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Tales from the front

Few events bring out doctors' already strong desire to help others like a natural catastrophe.

If you provide care to a patient, even if he or she normally sees another physician for such care, you have established a duty to treat that patient and are a potential defendant if something goes wrong. Learn your responsibilities as well as ways to minimize your risk in such situations.

When we see the aftermath of a natural or man-made disaster on television or in newspaper reports, we tend to be overwhelmed by the destruction and human impact and think we have some idea of what it must be like to be there. Or at least that's what the author thought until she saw the devastation firsthand of the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

The increasing use of electronic health records has led to a collaboration between the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO) and the World Health Organization to harmonize WHO classifications with the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine?Clinical Terms maintained and distributed by IHTSDO.

Ninety-four percent of physicians are using smartphones to communicate, manage personal and business workflows, and access medical information, according to a study released by Spyglass Consulting Group.

Even when physicians have access to e-prescribing capabilities, many do not routinely use the technology, particularly the more advanced features the federal government is promoting with financial incentives, according to a new study by the Center for Studying Health System Change.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Food and Drug Administration have announced a joint effort to help ensure that the capabilities of broadband use in healthcare and wireless-enabled medical devices are fully realized.

Sixty-six percent of healthcare providers responding to a recent survey said that certification is a very important element in the process they use to evaluate ambulatory EHRs, but 52 percent erroneously thought that they must purchase an EHR certified by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology to receive stimulus funds to cover the purchase.

Patients are more likely to routinely take inhaled corticosteroids for asthma control when physicians kept close watch over their medication use and reviewed prescription information, according to research.

Doctors and nurses were among 94 people in five cities charged in July for alleged participation in schemes to collectively submit more than $251 million in false claims to Medicare, according to the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services.

Viewpoints: Talk Back

Letters address midlevel usage, malpractice reform and electronic health records.

Less than two months remain for physicians to file a claim for the $350 million settlement reached against UnitedHealth Group and its Ingenix subsidiary for flawed out-of-network reimbursement database.

The United States ranks last overall compared to six other industrialized countries on measures of health system performance in five areas, including quality and efficiency.

Making an offer

How to make an offer at a lesser price than asking price.

Could a multidisciplinary approach to practice be right for you? Chances are you have had more reasons to consider it, as rising costs force primary care practices to look for additional sources of revenue.