Information technology
Military med chiefs queasy about their new EHR | PoliticoWhen the Pentagon switches to a new EHR starting later this year — at an overall cost of nearly $9 billion — it will force clinicians to act and think differently when they handle patients, and that worries the Defense Department's top doctor.
Public-hospital network aims for recovery | Wall Street Journal
At 4 a.m. Saturday, when NYC Health + Hospitals expects to switch on its new electronic medical-records system at two hospitals in Queens, its president and chief executive, Ramanathan Raju, plans to be at Elmhurst Hospital. The $764 million implementation is the latest step in what hospital officials hope will be a five-year transformation of the financially troubled public-health system.
New app to deliver HIV prevention meds without a doctor's visit | San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News
It would have been unthinkable three decades ago, when San Francisco was in the grip of the AIDS epidemic and the city's gay community was living in terror of the mysterious, deadly virus. But now, preventing HIV may be as simple as pushing a few buttons on a smartphone.
Telemedicine could expand access to medical abortions | Reuters
Women in the U.S. without reproductive health services close to home might have an easier time getting medical abortions if they could consult with doctors online instead of scheduling in-person visits, some providers argue.
Study: More Theranos tests fall outside norm and require more blood work | Arizona Republic (Phoenix)
Theranos laboratory tests marketed to consumers at Walgreens stores across metro Phoenix are more likely to report findings outside "normal" clinical ranges when compared with two larger area laboratories, a difference that could affect the type of health care consumers receive, a new study concludes.
Pharmaceuticals
FDA rejects bid to market antidepressant to treat foggy thinking | STATThe Food and Drug Administration declined to expand approval for the drug, sold as Brintellix, to treat foggy thinking and other cognitive problems that sometimes accompany depression, drug makers Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Lundbeck said Monday. The rejection was unusual, given that an advisory panel to the FDA had voted 8-2 last month in favor of the drug makers' application.
Physicians
What you don't know about your doctor could hurt you | Consumer ReportsThousands of doctors across the U.S. are on medical probation for reasons including drug abuse, sexual misconduct, and making careless—sometimes deadly—mistakes. But they're still out there practicing. And good luck figuring out who they are.
Safety, quality and clinical practice
Cancer treatment's new direction | Wall Street JournalPatients with advanced cancer who are treated at major centers can expect to have their tumors sequenced, in hopes of finding a match in a growing medicine chest of drugs that precisely target mutations that drive cancer's growth. When they work, such matches can have a dramatic effect on tumors. But these “precision medicines” aren't cures. They are often foiled when tumors evolve, pushing doctors to take the next step to identify new mutations in hopes of attacking them with an effective treatment.
The unsung success of a diabetes prevention program | New York Times
Articles appear every day on “major breakthroughs,” which later never pan out, while this one, full of successes, rarely made the news. This is the curse of health services research, which seeks to improve population health through improvements in access or delivery of care.
