A recent survey found that almost one-third of Americans have either experienced a medical error themselves or had a friend or relative experience one.  The survey by global healthcare information provider Wolters Kluwer Health noted that 73% of respondents are concerned about medical errors, with 45 percent “very concerned” about them.

The medical errors discussed in the survey include being given the wrong medication,

Allscripts announced this week its new collaboration with telehealth provider American Well to facilitate remote patient care with Electronic Health Records system integration.  The new solution, expected to be available in January, will integrate American Well’s Online Care platform with Allscripts EHR software.

The new Allscripts telehealth solution will increase patients’

The Surgeons of Lake County, a medical practice in Libertyville, IL, announced last month that its computer network had been hacked and data had been encrypted pending payment of a ransom. The hackers targeted the practice’s computer systems, encrypting all data, including patients’ electronic medical records, and demanded payment for the decryption password.

A new study from healthcare IT research and advisory firm CapSite indicates that 54% of hospitals plan to purchase Medical Device Integration solutions.  The MDI study from the Burlington, VT-based CapSite represents insight from over 300 hospitals on the market opportunity and vendor market share across the United States.

The research study includes MDI vendors like Cerner,

A wearable biometric bracelet is being developed to communicate with the wearer’s medical devices and potentially push data out to the patient’s record.  By uniquely identifying the wearer, the device could prevent data from being imported into the wrong records.

Dartmouth College computer scientist Cory Cornelius and other researchers are developing technology to match a person’s bioimpedance (the physiological response of the body to electric current passing through tissues) to a unique individual.  

Cerner Corp., a leading supplier of Electronic Health Records software, experienced a major computer outage on July 23rd which affected an unspecified number of hospitals.  The five-hour outage was blamed on “human error.”

While affected hospitals and healthcare providers were not immediately aware of any patients being harmed as a result of the disruption,

Arlington, VA-based Surescripts announced the ten states with the highest rate of electronic prescribing activity for the year 2011 this week.  The U.S.’ largest network for ePrescribing ranked Minnesota, which hadn’t been in top 10 in previous years, at the head of the list, with 61% of its prescriptions being ordered electronically.

The seventh annual Safe-Rx Awards are based on an analysis of Surescripts data regarding ePrescribing activity by healthcare providers,