Precision medicine uses clinicopathological indexes and molecular profiling to create diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic strategies tailored to the patient. Its success depends on establishing frameworks for regulating, compiling, and interpreting key information.

Pediatricians facing critical clinical decisions often lack data on which to draw. The authors recently put their institution's electronic medical record to unusual use to inform a decision about anticoagulation in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Recent studies have called into question whether the U.S. patient-safety movement has made any progress at all. But we have an opportunity to turn the tide by including in the “meaningful use” of electronic health records the systematic assessment of adverse events.

Health information technology holds promise for facilitating vast improvements in care and, ultimately, in the health of Americans, but transforming electronic health records into effective clinical tools will require progress on multiple fronts.

A child with chest pain or tics, a toddler who is limping, a 12-year-old girl with abdominal pain or headaches, an infant whose fever does not respond to antibiotics — these are age-old challenges that pediatricians face. I have been teaching pediatrics ...

The recent oil spill off the Gulf Coast may prove to be one of the great environmental challenges of our lifetime. It is yet another devastating blow to the Gulf region, a place I call home. My heart goes out to the people there who are concerned about ...

The widespread use of electronic health records (EHRs) in the United States is inevitable. EHRs will improve caregivers' decisions and patients' outcomes. Once patients experience the benefits of this technology, they will demand nothing less from their ...

Drs. Gordon Schiff and David Bates envision a redesigned electronic documentation function that anticipates new approaches to improving diagnosis.

In the last days of 2009, the government took several critical steps toward a nationwide and secure electronic health information system. Dr. David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, describes the key elements of the ...

North Shore Hospital System in New York recently announced that it will pay an incentive of up to $40,000 to each physician in its network who adopts its electronic health record. Drs. Steven Shea and George Hripcsak write that the decision by North Shore ...

Perhaps the most profound effect on doctors and patients of the recently enacted stimulus bill will result from its unprecedented $19 billion program to promote the adoption and use of health information technology and electronic health records. Dr. David ...

Two related but distinct options are emerging for electronic health records: the stand-alone personal health record (PHR) and the “integrated PHR.” Drs. Paul Tang and Thomas Lee believe that integrated PHRs will play a major role in influencing health-...