Yesterday, Google launched Knol, immediately branded as Google’s answer to Wikipedia. As healthcare advisor to the project, I’ll say a few words about Knol, but focus on how it – and other forms of electronic self-publishing – may signal the end of medical publishing as we have known it.First, a word about Knol (the name is short for “a unit of ...

I gave a keynote yesterday to the first-ever meeting on “Diagnostic Error in Medicine.” I hope the confab helps put diagnostic errors on the safety map. But, as Ricky Ricardo would say, the experts and advocates in the audience have some ‘splainin’ to do.I date the origin of the patient safety field to the publication of the IOM report on medical ...

There is nothing better than a good satire to capture certain (uncomfortable) truths – just ask any of the presidential candidates after an episode of Saturday Night Live. So check out this hilarious spoof on information technology interoperability.As Captain Kirk said to Bones, “have you lost your mind?” Hilarious? Interoperability? But really, ...

Google Health launched on Monday, which sent the world’s Google-watchers into a tizzy. I serve on Google Health's Advisory Council – which met all day Tuesday – and so here’s a bit of inside dish, along with my impressions of the site and the company.FYI, my work on the Council is covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement, so I won’t reveal anything ...

Fresh on the heels of my recent bar coding epiphany comes another “unintended consequences” article. It turns out that the whipsawing that accompanies the adoption of new technologies is completely foreseeable, the “why doesn’t this thing work right?” phase as predictable as the seasons.Thanks to Dr. Mark Wheeler, Director of Clinical Informatics ...

This is one of the most commonly asked questions in IT World, and my answer has always been “CPOE first” – largely because that has always been David Bates’s (the world’s leading IT/safety researcher) answer. But I’ve changed my mind. Here’s why.Before I start, I promised that I’d let you know if I ever blogged on a topic in which I have a ...

Great quote by USC cardiologist Leslie Saxon (a reporter reached her on her cell phone as Leslie was shopping) on this week’s NEJM study on delayed defibrillation: “You’re better off having your arrest [here] at Nordstrom [than in a hospital]… because there are 15 people around me.”You’ve probably seen the study, a detailed analysis of ...

The Entertainment Blogosphere was atwitter yesterday with the story of actor Dennis Quaid’s twin newborns, who reportedly received a 1000-fold heparin overdose at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in La La Land. Cedars’ Chief Medical Officer Michael Langberg may win this year’s Oscar for fastest public apology – having learned the lesson from the 2003 ...

The pharmaceutical industry’s influence in clinical care is increasingly being viewed under a high-powered microscope, and the result is tightening restrictions on what pharma can do with/for/to doctors. Having lived through the era of sun-baked golf and beach “conferences” (with the invited physicians paid handsomely as “consultants”), this extra ...