Health Information Technology Basics (California Nurses Association) – Cautionary, and interesting take on Electronic Health Records, from the California Nurses Association: "RNs have to work collectively to control health information technology rather than trying to fix it. It’s important to recognize that tinkering can’t fix HIT because its primary purpose is to mechanize, or routinize, patient care. It’s designed to quantify the unquantifiable, to replace the patient with an imaginary statistical norm. High-quality healthcare can’t be mechanized because it depends on people—on patients and caregivers—and people are infinitely more complex and capable than computers can ever be."
FTC Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials
FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials –
I have been studying this carefully (at the link above). Here’s the “blogging” example from the document:
Example 8: A consumer who regularly purchases a particular brand of dog food decides one day to purchase a new, more expensive brand made by the same manufacturer. She writes in her personal blog that the change in diet has made her dog’s fur noticeably softer and shinier, and that in her opinion, the new food definitely is worth the extra money. This posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides. Assume that the consumer gets it for free because the store routinely tracks her purchases and its computer has generated a coupon for a free trial bag of this new brand. Again, her posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides. Assume now that the consumer joins a network marketing program under which she periodically receives various products about which she can write reviews if she wants to do so. If she receives a free bag of the new dog food through this program, her positive review would be considered an endorsement under the Guides.
What I don’t understand is how this impacts physicians or care providers who may blog/tweet about the care they provide within practices or health systems – i.e. they are not being paid specifically to blog or tweet, but are doing so within the context of their employment. I assume that disclosing the employment relationship fulfills the requirement, which is designed to help people evaluate the information critically.
If anyone has looked at this in the context of health care, please feel free to add your comments below.
My employment relationship and statements of independence and conflict of interest are on my About page. In addition, I typically tag posts that are relevant to my employer. Feedback always accepted if these are not clear or could be improved.
2008 Community Benefit Report – Kaiser Permanente
- http://info.kp.org/communitybenefit/assets/pdf/about_us/global/08CBBR_v15_lores_spread_forWeb.pdf – 2008 Community Benefit Report, for Kaiser Permanente: “Our community benefit expenditures in 2008 totaled nearly $1.18 billion, an increase of approximately 12 percent over 2007, and of $1.5 billion.”
Group Health Cooperative: Reinventing Primary Care by Connecting Patients with a Medical Home
- Group Health Cooperative: Reinventing Primary Care by Connecting Patients with a Medical Home – Report from Commonwealth Fund on Group Health Medical Home
Design Guidance — Displaying Graphs and Tables.pdf (application/pdf Object)
- Design Guidance — Displaying Graphs and Tables.pdf (application/pdf Object) – Nice set of requirements on visual display of information in electronic health records.
