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Electronic health records can help reduce medical errors, but when not used well they can strain the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Wei Wei Lee, an internist with the University of Chicago Medicine, has developed strategies to make sure tech is a tool, not a barrier.
Some patient advocates say your doctor’s notes offer insights you might never hear from your physician, putting patient and provider on the same page.
Some Veterans Affairs hospitals around the country use writers to record patients' life stories, then place a short biography in each vet’s medical record. The My Life, My Story program gives clinicians another way to get to know their patients.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), head of the influential HELP committee, wants to make it easier to share and store detailed medical histories.
In an interview, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb reacts to a KHN/Fortune investigation of the drawbacks and risks of electronic health records.
The U.S. government claimed that turning American medical charts into electronic records would make health care better, safer and cheaper. Ten years and $36 billion later, the system is an unholy mess. Inside a digital revolution that took a bad turn.
The health care industry adds thousands of jobs to the economy each month. While they aren’t all doctors and nurses, they aren’t all paper pushers either.
Medical records often contain incorrect information that can lead to inappropriate medical treatment. Patients need to review them on a regular basis and correct any errors that creep in.
One of the most popular electronic health records software systems used by hospitals, Epic Systems, can delete records or require cumbersome workarounds when clocks are set back for an hour, prompting many hospitals to opt for paper records for part of the night shift.
An Obama administration veteran will take the helm of Cal INDEX as it combines with the Inland Empire Health Information Exchange, creating a database covering nearly 17 million patients.
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston concluded that a web-based tool focused on these critical points of the day helped cut the rate of medical errors in half.
Hospitals share patient records of “super-users” to save money and avoid duplicating medical treatment.
Electronic health records increasingly include automated alert systems pegged to patients’ health information. In some cases, though, the sheer volume of these messages has become unmanageable.
A survey conducted by the Leapfrog Group finds that though many hospitals have computer-based medication systems in place to protect against errors, many still fall short in highlighting possible problems.
Some experts say this opportunity has not been realized, but advocates and policymakers are focusing on fixes that would make the digital versions of end-of-life planning documents easy for health professionals to locate.
A malware attack against two Prime Healthcare hospitals in South California, which federal authorities are investigating, comes soon after a case in which hackers demanded ransom from a Los Angeles hospital.
The current guidelines, last updated in 1987, require patients to specify exactly who gets information about their care. But advocates of change say the new rule will fit in better in the era of sharing patient data through electronic medical records.
As hospitals adopt electronic health record systems, some emergency rooms are experiencing new patterns of medical errors.
Four foundations joined forces to provide $10 million in new funding to the OpenNotes project, which will help an estimated 50 million people nationwide gain access to clinical notes, and allow researchers to evaluate how it affects health outcomes and costs.
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