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Harnessing information power for your patients and your practice

This week’s show: The I.T. Sword has Two Edges: benefits and Risks of I.T. for neurology

Hear these reports:

Double-edged Sword of I.T.: It’s reaching into physician practices whether they’re ready for it or not. The government’s seeing to that. Is it a ‘brave new world’ for neurology and medicine? One possibly with significant risks and benefits: clinical practice guidelines and electronic medical records. Ninety (90)% of authors of clinical practice guidelines had financial relationships with the pharmaceutical industry (according to JAMA back in 2002). See the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) website.

Will you recommend that your patients put their health records in the hands of Google, Microsoft or Wal-Mart? You may soon be getting requests to do so. See this Newsweek story.

The National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI): This software is available to equip every physician in the US with electronic prescribing software. Created by a coalition of health insurers and software companies, it’s compatible with the software in 99% of the nation’s pharmacies. It’s easy to learn and free of charge. Could there be future privacy and control-related risks with this technology as well?

CaringBridge.org: Patients or their families easily create - for free - their own private website so that family and friends can provide the patients and caregivers with support through guest book messages and photos.

I.T. for Autism: This is a must-see video produced by Amanda Baggs who has autism. We became aware of the video thanks to Wired Magazine. Ms. Baggs might otherwise be considered mute and retarted, if not for technology. She shares amazing insights with us from her valuable and intelligent perspective using her computer and synthetic voice technology from Dynavox. Dr. Mike Merzenich, neuroscientist at UC San Francisco is quoted: the idea that 75 percent of autistic people are mentally retarded is “incredibly wrong and destructive.” Let’s see if many more autistics start ’speaking out’ through information technology.

Next week’s show: It’s the second part of this two-part series on Information Technology for Neurology: new learning enhancements available through I-T, the use of ‘Wikis’ for the establishment of independently developed clinical practice guidelines, and more.