Editor's Note: Health care attorney Patricia King discusses the new rules for hospital subsidies of a physician practice's purchase of electronic medical records (EMR) software.

Under new rules, hospitals can help medical staff members acquire EMRs

Physician adoption of electronic medical records (EMR) continues to lag, in spite of sustained encouragement for EMR adoption from the government and private payers. One reason may be that physicians simply can’t afford the investment. Not only is a steep cash outlay required, but also the practice’s productivity may take an initial hit as physicians and staff adapt to electronic systems. Since the return on this investment is difficult to predict, it’s not surprising that physicians balk at incurring these costs.

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Editor's Note: Video is rapidly becoming a preferred medium for patient education. We've asked eMedTV, a leader in patient education through online video, to explain why this medium is growing so quickly in the health field. 

Example video from the eMedTV library: Treatments for Heart Disease

A noted challenge facing today’s physicians is communicating to their patients the medical intricacies involved with their condition and prescribed treatment.  Between the time constraints and potential language barriers, it can be an almost insurmountable task.

Adding to the inherent difficulty of this task is the amount of misinformation so readily available on the Internet today.  In search of answers, patients may find themselves reading blogs and non-medically reviewed articles where the author is not identified, nor is he or she a professional or accredited authority on the subject.

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When it comes to treating heart attacks, pneumonia, surgery and other emergencies, you want to find the best medical care available.

To help you make these decisions, visit the NetDoc.com Hospital Ratings tool and enter your ZIP code to see how hospitals in your neighborhood rank on benchmarks set out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in four categories: Heart Attack, Heart Failure, Pneumonia and Surgical Care Improvement/Surgical Infection Prevention.

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Rumor has it that Google is entering the EMR business.

Rumor also has Microsoft entering the EMR business.

Well, not really rumor, but the New York Times.

Putting the patient in control of their own medical records through digital media and distant storage seems a daunting task. Certainly unthinkable for a bureaucracy the size of the US government, but perhaps the whiz kids at GOOG and MSFT can get it right.

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