New Treatment to Be Introduced by Researches That Could Give Weeks of Glucose Control For Type 2 Diabetes Patients

To control their blood sugar levels, type 2 diabetes patients constantly require relying on medication, but it is a tricky condition to handle, specifically if you require daily insulin shots.
Researchers have been working on a latest method for delivering diabetes drugs to make them last longer in the body. Now a recent research using both mice and monkeys has indicated potential for treatments that would just need a couple of injections a month.
Few of the latest-generation type 2 diabetes drugs consist of a molecule called GLP1 (glucagon-like peptide-1), which stimulates insulin production in the body just when it requires more glucose.
That sounds ideal, but regrettably, GLP1 has a actually short half-life - it breaks down in the body quickly, making it an impractical long-term treatment on its own.
By combining it with other molecules, it is possible to extend the half-life of GLP1. But that method yet merely gets us to about 3-7 days.
Right now, sufferers in the US already have few options that can be injected weekly, but scientists are searching for a way to slow down the release of the drug itself.
Now a team from Duke University has managed to combine GLP1 with a biopolymer molecule that begins out as a liquid in colder temperatures, but thickens into a gel-like substance in reaction to body heat.
This means the solution can be managed with a simple injection, but once it gets into the body, the drug is released very slowly, so it can control blood glucose levels for longer with merely one dose.
To test how their new solution would work for actual diabetes treatment, the researchers tested the drug in both mice and in rhesus monkeys - 2 species with well-established diabetes models.
They got exciting outcomes in both: in mice, the new GLP1 solution controlled glucose levels for ten days after merely one injection; in monkeys, whose metabolism is slower, the effects lasted up to seventeen days.
More than 2 weeks for one injection is better than any diabetes drug presently on the market.
The team considers that because human metabolism is even slower than in monkeys, theoretically the drug could last longer in individuals, perhaps needing just one injection a month.
"Preclinical information presents compelling proof that this construct would need no more than 2 injections a month for humans, and possibly as few as one per month, particularly given the dose-stacking potential of this system," the researchers write in the paper.
The team considers their new approach to 'trapping' GLP1 in the gel-like substance could be applied to other types of medication, too.
Of course, it is significant to note that so far the method has only worked in animal studies, and scientists will require doing more research to see how the principles would translate to human use.
GLP1-based medications are presently not the first-line treatment for people with type 2 diabetes, but this sounds like an exciting step towards making diabetes management simpler for many.
The study was released in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Healthcare and pharma least ready for external cyber risks

Just 16% of healthcare and pharmaceutical agencies have a formal procedure for checking the Internet and social media for external cyber risks.

Additionally, just 26% of respondents in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry consider they have the devices and resources to observe and understand external dangers; 29% say they have the devices and resources to reduce such threats; and 34% claims that they’ve the tools and resources to monitor these dangers.

Those are among the findings of a latest survey taken by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by cybersecurity vendor BrandProtect. Particularly, respondents were surveyed about external cyber risks—those that arise outside an agency’s conventional firewall and security perimeter, and utilize online channels and utilize email, mobile apps, social media, or domains as their key attack technology.

“When it comes to the real capability of agencies to have the tools and resources essential to monitor, observe, and reduce these external threats, sadly healthcare trailed in every category,” claims Greg Mancusi-Ungaro, chief marketing officer at BrandProtect. “However there is awareness of this problem, the security teams across the healthcare industry are demonstrating they are behind the curve.”

The 591 information technology and IT security practitioners in the US surveyed were drawn from 6 industries—health and pharma, industrial and manufacturing, financial services, public sector, services and retail—to evaluate differences in preparedness for addressing the external cyber dangers.

In accordance to the findings, the financial services industry is most ready to monitor and mitigate external risks, and is most likely to have a formal monitoring procedure. Instances of external risks involve malware or other payloads; socially engineered attacks; brand-based attacks with ransomware, executive impersonations; rogue social domain activity; hactivism/activism; and activities that breach agreement or regulatory needs.

