Catalyzing the app store for EHRs

Pioneering Ideas (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), June 1, 2009 — Steve Downs and John Lumpkin
Recently, Steve posted about the idea, floated by Ken Mandl and Zak Kohane, that EHRs (or health IT more broadly) could move to a model of competitive, substitutable applications running off a platform that would provide secure medical record storage. In other words…
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Electronic Medicine, iPhones and Path-Dependence

Health Reform Watch, May 18, 2009 — Michael Ricciardelli
Atul Gawande writes about “path-dependence” in his wonderfully thought out article on the evolution of health care systems. If you haven’t yet read it (it’s in the sidebar under “Best of Magazines” and here) I highly recommend…
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Electronic Health Records Won’t Save Us

The Washington Post, April 26, 2009 — Tevi Troy
Are electronic health records the panacea for all our health-care ills? Congress seems to think so: With strong cheerleading from President Obama, it has approved $20 billion for EHRs as part of the stimulus package. Health information technology undeniably holds a lot of promise, but…
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A Health Tech Monopoly – II

The Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2009
The New England Journal of Medicine is the holy scripture of the medical academic left, so it’s worth noting that the magazine has just punched a hole in the many blandishments about electronic medical records…
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On the records

The Boston Globe, April 6, 2009 — Carolyn Johnson
In this wireless world, healthcare still has one foot in the digital dark ages. But the $19 billion investment in health information technology included in the federal stimulus package may change that, says Dr. Kenneth D. Mandl of …
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Advances in Online Care and Telehealth

The Health Care Blog, April 6, 2009 — David Kibbe
At a recent symposium on Online Care in Hawaii, two Family Physicians and a primary care Internist participated in a panel in which they described their experiences with Online Care and Telehealth…
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An App Store for Your EHR? Why Not?

Pioneering Ideas (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), April 2, 2009 — Steve Downs
Up on the Project HealthDesign blog, Lygeia Ricciardi calls attention to Ken Mandl and Zak Kohane’s perspective article in the New England Journal on the need for a flexible information infrastructure in health care.  In the article,…
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In the New England Journal of Medicine:
No small change for the health information economy

Mandl KD, Kohane IS. No small change for the health information economy. N Engl J Med. 2009 Mar 26;360(13):1278-81

Electronic Health Records: Lessons from the iPhone

Technology Review (MIT), March 30, 2009 — Emily Singer
Thanks to the $19 billion designated for health-care information technology in the recent stimulus bill, electronic health records (EHRs) have garnered a great deal of attention in the past few weeks. The bill sets aside $17 billion in…
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Doctors Raise Doubts on Digital Health Data

The New York Times, March 25, 2009 — Steve Lohr
Now that the federal government plans to spend $19 billion to spur the use of computerized patient records, the challenge of adopting the technology widely and wisely is becoming increasingly apparent. Two articles, to be published on Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, point…
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