Thanks to technology, Gary Sullivan enjoys a new kind of relationship with his doctor. If he wakes up with a routine health question, the 73-year-old retired engineer simply taps out a secure message into his doctor’s electronic health records system. His Kaiser Permanente physician will answer later that day, sparing Sullivan a visit to the…
Health Information Technology
The Washington Post: There’s lots of health-care technology out there. How do you choose?
The increasing digitization of health care has ushered in a wide array of technological options, pushing patients to read up on them and make good choices. Here’s what the experts say: Be a wise consumer. You wouldn’t buy a car without reading the reviews and making sure it’s safe. “Patients should use the same approach…
The Wall Street Journal – The Experts: How High-Tech Patient Portals Will Revolutionize Health Care
As the health-care world finally shifts from analog to digital, increasing numbers of patients have access to a patient portal–a site that allows them to schedule appointments, email their physicians, refill medications, and check the results of laboratory studies. As part of a national movement known as OpenNotes, nearly five million Americans can also read…
Modern Healthcare: Geisinger using technology to increase patient engagement, CEO says
Geisinger Health System has invested in health information technology innovations to transform itself from a fragmented, hospital-centric model to one that actively courts patient involvement and access, CEO Dr. Glenn Steele, Jr. said during an industry talk Thursday. The Danville, Pa.-based system has invested in three key areas: virtual visits; patient access to healthcare data;…
Interval Examination: Moving Toward Open Notes
Despite periodic efforts over almost 5 decades, the idea of having patients review and contribute to their medical records has failed to take hold, even though such practice might engage patients more actively in maintaining their health and managing their care and might also improve quality of care and patient safety. Contemporary trends toward increased transparency, accompanied by evolving health information technologies, provided an opportunity for us to conduct a study examining the effects on both patients and primary care physicians (PCPs) of inviting patients to read their doctors’ visit notes. Bolstered by encouraging findings from this study, and with the goal of informing those who might join in further inquiry, we outline in this “interval examination” challenges we are encountering and strategies we are employing as we explore wider implementation of this practice.
Benefits from Destroying the Black Box (or Are We Opening Pandora’s Box?)
These days, commentary about bankers, politicians, or school systems is almost invariably accompanied by a call for “increased transparency.” And it’s not different for us in medicine. Spurred by electronic technologies, black boxes are being torn open right and left, bringing disruptive changes to both doctors and patients. We applaud these changes and argue that attendant benefits will far outweigh risks. And whether you agree or not, it’s probably futile to try to interfere with an unstoppable progression.