The frequency of these external threats and their financial prices for industry are important. Survey respondents reported that they experienced an average of 32 material cyber threats during the last 24 months, or moderately more than 1 per month, costing them an average of $3.5 million yearly.

“What this report calls attention to is the chance to genuinely become a tougher target by paying attention to these types of probing-style external threats,” summarizes Mancusi-Ungaro. “These attacks do not merely happen overnight. They are the outcome of a long procedure of reconnaissance, investigation, planning, and external task.”

Nonprofit Agencies Lead Way in Hospital Revenue Cycle

Hospital revenue cycles for nonprofit health agencies were powerful as 7 of the top-10 most profitable facilities were classified as nonprofit.

Profits in hospital revenue cycles for nonprofit health agencies were strong in the year 2013. That year, 7 of the top 10 most profitable hospitals in the US were nonprofit facilities, in accordance to a recent Health Affairs study. Each of the top performers netted more than $150 million from caring for sufferers.

45% of the 3,000 hospitals in the study were profitable, with 2.5% earning more than $2,475 per adjusted discharge, Health Affairs stated,

At the top of this list was the non-profit Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, which raked in $302.5 million in profit (or $4,241 per sufferer) from patient care services. Sutter Medical Center, which is located in Sacramento, California, came in 2^nd place by earning $271.9 million. Other non-profit top performers included Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California, which earned almost $225 million and University of Pennsylvania’s hospital in Philadelphia, which earned $184.5 million in the year 2013.

A top performing for-profit hospital was Medical City Dallas Hospital in Dallas, Texas. This hospital had a profit of about $210.3 million in the year 2013.

The country's greatest health-insurance company is almost completely quitting Obamacare

The country's greatest healthcare company is getting out of the Obamacare business.

United Healthcare, which presently covers the most Americans in the US (pending the proposed Anthem-Cigna merger), stated that in its quarterly earnings release on the day of Tuesday that it is removing its offerings from almost all Affordable Care Act exchanges by the year 2017.

"The smaller overall market size and shorter-term higher risk profile within this market segment sustain to suggest we can’t broadly serve it on an effective and sustained basis," claimed CEO Stephen Hemsley in the company's quarterly earnings conference call.

US Personal Accident and Health Insurance Market 2016-2019 - Research and Markets

DUBLIN – Research and Markets has declared the addition of the "Personal Accident and Health Insurance in the US, Key Trends and Opportunities to the year 2019" report to their offering.

The 'Personal Accident and Health Insurance in the US, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2019' report offers comprehensive analysis of the market trends, drivers, challenges in the US personal accident and health insurance segment.

It offers key performance indicators like written premium, incurred loss, loss ratio, commissions and expenses, combined ratio, total assets, total investment income and retentions during the review time (2010-2014) and forecast period (2014-2019).

The report also observes distribution channels operating in the segment, provides a detailed overview of the US economy and demographics, and offers detailed data on the competitive landscape in the country.

New website assists sufferers comparison shop for health care

Risa Lavizzo-Mourey required cataract surgery in late year 2014 and needed to know how much the routine process would cost. Her doctor and his billing office didn’t know, and she never got the answer.

“Could there be a clearer instance of the deficiency of transparency in the US health care systems?” she inquired in her blog.

Lavizzo-Mourey was not just anyone wondering what a good price would be for her medical procedure. She is chief executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which bills itself as the nation’s greatest philanthropy dedicated solely to health — and transparency in medical pricing.

Lavizzo-Mourey’s frustration is shared by millions of clients who are trying to shop for lower costs for medical tests, procedures, doctor visits, surgeries, and hospital services. But that is changing with the emergence of websites where clients can see a range of prices and contributors for medical procedures and tests.

