Informatics-Review > Vol. 3 No. 4 - Feb 15 2000

• The Use of Information Technology in Improving Medical Performance Part I. Information Systems for Medical Transactions
  AA Gawande, DW Bates MedGenMed, February 7, 2000
  This article examines the successes of and opportunities for using advanced information systems that track and manage medical transactions for large populations to improve performance.
  
  
• Enterprises Could Face Millions in Liability -- Free Web Seminar On Ramifications of Not Preventing Avoidable Medical Errors - Feb. 24 beginning at 2 p.m. Eastern time
  Jack Risenhoover, Eclipsys general counsel, will address the potential legal liabilities, while Dr. Gil Kuperman, TIR board member, will discuss positive cost/quality outcomes achieved to date at Partners through use of its knowledge-based information software. (Pre-registration is required by Feb. 21. For information, call (561) 266-2324 or email: info@eclipsys.com)
  
  
• DoctorQuality's Error Tracking (ET) Database is an anonymously reported service designed to be used by all healthcare individuals to reduce errors in medicine.
  
  
• 5th HON Survey on the Evolution of Internet Use for Health Purposes
  Key findings:
  • More than half of this random international sampling are women, confirming the steady advance of female users of Web-based healthcare information.
  • Healthcare professionals still seem to be struggling to integrate on-line information retrieval with the daily practice of medicine.
  • At the same time, healthcare publishers and service providers on the Web are facing increasingly demanding and discriminating consumers.
    
    
• House passes digital signature bill
  The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that would allow U.S. consumers to electronically sign their name over the Internet. Such a bill could have a tremendous impact on the practice of medicine in the coming years.
  
  
• American Hospital Association DRAFT Comments on HHS standards for PRIVACY OF INDIVIDUALLY IDENTIFIABLE HEALTH INFORMATION
  AHA believes that regulations protecting individual privacy must achieve a balance between patients' need for privacy and their equally pressing need to receive high quality health care.
  
  
• Medical Privacy Stories
  These stories and facts are divided into the separate categories of abuses that have occurred because of medical privacy violations and public opinion and concerns about medical privacy that have been noted in surveys and polls.

Ó 2000 Dean F. Sittig

Informatics-Review > Vol. 3 No. 4 - Feb 15 2000

2/10/99 dfs