Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Fast Access to Records Helps Fight Epidemics



More than one-third of the nation’s 5,000 acute care hospitals now use electronic medical records, and the share of primary care doctors using them has doubled to 40 percent in the last two years, said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the Obama administration’s national coordinator for health information technology.
The technology’s spread is helping “officials faced with events of public health significance to know sooner, act faster and manage better,” said Dr. Seth Foldy, a senior adviser to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In February, public health officials in Michigan noted an increase in electronic reports from clinical laboratories indicating E. coli cases in several counties. Eleven patients were identified, including six who were hospitalized.        

No comments: