Center For Studying Health System Change: Electronic Medical Records and Communication with Patients and Other Clinicians: Are We Talking Less? - This issue brief examines how electronic medical records (EMR) can both enhance and disrupt communication in doctors' offices, as described during interviews with "52 physicians and support staff at 26 small and medium-sized physician practices with commercial ambulatory EMRs in place for at least two years. ... Overcoming EMR-related challenges to interpersonal communication will likely involve continued refinement of their design by vendors and use by clinicians to decrease the potential for distraction during the patient encounter" (O'Malley, Cohen and Grossman, April 2010).

Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes: Socioeconomic Position, Not Race, Is Linked To Death After Cardiac Surgery - This study examines the relationship between socioeconomic position (SEP) and survival following cardiac surgery. The researchers analyzed 23,330 people (15,156 white men, 6,932 white women, 678 black men and 564 black women) who underwent heart bypass, valve or combined bypass and valve procedures, finding "that each drop in socioeconomic position had a corresponding ... decrease in the long-term survival rate," according to an American Health Association description of the study. "Specifically, after adjusting for existing risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes, patients in the lowest socioeconomic position had a 19 percent to 26 percent higher chance of dying within five years of surgery compared to their counterparts in the highest socioeconomic position" (Koch et al., 4/6).

Journal of the American Medical Association: Quality Of Care Among Obese Patients - "While it may be true that physicians often harbor negative attitudes toward obesity, such attitudes may not be borne out in lower quality of care," this study found. The authors examined "8 different quality measures relating to diabetes management, adult vaccinations, and cancer screening" from large samples of Medicare and Veterans Hospital patients and found: "To the contrary, being obese or overweight was associated with marginally higher rates of recommended care for several measures"  (Chang, Asch and Werner, 4/7).

This article is republished with kind permission from our friends at The Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery of in-depth coverage of health policy developments, debates and discussions. The Daily Health Policy Report is published for Kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.