New clinics vie to treat men

The New York Times examines a new marketing effort by hospitals to attract men. In the meantime, patient data sharing among medical professionals remains elusive.

The New York Times: With Special Clinics, Hospitals Vie For Hesitant Patients: Men
NYU Langone and other medical institutions have long had services devoted to women, an outgrowth of the belief that the male-dominated medical establishment had not paid enough attention to their particular needs. Now men are beginning to get equal treatment as hospitals try to take advantage of an enormous untapped market: men who, studies show, avoid doctors for virtually anything short of a bullet wound. The new clinics offer one-stop shopping for services ranging from heart monitoring to hair removal to hormone therapy, from the life-prolonging to the life-enhancing, if medically debatable (Hartocollis, 5/28).

Marketplace: Data: The Secret Ingredient In Hospital Cooperation 
If you've got to go to the hospital -- one that's near your home or very far from it -- you'd want your prescriptions, past procedures, and all the rest at your doctor's finger tips. And while sharing that kind of data could reassure consumers and save perhaps as much as $80 billion a year, it remains a fantasy for most patients (Gorenstein, 5/28).