years. Article

> A British high court sided with the country's National Health Service, agreeing that a woman who wants the government to pay for the cancer drug Herceptin to treat her early stage breast cancer is not entitled to receive it. …

Friday the thirteenth may be a good day to talk about mistakes. The title of the 1999 IOM report on medical errors reminds me of a joke--"to err is human, but to really foul things up takes a computer." This month we have news of two national-scale IT implementations with significant problems. The first is the Medicare Part D system where needed coverage and benefit information …

Siemens Medical Systems has donated software for medical teams at the Houston Astrodome to create electronic medical records for refugees of Hurricane Katrina. EMRs offer exactly what is needed in a time of crisis -- the ability to track and prioritize patients in a chaotic environment. Officials say they will use the data gathered at the Astrodome to monitor for possible disease outbreaks. In fact, the serious damage caused to the health system by the loss of hundreds of thousands of …