Listen to the Doctor . . . on Your iPod
Over the past year, health providers, medical journals, government agencies and a bewildering number of self-proclaimed health experts have begun to offer health news and information via audio and video podcasts. These prerecorded segments are downloaded from the Internet and played on a computer or other device. Examples include: Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcast: A weekly 7- to 10-minute program in which Rick Lange, chief of clinical cardiology, and Elizabeth Tracey, director of the Hopkins Health NewsFeed, a radio news service program, discuss the week's leading health research and news. NIH Research Radio: A 20-30 minute biweekly report that focuses on research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). (Ed. Should The Informatics Review move to Podcasts?)

The Effect of Automated Alerts on Provider Ordering Behavior in an Outpatient Setting
Focusing on 18 high-volume and high-risk medications revealed a significant increase in the percentage of time the provider stopped the ordering process and did not complete the medication order when an alert for an abnormal rule-associated laboratory result was displayed (5.6% vs. 10.9%, p = 0.03). The provider also increased ordering of the rule-associated laboratory test when an alert was displayed (39% at baseline vs. 51% during post intervention, p < 0.001).

IBM Contributes Medical Records Software to Open Source
By making the client-side components of IBM's Health Information Exchange (HIE) technology available through Open Healthcare Framework (OHF), they hope to help solve the problem by providing an easy and affordable way for ISVs to connect their applications to any HIE, where medical data can be accessed and integrated as if stored in a single repository. As a result of this patient-centric systems approach, clinicians will be able to access health records from virtually any medical IT system, regardless of where the information resides.

A new Health Informatics Community website
The website aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge in support of health informatics. This is done through peer to peer exchange, networking, debate, sharing, learning and discussion including providing news, documents, discussion forums, links and a special interest group.

State lawmakers will investigate their role in health IT
he National Conference of State Legislatures has launched an 18-month-long project to examine state governments’ role in health IT and how legislatures can advance the adoption of e-health records. The major barriers [to health IT adoption] are not technical, they’re political. Legislators could be helpful in overcoming those barriers, particularly because the issues are complex and “legislators are incredibly powerful translators” of complexity. (Ed. We're from the gov't and we're here to help!)

Telemedical support to improve glycemic control in adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus
Glycemic control improved during the TeleMedicine phase, while it deteriorated during the Paper Diary phase.