Dear Healthcare IT Insider,
The newly published results of a national survey conducted by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital verified what most healthcare IT and radiology professionals anecdotally know: that very few physicians with private practices have converted from conventional paper records to electronic ones.
Despite all the talk about the potential of IT to change the delivery of healthcare in the U.S., only 13% of physicians have a basic system that supports the ability to access and view diagnostic images, according to the study. Click here to learn more.
In the survey, two-thirds of the physicians responding cited cost as one of two major deterrents. Therefore, the recent news of a demonstration project by Medicare to provide financial incentives to as many as 1,200 primary care physician offices to "go electronic" is a small step in a positive direction. To learn if your city or state is among the locations selected, click here.
The timing of Medicare's announcement coincided with National Health IT Week, held June 9-13 to increase attention to the need for healthcare IT adoption. The majority of activities took place in Washington, DC, and coverage of the event is the topic of our Healthcare IT Insider Exclusive.
Our report includes an exclusive interview with Neal Neuberger, co-founder of the Capitol Hill Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics, who has been appointed to head the new Institute for e-Health Policy. Click here to read about his vision for the future.
Also featured in the Healthcare IT Digital Community is the summary of a lively debate that took place at last month's Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine (SIIM) annual meeting about whether hospital radiology or IT departments should be responsible for PACS.
Read how the point was argued between Dr. Paul Chang, vice chairman of radiology informatics of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and Dr. David Channin, chief of imaging informatics at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Feinberg School of Medicine.
In other news, staff writer Wayne Forrest reports on the impressive results of how a hospital in Finland slashed its report turnaround time by implementing speech recognition. If you missed this presentation at SIIM 2008 or didn't attend the conference, you'll be interested in learning the how they did it.
As the new editor of the Healthcare IT Digital Community, I welcome suggested topics that you would like to see AuntMinnie.com delve into as full-fledged features. My e-mail is [email protected].
