http://media.soundmedicine.org/segments/042813_6.mp3
Hospital-based infection prevention specialists try to stop the spread of infectious diseases through careful observation of patients' medical records. Brian Dixon, Ph.D., recently conducted a study of the awareness, adoption and use of electronic medical records and health information exchanges among prevention specialists. Dr. Dixon’s study that found many prevention specialists have no say in which system their hospital uses. Although over 80 percent of Indiana’s hospitals have electronic medical records, only 10 percent of hospitals reported being a part of a health information exchange program. According to Dr. Dixon, grants and incentive dollars from the government may be enough to cover the hard costs like machinery, but soft costs such as workflow redesign and training time are simply too expensive.