With patients across the country voicing a growing desire for greater engagement in and control over their medical care, a new study involving patients in Boston, Pennsylvania and Seattle will examine the impact of letting patients see the notes that doctors record during and after their visit. Funded through a $1.4 million grant from the ...

I first heard about Dave deBronkart, aka ''e-patient Dave'' about a year ago when I attended HealthCamp Philadelphia, and I've been following him ever since (literally-the man's all over Twitter). He's one of the most vocal proponents of getting patients more involved in their care, and the folks in Washington have taken notice. He's become a de ...

If my doctor closed up shop, I'd be miffed. If I couldn't get my records on file there, I'd probably say, the heck with ‘em. But as someone who's jumped around to a few docs over the past year, I know how helpful it is to have all your records in one place. Family history? No sweat. Immunization dates? Er, um, I know I got them at some ...

Hundreds of thousands are injured, communications are scant and trauma centers are makeshift, at best. So how are medical records maintained? They're not, according to reports surfacing from Haiti. Eyewitness accounts tell of overrun hospitals resorting to rudimentary record-keeping processes--pieces of paper tacked to beds and bodies, listing ...

Everyone's sick of swine flu (pun not intended, I swear), so apologies in advance for striking up yet another conversation about it, but I couldn't help posting when I heard about post-vaccine monitoring. What? What's that you say? Monitoring? As in data, systems and overall management of what one might call ''health information?'' Surely this ...

I'm what you might call ''doctor phobic.'' I haven't had a check up since 2001, and that was required to get into college. After high school, I moved to the Philadelphia suburbs from quiet nook upstate in a rural area lovingly referred to as the ''Polish Poconos.'' Where I grew up, you knew your doctors. We had one doctor who took care of my mom's ...

How do you, as HIM professionals, shop for doctors? Being in the health care field, HIM professionals have a unique view of how they should be treated as patients and the care they can expect to receive. Jacque Taylor, AHDI-F, one of our Top 10 in HIM, told her story of how she shopped for a new family doc in my interview with her. You can listen ...