M.L. Baker

Doctors will provide higher quality care when given financial incentives to do so, concludes a three-year study of seven so-called P4P (pay-for-performance) programs. However, it’s still not clear “whether the return on investment and the quality gains outweigh the financial and human effort,” according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded the study. Pay-for-performance […]

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded four contracts to consortia that will figure out how doctors at different health care sites can share medical information. The four consortia are made of technology vendors and local healthcare groups. For the past 15 years, most health IT efforts were framed within a […]

Antibiotics can’t treat the cold or the flu. Prescribed unwisely, they make bacteria harder to kill and make infections harder to treat. Still, about half the antibiotic prescriptions written in doctors’ offices are useless, or worse. But tools that guide doctors’ decisions can reduce excessive use of antibiotics, according to a study published Tuesday in […]

Web surfers who type “migraine” or “chronic headaches” into search engines may soon find themselves facing a solicitation from the Federal Drug Administration. As lawsuits move through the courts about the role of pain-reliever Vioxx in heart attacks, the FDA is considering whether the Internet can be used to see if drugs are prescribed safely. […]

Health information technology legislation is swirling around Capitol Hill this week, and there’s no shortage of recommendations of how it should be done. Privacy advocacy groups began circulating a petition Thursday to bar employers from viewing patients’ health information and giving patients control over who can see what medical information. The heads of the two […]

Making good health care decisions has always been hard. As informatics teases out patients’ varied health needs, it’s poised to get even more complex. And doctor-patient visits are still only 10 minutes long. It’s an open secret that half of people taking certain long-term, high-cost drugs won’t benefit from them. As patients are being asked […]

A typical hospital owns more infusion pumps than licensed beds. Although not every patient needs a pump, leaving many idle, the hospital rents still more of them to be sure that a nurse can find one when it’s needed. At thousands of dollars a pump, such equipment surpluses are expensive. As a result, many hospitals […]

Health information technology can—and should—be designed to prevent fraud. Such are the conclusions of two studies announced Monday by the AHIMA. Introducing the researchers Monday, national health IT czar David Brailer said he’d commissioned the studies in part because of widespread assumptions that health IT could promote fraud by automating fake claims. The researchers examined […]

The Department of Health and Human Services has had a busy week in health IT—it set forth broad goals for using health information, awarded 19 grants totaling almost $40 million for health IT projects, and announced plans to dismantle anti-kickback laws that prevent hospitals and health plans from helping physicians get and use health information […]

As part of a push to promote information technology, the health IT czar announced plans Wednesday to track how many physicians are using EHRs. Starting in 2006, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Institute for Health Policy and George Washington University will prepare a series of annual reports that will gauge whether policies that encourage use […]

San Diego County has become the latest community to launch an effort to share patient information across disparate health care providers. Over a hundred so-called RHIOs (regional health information organizations) have sprung up in recent years, encouraged by the federal government. RHIOs are expected to give health providers more complete information about patients, resulting in […]

Patients are increasingly presented with a bewildering array of options to pay for health care. In response, health plans are offering online tools to help patients estimate health expenses under different benefit plans. Now, employers are joining them. ADP Inc, known for processing payrolls and providing related employer services, announced plans Tuesday to offer online […]