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 ...

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 ...

I have to wonder sometimes--are electronic health records (EHRs) really the way to go? Now, before someone launches a spiel about how they save time, cut costs and improve the patient experience, let me tell you about last night's visit to the dentist. It had been a while since my last exam, and this was a new dentist. As I plopped into the ...

I've been thinking about personal health records (PHRs) lately (probably because of my article on PHRs going live tomorrow), and it somehow brings me to ''Rent.'' I got on a big Broadway musical kick in junior high, and ''Rent'' started it all. I saw the show twice, listened to the soundtrack and even watched the movie, which--big surprise ...

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 ...

For the past few weeks, I've had Michael Jackson's ''Somebody's Watching Me'' stuck in my head. I blame Geico for making it the theme song for its ubiquitous ad campaign. (Seriously, that bug-eyed bundle of money is everywhere.) But today, the ditty popped into my head for good reason. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston is ...