Saveonmedical.com, an advertising-supported website and the only one presently operating in Massachusetts, provides limited comparison shopping for common procedures and tests because the only prices shown are from providers who bought ads on the site.

Obama cautioned by the China against undermining ‘national security’ interests

China has cautioned the US that it will secure its sovereignty in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and denies efforts to use international laws and freedom of navigation as a pretext to undermine its national security interests.

In a meeting with US President Barack Obama at the 4^th Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping said that while he considers in the peaceful resolution of disputes through direct talks, China will take steps to secure its national interests and sovereignty.

“China will firmly protect the sovereignty and regarded rights in the South China Sea,” Xi stated in a meeting.”

While appreciating that Beijing “respects and protects the freedom of navigation and overflight other countries are entitled to under international law,” Xi emphasized that China will “not agree to any freedom of navigation as an excuse to undermine China’s sovereignty and national security interests.”

Dramatic Health Care Reform Is Essential for Social Welfare System

I noted initially that I consider single-payer healthcare would be a clever way to make out a nice welfare state. My argument was that our present system is so worse that it has driven health care costs to incredibly high levels. Transitioning to a single-payer system would thus need a large upfront tax hike. But then, as cost reductions slowly kick in, government expenditures on the program would steadily recede. This would gradually free up the revenue from the upfront tax hike for other important welfare benefits that we are presently missing, like child care benefits.

In addition to this Trojan Horse point, it is also significant to remember that dramatic health care reform is necessary to the successful operation of unemployment, leave, and disability benefits. Particularly, those benefits will not operate very smoothly for as long as employer-provided health insurance is the norm.

When you become unemployed, disabled, or take leave (e.g. to care for a newborn child), you are no longer working, but you yet require access to health care. If your health care initially came from your employer, this reality makes an incredible headache. In these cases, you either have to 1) need the employer to shoulder the health care costs even though the individual no longer works for them, 2) shift the cost of health care on to the individual whose loss of income makes it complex for them to shoulder, or 3) put the individual onto a different (public or subsidized) health care plan even though they may only be out of work for a few weeks.

Indeed, you observe all 3 of these approaches in play right now in the US system.

Wearable Technology Takes Target At Healthcare Prices

WASHINGTON:  Stroll around the office or neighborhood 6 times a day, and earns $1.50 toward your health insurance. Step up activity a bit more and bring the total to $1,400 yearly.

The catch: you require wearing a special activity tracker that monitors steps taken, "intensity" levels and other physical indicators.

That is the offer in a latest insurance product marketed by UnitedHealthcare, the 2^nd-largest US health insurer, one of many programs targeted at boosting physical fitness and decreasing health insurance costs for employers and workers.

"One of the largest challenges we have is how to incentivize and motivate individuals to be accountable for their own heath and well-being," stated by Steve Beecy of UnitedHealthcare.
He called the Trio Tracker device, launched with technology partner Qualcomm, "a game-changer."

Across the US, employers are stepping up the use of technology in "wellness" programs that encourage healthier lifestyles.

Why Healthcare Should Agree to Information Security on Mobile?

In the year 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, was enacted in case to combat the increase in healthcare-regarded security attacks - studies uncovered that  80 percent of executives at healthcare contributors and insurers have been hit by a cyber-attack, while the healthcare industry in general is 200 percent more likely to suffer from an attack than other regions.

This is because protected health information (PHI), which involves social security numbers, dates of birth and medical record data is worth far more on the black market than other forms of personal data. Clearly, these numbers are concerning. Thus, in an effort to decrease the rate of future security violations, HIPAA needs that healthcare providers and agencies implement compliance regulations so that PHI sustains to be confidential and secure.

In many hospitals, executives abiding by HIPAA forbid their staff from utilizing SMS to communicate with each other because they cannot be certain that the PHI their staff sends and receives is encrypted and safe from malicious third-parties. In accordance with this logic, then, the next best solution is to depend solely on outdated, seemingly risk-free technologies like pagers and fax machines.

