M.L. Baker

Many physicians would never want to part with their handheld computers, though they report very different reasons for their enthusiasm. Thats according to an article in last months BMJ, a peer-reviewed periodical for physicians. However, the researchers also found that many doctors are uncomfortable with a new technology and fear it may blunt their skills […]

The Protein Data Bank was established in 1972 as a public repository for solved protein structures; this information reveals the precise shape of proteins and is invaluable in figuring out how they work and in designing drug molecules that bind to proteins in certain ways. Today, scientists at drug companies routinely search the PDB for […]

The secret to success for electronic health systems is not to do them halfway, says Tom Smith, CIO of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. When ENH began its three-year, $30 million move to a fully integrated system, he says, the biggest resource was the support of the ENH board, which ensured that all 6,000-plus health care workers […]

Failure to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) makes hospitals and health-care providers quake with fear of delayed payments from Medicare and Medicaid. Right now, health-care providers, including hospitals and physician practices, are not even 60 percent HIPAA-compliant in terms of the forms and processes they have in place. /zimages/4/28571.gifClick here […]

Officials at the annual health technology conference Toward an Electronic Patient Record (TEPR) handed out awards Wednesday for health IT solutions in categories ranging from document imaging to mobile devices to, of course, electronic health records. A panel of independent judges selected the winners from a pool of 88 entrants. The judges pick for e-prescription […]

Our health-care system is perverse. Doctors and hospitals get paid by the procedure, yet they are the very ones expected to pay for health information technology that could eliminate duplicate and unnecessary exams, doctor visits and hospital stays. According to an editorial in The New York Times earlier this month by Newt Gingrich and Rep. […]

Applied science is lagging behind fundamental research and delaying new therapies. Thats what acting deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Janet Woodcock told a meeting of the agencys Science Board last month. The FDA could help, she said, by supporting a wide range of capabilities: better computer and animal models to predict whether […]

President Bush has created a new position to advance the transition to electronic medical records. The Department of Health and Human Services official, who has not yet been selected, will be largely responsible for coordinating the public-private partnerships necessary to get health-care systems across the country to use compatible standards and methods. The announcement wasnt […]

Reading the newspaper is usually one of the best parts of my job. But not last Friday. An article in The New York Times explained that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is soliciting reports of problems with inserting a drug-coated stent in heart patients. About 70,000 Boston Scientific Taxus Express2 stents have been used […]

Community health care providers will need to find their own best paths to implementing HIT, according to a joint report by a health care consulting firm and non-profit group. But the report also says that financial incentives will be key to successful adoption. A committee created by the U.S. Institute of Medicine identified health information […]

The DNA storage system newly purchased by the National Institute on Aging will help its researchers learn more from its extensive collection of patient DNA samples. The physical components of GenVault Corp.s Personal Archive system—announced Monday with the institute as its first customer—can keep DNA stable for decades at room temperature, while the software component […]

A report by a nonprofit group promoting health-care technology says a switch to prescribing medicine electronically can reduce medical errors and trim costs through increased efficiency. While the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 explicitly calls for a transition from paper-based to electronic prescribing, the eHealth Initiative says its report, based on a yearlong study of […]