Doctors' move to electronic records requires serious commitment

Several news organization look at recent efforts by health providers to use new technology.

Minnesota Public Radio: Promise And Problems Arise As Health Arise Health Records Go Online
The federal stimulus and health care laws are pushing medical providers to go electronic as a way to improve patient safety and track health care quality. ... But moving away from paper files to an electronic health record system requires serious commitment on several levels. First, they're expensive. ... Second, the learning curve can be painful (Stawicki, 6/6). 

The Baltimore Sun: 1,000 Doctors Sign Up For Electronic Medical Records
More than 1,000 Maryland doctors have signed up to adopt electronic medical records, state officials said today. The primary care physicians are using records through a state network called the Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP). They will receive state and federal incentives for using the computerized records. Hundreds of other doctors are also using electronic records but may not have signed onto the state exchange (Walker, 6/6). 

HealthyCal: Telehealth: "The Doctor Is In … Another City"
A decade of advances in telehealth have improved patient outcomes in underserved California counties, but continued promise of reducing the state's wide health disparities depends on overcoming several financial, policy, and technical hurdles. Once strictly termed telemedicine, today's expansive definition of telehealth includes a variety of distance services: video conferencing with a specialist, home monitoring of acute or chronic disease, or collecting remote health data like x-rays or dermatology photographs for review by a specialist. ... Escalating healthcare costs, an aging population, rapid increases in chronic disease, and dwindling access to healthcare in underserved urban and rural areas have necessitated a speedier adoption of telehealth (Perry, 6/6).