It is obvious then that there is a requirement for speed in terms of gathering and sharing data among hospital staff. In facilitating communications, like making it easier to seek out second opinions and conduct clinical discussions, not only will hospitals save billions of dollars in wasted inefficiencies, but their doctors will also be capable to spend more time with sufferers, make better their general care giving, solve issues, diagnose quicker, and discharge patients in a timely manner.

This is not to say that HIPAA should be eliminated – it is essential to maintaining the security of healthcare organizations across the US. Rather, healthcare organizations must work within the existing parameters and adapt their communication methods accordingly. For instance, instead of banning mobile devices and only concentrating on regulating their data servers, as most hospitals do, healthcare agencies ought to find ways to protect mobile devices and data-in-transit.

Global Home Healthcare Market to Account for $303.60 B by the year 2020 With North America at Forefront

Transparency Market Research has issued a new report on the global home healthcare market. As per the report, the global home healthcare market is assumed to progress from US$176.1 bn in the year 2013 to US$303.6 bn by the year 2020. The report, titled 'Global Home Healthcare Market - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014 - 2020', states that the global home healthcare market is hoped to expand at an 8.10% CAGR during the period between 2014 and 2020.
The rising prevalence of chronic diseases is hoped to result in an increase in the uptake of household medical services and medical devices. Technological advancements are assumed to increase the adoption of household medical devices in the years to come. The changing demographic profile supports acceptance of household medical devices and services. However the high cost of household medical devices is hoped to limit the growth of the global home healthcare market, availability of several options is predicted to propel the global home healthcare market in the years to come. Acquisitions and mergers by the leading players are also anticipated to make growth opportunities for the global home healthcare market in the years to come.

Persons suffering from brain injury may lose health insurance

People who suffer traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are more likely to lose or alter their private health insurance coverage merely when they require it most, in accordance to a recent US analysis.

Examining a 3-year period, researchers also discovered that the more severe the brain injury, the quicker persons lost or saw changes in their health coverage.

Most subjects gained health insurance through their jobs, so any change in coverage was likely because of changes in their employment, say the authors of the research letter in JAMA Surgery.

“Individuals who were the primary policy holder might have lost coverage because they were not able to sustain in their job and became unemployed/uninsured,” co- author Eric Schneider of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston told Reuters Health by email.

Telehealth Could Give Over $6B in Healthcare Savings Annually

The global adoption of telehealth technologies will possibly permit governments to make substantial savings on healthcare, while delivering significant medical services to both rural and under-served communities, in accordance to business intelligence provider GBI Research.

The company’s recent report* states that the telehealth market is being driven by the accelerated development of mobile technology and applications, a greater requirement for cost-effective healthcare, growing populations, and increased government funding.

Rishikesh Mandilwar and Rodrigo Gutierrez Gamboa, Managing Analysts at GBI Research and co-authors of the report, state that telehealth is explained as the delivery of healthcare or data at a distance through technology, and involves services like assessment, monitoring, communications, disease prevention, and education. The Insurance Journal estimates that it could possibly give over $6 billion a year in healthcare savings in the US if the technology is extremely adopted.

1st US uterus transplant is victorious

The 1^st US uterus transplant was conducted this week by a group of surgeons at Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio. A beneficial uterus from a deceased organ donor was transplanted during a nine-hour process into a 26-year-old lady who was born without a uterus. The recipient is in a stable condition.

Uterine factor infertility is an irreversible case in which a lady is either born without a uterus or has a uterus that has sustained critical damage that stops pregnancy. It affects 3‑5 percent of ladies worldwide and, until now, females so affected were not capable to carry their own offspring and had to utilize the adoption or surrogacy to begin a family.

Uterine transplants have been completed victoriously at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. So far 9 uteruses have been transplanted from live post-menopausal donors. Four of the recipient women have given birth to healthy babies, and more babies are due. 2 of the transplants failed.

