Clinical

As patients learn to manage high-deductible plans and health savings accounts, convenience, accessibility and neighborhood connections are shaping patient's financial decisions.

This is the sixth year of the Walking Gallery of Healthcare.

Putting patients at the center of preventing mortality from blood clots, and being more aware of them in recognizing their onset, is key to stemming the disease burden. We can do more to engage with information, tools and other patients and programs to help monitor this condition.

"We believe that mobile devices such as iPhones will become the predominant means by which patients interact with BIDMC," says Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO John Halamka, MD. "Your phone will be the repository of your medical record."

Electronic health records are typically touted as providing two primary and vital services: readily accessible patient records and protection against contraindicated medications. But Intermountain Healthcare is benefiting from a growing and transformative versatility in the application of its EHRs.

Meaningful use of analytics to improve quality of care and organizational efficiency is contingent on an accessible user-friendly interface. How can "users" find their way back into the "user experience"?

Health organizations are often moving too quickly from EHR implementation to population health and risk-based contracts, glossing over (or skipping entirely) the crucial step of evaluating the quality of the data they're using.

Electronic health records are altering nearly every aspect of the caregiver-patient relationship -- not to mention changing caregivers' workflows with omnipresent tablets, handhelds, wall mounts and mobile carts. Today, nurses are on the front lines of this transformation.

Enough talk about information technology's use in the practice of medicine. Health IT must become the practice of medicine.