83% of physicians practicing "defensive medicine"

This is nothing new. We all know that many physicians practice defensive medicine. In fact, it's one of the major reasons why they want to leave medicine.  However, it's interesting to think about "defensive medicine" as we're all talking about health care reform. Here's a snippet from Harvard Business Review (based on data from the Massachusetts Medical Society):

83% of physicians in a survey acknowledge practicing "defensive" medicine, ordering excessive tests and procedures to avert lawsuits, according to the Massachusetts Medical Society. The study also shows that 13% of hospitalizations are ordered for defensive reasons. Defensive medicine is often cited as a major reason why health care costs are high in the United States.

You can read the full report here.

A pregnant woman in Mass was killed and her baby is missing

This is really a disturbing story, but perhaps there is an opportunity to leverage social media (like Twitter and Blogs) to help with this medically-related criminal case. According to this story on CNN, a pregnant woman (Darlene Haynes) living in Worcester was killed and her 8-month-old fetus was taken out of her body. Police say the missing infant could survive, but would need immediate medical attention. Anyone with information on the case or the whereabouts of the baby is urged to call Worcester detectives at 508-799-8651. More details can be found on Boston.com

e-prescribing in Massachusetts

Boston has several different medical schools and affiliated hospitals. Can you name all of them? You have Harvard, Boston University, and Tufts (the UMass medical school is in Amherst). Is it any surprise that Massachusetts has been named the top e-prescribing state for the second year in a row by Surescripts? According to Surescripts, prescribers in Massachusetts sent more than 6.7 million prescriptions electronically in 2008, representing 20.5 percent of all eligible prescriptions in the state. That number is only going to increase because of ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Here's some more interesting info from Healthcare IT News:

Top 10 e-prescribing states

1. Massachusetts
2. Rhode Island
3. Michigan
4. Nevada
5. Delaware
6. North Carolina
7. Pennsylvania
8. Connecticut
9. Maine
10. Arizona

The top five most improved states:

1. Vermont
2. Tennessee
3. Kansas
4. Illinois
5. Missouri

Is your state on any of these lists? It's going to be very interesting to see all the changes that occur as President Obama channels money to improve the utilization of e-prescribing.

Incentives to Boost Health IT Adoption in Massachusetts

The state of Massachusetts has seen an impressive uptake of health IT because of incentives from health plans and a state-mandated deadline to have computerized physician order entry (CPOE) implemented in all hospitals within four years. Plus, with all those medical universities like Harvard, Tufts, Boston University, and U Mass Amherst, you have a state with a huge resource of technologists and scientists developing EHRs that are tailored for their health systems.

Massachusetts Officially Bans Industry Gifts to Physicians

Have you noticed that there will be fewer and fewer major medical meetings in Boston? Boston used to be one of the major hubs for national association and society meetings and symposium events. This includes CME (continuing medical education) events. Now, major medical groups are shifting gears and looking for other cities. Why? Well, part of it may be related to this new ban in the state of Massachusetts. According to the Boston Globe, drug companies will have to disclose payments to doctors and hospitals for research designed to promote a particular product, sometimes called "seeding trials"; funding for research aimed at answering a scientific question will still not have to be disclosed. In the MS Word document titled, "Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Manufacturer Conduct Regulations," you can see the changes in Track Changes (if you have MS Word).