Budget 2016: Healthcare can’t wait anymore, Mr Jaitley; healthy India can hasten the wealthy India

The Indian Health care industry is progressing at a rapid pace and is hoped to become a US $280 billion industry by the year 2020. Even so, approximately 1 million Indians die each year because of inadequate healthcare services and close to 700 million persons have no approach to specialist care.

There are broad gaps between the rural and urban population in its health care system. A staggering 70% of the population still lives in rural places and has no or limited access to hospitals and clinics. Around 80% of specialists live in urban places.

Improvement in health care infrastructure and services and ease of access to them is the mere way India can fight against the fatal diseases. For that to happen, government spending on healthcare must go up. Although, the state of affairs, as they are now, is not very motivating.

Genuine Chose by Leading Healthcare Solutions Contributor ikaSystems

Genuine, a full-service digital-1^st agency, confirmed today it has added to its client roster ikaSystems, the premier contributor of enterprise, cloud-based business procedure and automation solutions for payers.

Deployed in Southborough, MA, ikaSystems delivers solutions that transform how health policies conduct commercial, Medicare, Medicaid, and ACO business. Genuine was involved to manage digital strategy, creative and website development responsibilities for the company.

Serving payers since the year 1999, ikaSystems' solutions deliver flexibility and high levels of service. Its consumers are situated across the US and involve payers of all kinds and sizes representing few 28 million covered lives. The company's solutions automate key procedures for sales, marketing, regulatory compliance, claims administration, customer service, quality management and revenue optimization.

Healthcare data breaches lead more sufferers to withhold data from doctors

As the year 2015 slides into the cybersecurity history books as “the year of the healthcare breach” I chose to examine 1 aspect of medical information privacy that is sometimes overlooked: the effect of breaches on patient-doctor data exchange. Particularly, I am concerned that high profile healthcare-related Information Technology security violation may lead more persons to withhold sensitive data from their doctor because of fears that it will be exposed because of weak privacy protection or weak security controls.

That such fears exist is all too obvious and clear when you talk to persons about the huge healthcare data breaches of 2015, the 6 largest of which compromised more than 100 million records. I have spoken to several people whose information was exposed in those attacks and who subsequently experienced 1 or more forms of attempted identity theft.

Of course, it is difficult to get direct evidence that ties a particular violation of your data to a particular instance of identity theft. But if the theft comes soon after a violation at Company A, of which you are a consumer, you will probably suspect that specific violation is the cause of your issue. When an entire string of breaches occur in a short span of time, there is plenty of blame to go around. Even if you are Company A and you are certain that your violation did not result in ID theft, you may get blamed anyway.

The Withholding Issue

The requirement for doctors to keep patient data confidential is as old as the practice of medicine itself. (In the genuine version of Hippocratic Oath a doctor would vow to hold sufferer data “sacred and secret within my own breast”.) Simply put, doctors can’t offer safe and effective care to sufferers if those sufferers do not share with them all of the relevant data. Of course, there are various reasons why a person might select not to tell their doctor everything. Few reasons predate computers and are as old as society itself, involving shame, embarrassment, and fear of censure.

Although, fears about unauthorized approach to, and abuse of, electronically stored personal health data were voiced as soon as database technologies started to emerge in the latter half of the last century. In fact, the US government agency that was then called as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) prompted few of the 1^st critical thinking about the effect of computer databases on society. A 1973 document commissioned by that agency and subsequently called as the HEW Report, examined the numerous fears raised by the increasing growing computerization of personal data.

US Physicians Suffer More Burnout Than Other Workers

August 22, 2012 — Physicians in the United States suffer from more burnout than other workers in the United States, new research shows.

A national survey of more than 7000 US physicians reveals that close to one half report having at least 1 symptom of burnout.

"The fact that almost 1 in 2 US physicians has symptoms of burnout implies that the origins of this problem are rooted in the environment and care delivery system rather than in the personal characteristics of a few susceptible individuals.

