IT in health divides physicians

Despite the government-led explosion of activity in the health IT field, physician and hospital leaders remain deeply divided about the value of IT in patient care, reveals Fierce Health IT.

The latest reminder of this came in a Thomson Reuters survey of nearly 3 000 physicians. Asked whether electronic health records (EHRs) would help patients, 39% of the doctors said they would; 37% said there would be no effect; and 24% said EHRs would have a negative impact on care.

In a broader survey of physicians and healthcare executives, 80% of the respondents said they thought the widespread adoption of health IT would improve the quality of care and organisational efficiency.

Perceptive Software, creator of enterprise content management solutions, revealed that the United Memorial Medical Centre will replace its current document management solution with Perceptive Software's ECM solutions for healthcare, says Benzinga.

The centre will implement the Perceptive solutions in medical records, patient registration and in the business office.

“The current state of our document management and scanning technology served a simple and effective purpose. However, as an organisation, we felt we needed to move forward with a more robust, flexible enterprise solution that can accommodate our health information management and registration departments, as well as our back office needs,” says Kurt Calman, CIO of the United Memorial Medical Centre.

A technology start-up company has developed a complete system for monitoring patients' physiology and delivering data securely to health professionals, states The Engineer.

In recent years, several new technologies for remote healthcare have been investigated, including wireless sensors, low-power connectivity units and back-end software.

Newly formed Isansys Lifecare has integrated these components into to a user-friendly end-to-end system, which they hope to market in various healthcare settings.