M.L. Baker

A few months after the nation’s health IT czar asked for input on how to create a national health information network, IBM on Monday announced plans to build a prototype of sorts. By building a test system to move data from one place to another, IBM Research aims to show that easy electronic sharing of […]

A small raft of health care payers and their partners have launched new campaigns to encourage physicians to write electronic prescriptions. This time, they are offering support along with free equipment, software and other incentives. On Friday, a collaborative of three automakers sent letters to over 6,000 physicians asking them to participate in a new […]

Most health care providers are mostly compliant with the privacy rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, but fewer than half of them are fully compliant, according to a survey released Monday by the American Health Information Management Association. The deadline for compliance passed about two years ago. At a public teleconference Wednesday, […]

Health care payers and providers have two weeks until security rules protecting electronic health information kick in. Accordingly, trade and government groups have released an array of tools to help them make sure they are complying with the law. The deadline of April 20 is set by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and […]

California’s new online registry for organ donors has already signed up more people than expected. As of Friday morning, more than 17,500 people had registered, easily beating the goal of 15,000 hoped for by the end of the week. After plans for the registry were stymied by state budget shortfalls, the four federally designated organ- […]

In a move that drew praise from the nation’s health IT czar Monday, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has promised $50 million to implement electronic health records so data can be shared among nursing homes, hospitals and outpatient clinics in three communities in the state. The pledge is one of the largest investments, if […]

Eclipsys Corp. Thursday launched Sunrise 4.0XA, the latest release of its suite of clinical information technology applications, with more than 450 new features in 16 functional areas. John Gomez, the company’s chief technology officer, said the new rollout includes faster and more powerful physician documentation, allowing orders for drugs and procedures to be linked and […]

U.S. physicians are five times as likely as general consumers to use handheld computers, but less than a third of physicians who have mobile electronic medical records actually use them. That’s the conclusion of a new report by Forrester Research that surveyed 1,331 physicians. Fifty-seven percent of surveyed doctors reported using some sort of handheld […]

Two health companies have teamed up to distribute an electronic pill box that does much more than help patients organize their medicine. The Med-eMonitor, made by Informedix Holding Companies Inc. and co-branded with McKesson Bioservices, reminds patients when to take medicine and makes patient-specific inquiries about health measures like blood glucose levels, side effects or […]

Duke University Health System recently implemented a CPOE system to cover patients in 350 beds. It improves workflow, but it also helps Duke avoid errors based on bad handwriting or misplaced bits of paper. Fewer than 5 percent of hospitals have deployed computerized physician order entry systems, but they are a hot topic, and not […]