Quality and Safety

As more clinicians begin using their personal mobile devices to aid patient care, hospitals must be prepared to manage them in order to ensure security and privacy, according to one expert.

Twitter can be used to track important health trends, according to computer scientists at Johns Hopkins University.

The Joint Commission’s 2011 National Patient Safety Goals for hospitals should be included in electronic health record certification and criteria for meaningful use, say authors of a commentary that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Minnesota-based IT company helps health plans, employers connect with health clubs and manage employees' workout routines.

When it comes to disclosing identifiable patient information, family doctors are reluctant to do so – even for public health purposes such as tracking influenza, according to a recent study.

The Ontario Medical Association is calling for electronic medical records to be a top priority for all political parties as they prepare for the province's upcoming election.

Websites are "the new storefront" these days, and medical practices should not be missing out on the opportunity, says one expert. However, he points out that they "are a constant evolution," and so it's important to "lay the right foundation."

“There has never been a better time to be innovating in health and wellness,” Steve Krein, CEO of the just-launched StartUp Health, said last month.

Founder of KevinMD.com board certified in internal medicine and practices primary care in Nashua, N.H. His blog has more than 47,000 RSS subscribers and 40,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter, making him social media's leading physician voice.

Physicians started to cautiously enter the social media space beginning around 2005 – most blogging anonymously – but today doctors are beginning to embrace the technology as a way to make a difference in patient education.