> With nearly one-third of consumers using social media for their health, mediums such as Facebook and YouTube provide a great opportunity for practices to engage patients. Thirty-two percent of survey respondents reported using social media channels for healthcare purposes, such as connecting with health organizations and other people with shared health interests, according to a recent PwC Health Research Institute report. FiercePracticeManagement
> Personal information for more than 500 patients of an Alaska-based chiropractor recently was discovered on the web via a Google search, reports NECN.com. The chiropractor, Dr. Paul Beane, claims that an electronic health record vendor he used for nine months in 2008, EMR4Doctors.com, is to blame for using an "unsecured text file" on a web server. Article
> One of the first actions the Department of Veterans Affairs has undertaken since launching in August a central body dubbed the "custodial agent" to oversee open source electronic health record projects is to commission a study on how the code for its EHR system could be refactored, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker told reporters during a conference call last week, reports FierceGovernmentIT. Baker said refactoring of the system, called VistA, won't necessarily replace its MUMPS-written code with a more modern object-oriented language. FierceGovernmentIT
And Finally... So much for being a jolly, happy soul. Article