The Week in Review - March 26, 2009

A look back at some of the best news stories (and some entertaining diversions) from the week in health care.
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"The number of medically disenfranchised has reached 60 million" according to a report from the National Association of Community Health Centers.

David Blumenthal, the new National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, weighs in on stimulating the adoption of health information technology. John Glaser will join David Blumenthal as an ONC advisor for 6 months, while retaining his role at Partners Healthcare.

Dr. Ashish Jha talks about the conversion to electronic medical records in this NPR interview. He found that "comprehensive" EHR systems are used by only 1.5% of hospitals and only 7.6% of hospitals have a "basic" EHR.

The California HealthCare Foundation releases a report on patient registration kiosks delivering value and increased patient satisfaction. Yet they are adopted by less than 10% of healthcare organizations.

Drs. Bates, Halamka and Middleton make the case for the effectiveness of healthcare technology.

Will IT Save Healthcare? on National Public Radio's "To the Point".

Can technology enable patients to be better advocates for their own care? The Wall Street Journal reports on how patients use "information therapy".

CCHIT plans to accelerate advanced technology certification programs in Clinical Decision Support, Interoperability, Quality and Security in order to better align with the objectives in the ARRA stimulus package.