"Policy makers and health care organizations must address the problem of physician burnout for the sake of physicians and their patients," the authors, led by Tait D. Shanafelt, MD, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, write.

The survey findings were published online August 20 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

First National Study

Extensive data on physician burnout have been published, but to the investigators' knowledge, no national study has yet evaluated rates of burnout among US physicians or explored differences in burnout by specialty.

Burnout among US physicians has also not been previously compared with burnout among US workers in other fields. Dr. Shanafelt and colleagues therefore conducted a national study of burnout among physicians from all specialties using the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile.

Responses from 7288 physicians were compared with those of a sample of 3442 working adults from the general population.

As assessed by the Maslach Burnout Inventory, 37.9% of surveyed physicians exhibited high levels of emotional exhaustion, and 29.4% showed evidence of a high level of depersonalization. In addition, 12.4% had a low sense of personal accomplishment.

Taken together, investigators found that 45.8% of physicians were experiencing at least 1 symptom of burnout, based on a high emotional exhaustion score or a high depersonalization score. More than 6000 of the physicians surveyed were also compared with 3442 control participants who were working in the United States but not as physicians.

On burnout measures, physicians were more likely to have signs of emotional exhaustion compared with population control participants (32.1% vs 23.5%), depersonalization (19.4% vs 15%), and overall burnout (37.9% vs 27.8%; P < .001 for all comparisons).

Comparison of Employed MDs and Employed US Population

	Physicians(n = 6179)	Population Control Participants (n = 3442)
Emotional exhaustion: high score	32.1%	23.5% (P < .001)
Depersonalization: high score	19.4%	15% (P < .001)
Burned out	37.9%	27.8% (P < .001)
Satisfaction with work-life balance ("work schedule does not leave enough time for my personal or family life")	40.1%	23.1% (P < .001)

Burnout by Specialty

"Substantial" differences in burnout were also observed among different specialties.

Burnout rates were highest among physicians on the front line of care access, including family medicine, general internal medicine, and emergency medicine. It was lowest among pathologists, dermatologists, general pediatricians, and those practicing preventive medicine.

Differences between specialties were also documented with regard to satisfaction with work-life balance. Again, those practicing dermatology, general pediatrics, and preventive medicine had the highest rates for satisfaction with work-life balance, whereas those practicing general surgery, general surgery subspecialties, and obstetrics/gynecology had the lowest rates.

Dissatisfaction with work-life balance was also slightly higher among female physicians than among their male counterparts, whereas it was similar for men and women among control participants in the US population. Unlike fields outside of medicine, in which higher levels of education and professional degrees seem to reduce the risk for burnout, having a degree in medicine increased the risk, the investigators add.

On multivariate analysis, the number of hours worked per week was associated with a higher probability of burnout, whereas being older and being married were both significantly associated with a lower overall risk.

"Burnout can have serious personal repercussions for physicians," investigators observe. "When considered with the mounting evidence that physician burnout adversely affects quality of care, these findings suggest a highly prevalent and systemic problem threatening the foundation of the US medical care system."

Funding for the study was provided by the American Medical Association and by the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-Being. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

Arch Intern Med. Published online August 20, 2012. Full article

Board Certification Varies With Demographics, Education

September 6, 2011 — Specific demographic and educational factors are associated with board certification of physicians. These include race and education debt, according to a study published in the September 7 issue of JAMA.

Certification by an American Board of Medical Specialties member board is an important credential, and it is becoming increasingly common. Previous studies have shown better outcomes in patients who are in the care of board-certified physicians, and health maintenance organizations, hospitals, and insurance plans use board certification as an evaluation tool for physicians.

