Missing clinical information during primary care visits
Primary care clinicians report that missing clinical information is common, multifaceted, likely to consume time and other resources, and may adversely affect patients. Missing clinical information was less likely in rural practices and when individual clinicians reported having full electronic records.

Health Costs Absorb One-Quarter of Economic Growth, 2000 – 2005
One-half of health spending goes to clinical and administrative waste, excess prices, and theft. Physicians can identify clinical waste. Careful cost controls should rest on physicians’ decisions about services needed by each patient.

Nine Tech Trends in Healthcare
Bar Coding and RFID; Disease Management; Electronic Health Record; Emergency Preparedness; Integrating PACS; IT and Biomedical Devices; Patient-Centric Portals; Regional Networks; Telehealth;

What Is eHealth (3): A Systematic Review of Published Definitions
The widespread use of the term eHealth suggests that it is an important concept, and that there is a tacit understanding of its meaning. This compendium of proposed definitions may improve communication among the many individuals and organizations that use the term.

Pharmacist Computer Skills and Needs Assessment Survey
Most pharmacists believed they needed to upgrade their computer skills. Medical database and Internet searching skills were identified as those in greatest need of improvement for the purposes of improving practice effectiveness.

Use of a Computerized Guideline for Glucose Regulation in the Intensive Care Unit Improved Both Guideline Adherence and Glucose Regulation
Implementing a computerized version of a guideline significantly improved timeliness of measurements and glucose level regulation for critically ill patients compared with implementing a paper-based version of the guideline.

Validation of a discharge summary term search method to detect adverse events
The authors used a commercially available search engine to scan discharge summaries for the presence of 104 terms that potentially indicate an adverse event. Although the sensitivity of the method is low, its high specificity means that the method could be used to replace expensive manual chart reviews by nurses.

Frequency of Laboratory Test Utilization in the Intensive Care Unit and Its Implications for Large-Scale Data Collection Efforts
The author identified a small subset of the LOINC database (between 104 and 202 tests and profiles represented 99% of all testing in 3 ICUs) that should be the focus of efforts to standardize test names in ICU information systems. Mapping this subset of laboratory tests and profiles to LOINC vocabulary will simplify the process of collecting data for large-scale databases such as ICU scoring systems and the configuration of new ICU information systems.

U.S. Public sharply divided on privacy risks of EMRs
U.S. adults are divided right down the middle on whether the potential privacy risks associated with a patient electronic medical record system outweigh the expected benefits to patients and society.