Category: research

  • [article] Evaluating the value and impact of an electronic health record in a complex health system

    An interesting article from ElectronicHealthCare titled “Evaluating the value and impact of an electronic health record in a complex health system“. ABSTRACT: NetCARE is Canada’s first region-wide electronic health record (EHR) (Hospital News 2004). It is a clinical, web-based, view-only record of an individual’s key health information drawn from multiple sources. NetCARE is available in…

  • Twitter is not a good source for health advice

    A recent article published in the American Journal of Infection Control [1] titled “Dissemination of health information through social networks: Twitter and antibiotics” [link to abstract] demonstrates how social networks, specifically Twitter, is being used to share health information on the web. In this case, Twitter was a great conduit to share health information, but…

  • eHealth is now officially mainstream

    I guess that it had to happen eventually and now, I think ehealth can officially be considered “mainstream”. With the US government planning to spend $50 BILLION to push adoption of electronic health records by 2015, it was inevitable that the use information and communication technologies would be a major topic of discussion. Much to…

  • Nurse Order Entry – an alternative to CPOE?

    Getting physicians to enter their own orders on computerized systems has and continues to be a challenge to those in the health informatics field. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) is often used as a measure of success. Given how the health care systems in North America are structured, getting physicians on-board and using information systems…

  • Health Affairs issue on “E-Health in the Developing World”

    The current issue of Health Affairs (February 2010, Vol. 29, No. 2) is focused on ehealth with a tag-line of “E-Health in the Developing World”. I just stumbled onto this issue so I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. There are a number of articles grouped into some interesting categories including: Policies and…

  • eHealth in the peer-reviewed literature…

    Much to my surprise, two leading health care journals have articles on ehealth. The first is JAMA (vol 303, no 5, pp 391-470; February 3, 2010), which rarely publishes on the topic of ehealth. Safe electronic health record use requires comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework (link to abstract). Electronic health records in the age of…

  • A voice against irrational exuberance in ehealth

    For those interested in a somewhat contrarian viewpoint about ehealth, I suggest you check out Scot Silverstein.  I just recently came across his site documenting some "common examples of health care IT difficulties".  You can also listen to his interview available via the Government Health IT site – an excellent site. In his interview, Dr.…

  • Guide to program evaluation

    Here’s a link to a free resource on program evaluation titled, Basic Guide to Program Evaluation.  The guide seems like a great resource for those who need help in getting started.  With some great summaries and tables comparing the pros/cons of different methods and designs, this guide seems like a great, free resource. Tags: evaluation,…