Donna B. Jeffe, PhD, and Dorothy A. Andriole, MD, both from Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri, investigated how demographic, medical school, and graduate medical education were associated with American Board of Medical Specialties board certification. They conducted a retrospective study of a national cohort of 42,440 medical students who graduated from US medical schools between 1997 and 2000. Participants were followed up through March 2, 2009.

Of the participants, 37,054 (87.3%) were board certified. The researchers found that board certification was associated with first-attempt passing scores in the highest tertile (compared with those who failed on the first attempt) on US Medical Licensing Examination Step 2 Clinical Knowledge. This trend held true in all physician categories. The lowest adjusted odds ratio (AOR) was found in emergency medicine (87.4% vs 73.6%; AOR, 1.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03 - 3.20). The highest was found for radiology (98.1% vs 74.9%; AOR, 13.19; 95% CI, 5.55 - 31.32).

Participants who self-identified as underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities had a lower likelihood of being board-certified — a trend that held for every physician category except family medicine. The percentage in pediatrics was 83.5% (vs 95.6% of whites; AOR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.33 - 0.58). In other nongeneralist specialties, the percentage was 71.5% (vs 83.7% in whites; AOR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.64 - 0.96).

Increased debt also had an effect. Among obstetrics/gynecology specialists, every $50,000 stepped increase in debt was associated with a lower likelihood of board certification (AOR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.83 - 0.96) compared with those who had no debt. The reverse was true among family medicine specialists (ie, family practitioners with higher educational debt were more likely to be board certified; AOR, 1.13; 95% CI, 1.01 - 1.26).

The authors noted that the observational nature of the study makes it impossible to assign causal associations, and longer follow-up times may increase the rates of board certification. The results also cannot be applied to osteopathic physicians or students at international medical schools.

"Nevertheless, our findings can inform an understanding of factors contributing to US medical school graduates' advancement along the medical education continuum to board certification, an outcome of interest for medical school graduates, their patients, and the relevant professional organizations involved in undergraduate medical education, [graduate medical education], and board certification," the authors write.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The authors received travel funds from the National Institutes of Health for meeting attendance. One author received an honorarium and travel reimbursement from the University of Cincinnati supporting a lecture on MD-PhD programs and their graduates.

JAMA. 2011;306:961-970.

EHR Adoption

The biggest challenge to adopt technology to provide patient care.

By: Atif G. Memon
Healthcare IT Consultant

Adopting a technology is never been so easy for any of the industry. With the advancement of today’s world 2010 played a vital role. US healthcare market made a remarkable achievement while making lots of problems for those who are not aware with this technology. In this regards, I made a survey “EMR VS EHR”, in order to gain the knowledge from healthcare providers and IT professionals. I was amazed that instead of such a huge advancement in the market, there is no any proper reason to adopt EMR technology. Some of the providers want EMR because of the incentives; some of them want to avoid any penalty by the Government. On the other hand EMR vendors are making such technology which is based on complicated system, making lots of problems for those caregivers who are already unaware about this system. In last months of 2010, there were conducted lots of seminars, webinars and conferences to understand the use of EMR but it never been into the right direction. While being into the market, I always use to find a solution and try to make ideas that how to make providers to facilitate in adoption of EMR, while they understand it to use. An EMR should be a self-dependent, that don’t need any further EMR Experts to use it. EMR should also be used as a secure asset of patient information that should only be shared between Caregiver and patient. I would prefer that if Healthcare IT Professionals works to minimize the complexity of EMR rather than making a hybrid solution, which would be easier to adopt for the providers. This will not only be helpful for the Industry but also for Caregivers to adopt this Technology.

Statistics

According to research at Navinet, Inc. Statistics is given below for Barriers to EMR Adoption.

                                                                2009                       2010

We do not need it                                21%                       27%

Cost                                                        41%                       49%

It cannot integrate into our             7%                         13%

existing system

Our workflow does not support      9%                        20%

EMR implementation

Do not see ROI for our office         16%                       26%

Our Physician is not ready to         N/A                         46%

pursue