Web watch on private health care
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A website aims to allow patients to see how private and voluntary hospitals and health providers are performing.
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NEW YORK  - Several states are considering  the use of video surveillance in nursing homes, to keep an eye  on residents and the care they receive.
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(InfoWorld) - Two large health insurance trade groups based in the U.S. have released a model for personal health records, a portable, Web-based tool that includes a customer's insurance claims, immunization records, medication records and other health information. America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, whose members provide health insurance to about two thirds of U.S. residents, unveiled the personal health record model Wednesday. The two groups saw the importance of working together on the project, said Susan Pisano, vice president of communications for AHIP. "This is really an effort that cries out for collaboration," she said. U.S. President George Bush has pushed for electronic health records to be available to all U.S. residents by 2014. Backers of such records say they will improve the efficiency of the U.S. health-care system and cut down on errors such as drug interaction problems. Personal health records, or PHRs, "may be one of our most important contributions to helping improve health care," Ronald Williams chairman, chief executive and president of insurer Aetna Inc., said in a statement. PHRs are similar to other electronic health records, although they include less specific treatment information. Electronic health records typically are used by health-care providers to store and manage detailed clinical information. Patients will be able to enter information into their PHRs, in addition to information from pharmacies, laboratories and medical providers, the groups said. The model released Wednesday includes definitions of data elements that should be included in PHRs, such as risk factors, family history, health-care facilities and medications taken. The model also includes standards for the PHRs to be portable between insurers and providers, and rules about when insurers can share the information. Insurers can send the information to a new insurer only after the patient gives consent and has enrolled in the new insurance plan, Pisano said. Those tight sharing rules were designed to address concerns about the PHRs used by insurance underwriters, she said. The PHR model also set 2008 as the deadline for insurers to incorporate the data elements and adopt the portability standards, she added. The groups said the U.S. is still "many years" away from a fully interoperable health records system. But Dr. Robert Kolodner, interim national coordinator for health information technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, praised the groups' efforts. The new model is a "step forward in the national health IT agenda," he said in a statement. Earlier this month, five major corporations -- Applied Materials Inc., British Petroleum America Inc., Intel Corp., Pitney Bowes Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. -- announced plans to fund the development of a Web-based system that would allow their employees and retirees to access and maintain personal medical records. The companies said the plan could help them cut health-care costs.
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What do you think of the Medicare drug discount-card program? (Check all that apply.). I&#39;m eligible but I don&#39;t use it. Biopsy results confirm a young Dublin man has contracted the human form of mad cow disease.
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The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and America&#39;s Health Insurance Plans have sent separate letters to the Bush administration &quot;stat[ing] emphatically&quot; that to entice private insurers to participate in Medicare, the federal government will have to
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A new online medical journal plans to make its articles available for free over the Internet. The Public Library of Science Medicine (PLoS Medicine), launched earlier this month, will be available to anyone
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The World Bank's private sector arm   and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday announced   plans to explore private health care opportunities in Africa.
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Uninsured Washington area residents shopping for health coverage -- or convinced they have to go without -- have a new tool to help them assess the options available to them. A Web site first developed for California by the nonprofit Foundation for Health Coverage Education now includes informati...
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Private videos seem to be escaping to the internet in droves. Do we care? In Sex Drive Daily.
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The Mayo Clinic proposal doesnât advocate a government-run single-payer system, but urges private insurance companies to offer plans with many options. The Mayo Clinic proposal doesnât advocate a government-run single-payer system, but urges private insurance companies to offer plans with many options.
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Patients in Duke University's health system can now go to one Web site to pay medical bills, schedule doctor appointments and eventually view their personal medical histories.
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State health departments, which are scrambling to ensure that their highest-risk residents get flu shots, can now log on to a secure, private government Web site
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Doctors try to balance a patient's trust with new technology.
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The government wants patients to be given the choice of having an operation in a private hospital by 2006.
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TONY EASTLEY: Labor&#39;s Health spokeswoman, Julia Gillard, is standing by the costings in Medicare Gold and says contrary to the Government&#39;s claims, the Opposition has submitted its policy to the departments of Treasury and Finance for scrutiny.
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The US Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) on Friday asked an outside group to review the way the agency monitors safety risks of medicines after they hit the market, such as Merck &amp; Co.
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If the government gets its way, more than a million patients will be operated on by surgeons from the private rather than public health sector.