Annals of Internal Medicine
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AMA Study: Technological, Administrative Demands Cutting Into Physicians’ Face Time With Patients
Technological and administrative obstacles are significantly cutting into available time for physicians to engage with patients. Nearly half a physician's office day is now filled by data entry into electronic medical records (EHRs) and administrative desk work, according to a new time-motion study conducted by experts at the American Medical Association (AMA) and Dartmouth-Hitchcock health care system. The study results were published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine...
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Big Pharma Plays Hide-The-Ball With Data
...[E]vidence released earlier this year by Cochrane Collaboration, a London-based nonprofit, shows that a significant amount of negative data from [Tamiflu's] clinical trials were hidden from the public. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) knew about it, but the medical community did not; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which doesn’t have the same access to unpublished data as regulators, had recommended the drug without being able to see the full picture...
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Do The CDC’s Ebola Precautions For U.S. Hospitals Go Far Enough?
U.S. hospitals have gone on alert since two American healthcare workers were brought to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta this month after being infected with the Ebola virus while treating Ebola patients in West Africa...
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EHR Burdens Leave Docs Burned Out, in Critical Condition
The electronic medical records that came with a promise of improving care efficiency are instead forcing physicians to spend more face time with a computer screen than with their patients. An observational analysis and survey of 57 primary care and specialty physicians in four states that was detailed this week in Annals of Internal Medicine shows that for every hour a physician spends providing direct clinical face time with a patient, nearly two additional hours are spent on EHRs and administrative tasks...
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EHRs Inflict Enormous Pain on Doctors. It’ll Take More Than Stopwatches to Learn Why
Electronic health records slow doctors down and distract them from meaningful face time caring for patients. That is the sad but unsurprising finding of a time and motion study published in Tuesday’s Annals of Internal Medicine1. A team of researchers determined that physicians are spending almost half of their time in the office on electronic health records (EHRs) and desk work and just 27 percent on face time with patients — which is what the vast majority of doctors went into medicine to do. Once they get home, they average another one to two hours completing EHRs...
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VA Researchers Testing Cheaper Clinical Trials Using Tech
Clinicians across more than 30 VA medical centers are taking part in a $10 million randomized clinical trial meant to compare two common treatments for hypertension. These doctors will not, however, noticeably change how they treat their patients or how they collect data about them. In fact, after veterans are enrolled in the trial, they will be asked to continue managing their blood pressure using their regular doctors, unlike in the vast majority of clinical trials where new doctors treat patients and study staff oversee them...
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Veterans aren’t the only ones waiting for health care
But the big question with these stories about the VA is, "compared to what?" This scandal wouldn't exist if the VA didn't have performance metrics on its employees. If it didn't measure or care whether veterans get prompt appointments it could just do what the rest of the health-care system has done and not hold people responsible for these metrics. Read More »
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