by medicaltechont | Nov 16, 2013 | Canada, EHR
As an American and Canadian dual national, I found this EHR Intelligence article about dueling surveys as amusing as it was informative. It seems that Canadians are much more receptive to EHRs than Americans. According to a 2012 Harris Decima survey, a whopping 85 percent of Canadians thought that EHRs were a good or very good idea. Moreover, more than half of them had no privacy or other concern about their records being in electronic format.
Contrast that to a Harris Interactive survey for Xerox conducted around the same time which found that 85 percent of Americans expressed “anxiety” about having their records digitized. Almost two-thirds (63 percent) feared that a hacker would steal their personal data; half worried that the data would be lost, damaged or corrupted. Only one-quarter (26 percent) said that they wanted their medical records to be digitized.
Read more: Canadian attitude towards EHRs may be healthier than ours – FierceEMR http://www.fierceemr.com/story/canadian-attitude-towards-ehrs-may-be-healthier/2013-10-30#ixzz2kpumgFyK
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by medicaltechont | Oct 8, 2013 | e-Health, eHealth
After more than a decade of hard work and collaboration, digital health is making treatment safer, more efficient, and, ultimately, better for Canadians.
Consider the following:
Use of electronic medical records (EMR) in community-based practices in Canada has yielded efficiency and patient care benefits valued at $1.3-billion since 2006.
Drug information systems reduce prescription errors and result in fewer adverse drug events with annual estimated benefits of $475-million.
Tele-health saved patients over 47 million kilometres in travel and $70-million in personal travel costs in 2010 alone.
Through investment with our jurisdictional partners, Canada Health Infoway has already established the foundational requirements for securely capturing, storing, sharing, accessing and managing health information. And while every province and territory is at a different stage of development, they are all working on these foundational elements according to their local priorities and needs.
Canadian consumers are comfortable with digital tools and are global leaders in the adoption and use of information technologies such as social media, online shopping and digital banking. Coupled with a growing desire to manage our wellness and to take on more active roles in the management of our chronic diseases, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in our digital health journey.
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by medicaltechont | Oct 10, 2012 | e-Health, eHealth, Healthcare, Hospitals, Ontario, Technology
The case for electronic medical records is compelling: They can make health care more efficient and less expensive, and improve the quality of care by making patients’ medical history easily accessible to all who treat them.
Small wonder that the idea has been promoted by the Obama administration, with strong bipartisan and industry support. The government has given $6.5 billion in incentives, and hospitals and doctors have spent billions more.
But as health care providers adopt electronic records, the challenges have proved daunting, with a potential for mix-ups and confusion that can be frustrating, costly and even dangerous.
Some doctors complain that the electronic systems are clunky and time-consuming, designed more for bureaucrats than physicians. Last month, for example, the public health system in Contra Costa County in California slowed to a crawl under a new information-technology system.
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by medicaltechont | Apr 27, 2012 | eHealth, Ontario
A Toronto conference on health informatics hears experts tout the use of information technology to improve patient outcomes
Enterprises aren’t the only organizations that suffer from silos of data. So does the medical community, a Toronto health informatics conference has been told.
Dr. Bruce Friedman, professor emeritus of pathology at the University of Michigan medical school, said that for too long pathologists– who look at patient tissues through microscopes, and radiologists – who look at x-rays – have operated as separate, sometimes undigitized disciplines.
Their reports go separately to clinicians, who have to make a diagnosis.
But, Friedman said, it’s time, to bring the disciplines together through information technology to create a single “super diagnosis” to make it easier for doctors.
His speech on Thursday at the opening of the two-day Advances in Health Informatics Conference was one of a number of presentations by doctors and researchers on how IT can improve patient outcomes.
The conference led off with former Canadian astronaut Dr. Dave Williams, now chief executive officer and assistant professor of surgery at Ontario’s Southlake Regional Health Centre, saying health informatics “is truly the disruptive, revolutionary change that will change the way we deliver health care.”
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by medicaltechont | Mar 30, 2012 | eHealth, Ontario MD, Technology
First, good news for the health-care IT industry: EMR is growing. Whether its incentives or the bottom line, or a desire for better care, EMR is growing by available metrics of usage and sales of software/services. More physicians use it. Its revenue growth of over 14% would be terrific growth for any product or service of course, but may not be growing in usage as fast as government planners or health-care corporations may have anticipated.
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