As managers, providers and employees, we always have to be looking ahead at how the technology on our horizon will affect how our organizations administer health care. In the spirit of looking forward to the future, we present “2.0 Tuesday”, a feature on Manage My Practice about how technology is impacting our practices, and our patient and population outcomes.
We hope you enjoy looking ahead with us, and share your ideas, reactions and comments below!
Medical Information Produced By Search Engines Can Vary Widely
Researchers at the University of Missouri published a study recently comparing the quality and usability of medical and health information found when using four of the different search engines. The results surprised even the researchers: the four search engines, Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com varied widely in the type and focus of information returned on health searches. The takeaway for both patients and providers? Go outside of your Internet routine and check more than one engine.
(via amednews , Journal of Medical Internet Research)
Study: Patient Photographs in EHRs Can Reduce Errors
A pilot program at Children’s Hospital of Colorado has found that simply including a picture of the patient in their electronic health record, and showing the provider this picture during order entry has greatly reduced the number of errors occurring at the facility due to mixing up patients when writing orders. Much like a credit card with a picture of the owner, this simple, common sense measure seems to have cut the number of incorrect orders by 75% in the year that the program has been in place.
(via Reuters)
Ars Technica Looks at The “Network Healthcare Evolution”
Influential Tech Blog Ars Technica had a great feature story last week about the convergence of mobile devices and cheap available bandwidth on the healthcare system: one of my favorite topics! Ars Technica is known for providing well researched, in depth coverage of technology issues, and they don’t disappoint with this great overview of the technical side of what they call the “Network Healthcare Evolution”. My favorite part: the article does a lot of focusing on how reimbursement models and providers workflow, not just glamorous technical innovations, will drive adoption of new technologies.
(via Ars Technica)
