Most Wired

News Bytes

Patients Want Online Access to Radiology Results, Study Finds

A study by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine suggests that many patients are dissatisfied with the way they receive results of radiology tests and want more access to information, specifically, detailed, lay-language results online. "The classic, most common story we heard was that the patient went to her doctor for a symptom such as pain, was sent for an MRI and then heard nothing until their next regular doctor's appointment," says Annette J. Johnson, M.D., lead investigator on the study. "Then, when the patient asked what the MRI showed, her doctor gave a generic answer—'Everything was fine.' The patients in our study said that they don't want to hear 'fine' weeks after the test. They want to know details and they want to know them as soon as the results are in." The study was published in November in the Journal of the American College of Radiology. —Visit www.jacr.org.

Hospitals with High Number of Poor Patients Face Digital Divide

Hospitals that serve a disproportionately large share of poor patients lag behind other hospitals in adopting electronic health records, leading to a digital divide that could exacerbate health care disparities, according to a report in the Web edition of Health Affairs. Researchers found that lack of capital remains a large barrier to embracing digital recordkeeping, and that unless enough federal dollars flow to these institutions, they will have a difficult time catching up. The study, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the federal government's Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, was conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital and George Washington University. —Visit www.healthaffairs.org.

This article 1st appeared in the December 2009 issue of HHN Magazine.

To respond to this article, please click here.