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In November, 2010, Roger Baker, the chief information officer at the Veterans Affairs Department, had his first taste of what eventually became the bring-your-own-device revolution in the federal government... Read More »

Just about every week or so there’s a new report chronicling doctors’ frustrations with electronic health records. Drill down a bit and the source of discontent becomes clear: poor usability, clunky interfaces, ineffective search and too many clicks. So what would actually make doctors like their EHR? “They need a tremendous makeover with lots of clinical input to make it easy to do not only the right thing, but the things you do all the time,” said Robert Wachter, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Physicians are dissatisfied with the current state of EHR technology but are confident that future improvements will benefit both patients and their own professional satisfaction down the road, according to a new research published by the RAND Corporation. Read More »

Doctors who were fed meals costing even less than $20 later prescribed certain brand-name pills more often than rival medicines, according to a new analysis published on Monday of a federal database. And in most cases, costlier meals were associated with still higher prescribing rates for Medicare Part D drugs made by the same companies that provided the food. The findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, are likely to intensify an ongoing debate over the extent to which ties between drug makers and doctors unduly influence medical practice and the nation’s health care costs...

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In unprecedented numbers, America’s doctors — those most entrepreneurial and fiercely independent of professionals — are trading in their autonomy for regular work hours and a hospital paycheck. Read More »

Women over 45 do not need a blood test to diagnose the menopause and X-rays are no real help to those with lower back pain, doctors have said. The advice, drawn up by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, features on a list of 40 treatments that bring little or no benefit to patients. The list is part of a campaign to reduce the number of unnecessary medical treatments. Patients are also encouraged to ask more questions about procedures. Medical experts from 11 different specialties were asked to identify five treatments or procedures commonly used in their field that were not always necessary or valuable...

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More than 100 doctors have signed a petition asking Island Health to suspend the introduction of its $174-million electronic health record system at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. The petition asks that Island Health suspend the system’s implementation until software that they say is canceling, overriding, changing or doubling up some drug orders is fixed or replaced. “Otherwise it’s inevitable something horrible is going to happen,” said one physician, on the condition of anonymity because of fear of repercussions...

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