Four years ago the Obama administration offered up $19 billion in stimulus funds to help get health care IT (including electronic health records, or EHRs) in the pink—or at least in the black. Better information technology throughout the health care system would save money, improve care and bring the health care industry into the 21st [...]

Genetic sequences of drug-resistant bacteria have helped scientists better understand how these dastardly infections evolve—and elude treatment. But these superbugs are still claiming lives of many who acquire them in hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. And recent outbreaks of these hard-to-treat infections can spread easily in healthcare settings. Researchers might soon be able to track [...]

Instead of cutting into a dead body to determine the cause of death, some coroners are already calling in a radiologist. But can CT (computed tomography) and MRI (magnetic-resonance imaging) tests accurately assess the recently deceased? Formal autopsies have been on the decline for decades, due in part to tightening budgets. In the U.S. less [...]

Some professions have to worry about absenteeism—employees not reporting to work. But in the medical field, researchers are calling attention again to the troublesome trend of "presenteeism" among health care workers, and its implications. It’s common knowledge that medical residents often work well beyond the 30-consecutive-hour limit—and sometimes put in more than 80-hour workweeks. Now, [...]

A new analysis of surgeries completed in developing countries revealed a surgical mortality rate of just 0.2 percent, suggesting that when well-trained and outfitted staff are available, surgery can be quite safe in areas of violent conflict, such as Southern Sudan. The study, published online August 16 in Archives of Surgery, assessed 19,643 surgical procedures [...]

The bacterial scourge methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can cause life-threatening infections that are difficult to beat with antibiotics. Earlier this year, hospitals in France reported a decline in the rates of the infections after 15 years of concerted control efforts, and ongoing analyses from the U.K. have shown decreasing incidence as well. A new study [...]

As hospitals struggle to integrate electronic medical records, some have already instituted electronic drug ordering systems to help reduce prescription errors. But not all so-called computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems are specially tuned to different patient populations. And while some can catch potentially dangerous drug-drug interactions for individuals, only one has been alerting providers [...]

When patients get infections in the hospital, the ramifications can be expensive—and sometimes deadly. Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), including staph, pneumonia, sepsis and others, account for 44,000 to 98,000 deaths and $17 billion to $29 billion in additional costs each year, the Institute of Medicine (the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences) estimated about [...]