Clinical

The Washington D.C.-based eHealth Initiative (eHI) has unveiled a resource guide, aiming to help cancer patients, their families, caregivers, and support networks better understand what digitals tools and technologies are available to treat and cope with the disease. The Health IT Cancer Resources Guide lists 76 tools ranging from mobile applications to web sites to social networks that aim to improve cancer care.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are proposing changes to the format ofchildren’s electronic health records (EHRs), the two agencies jointly announced.

When Carolyn Clancy, M.D., announced on Jan. 31 that she was leaving the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which she had headed for almost exactly 10 years (she became that agency’s director on Feb. 5, 2003, after previously working at the agency as director of its Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research), it signaled the end of an era.

Healthcare Informatics Assistant Editor Rajiv Leventhal had a chance to speak with Shaun Grannis, M.D., director of the Indiana Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics at the Regenstrief Institute, about how INPC uses surveillance to track data and warn public health officials of outbreaks.

An interdisciplinary team of clinicians, informaticists, and quality experts at NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, Ill., has taken a major step in controlling this disease in its outpatient population, by harnessing its electronic health record (EHR) to screen for and evaluate individuals with previously undetected hypertension in its multi-specialty medical group. The system, which went live in January 2011, has helped the integrated health system make significant progress in eliminating undiagnosed hypertension among its patients receiving care within its primary care network.