My lede:

If an electronic prescribing system pops up a medication safety alert but no doctor heeds it, does it ever sound the alarm?

That question appears more salient than ever, as research continues to show that the clinical decision support systems intended to protect patients from medication errors prove in some ways to be more of a hindrance than a help to doctors.

The latest example is a study of the electronic prescribing records of nearly 2,900 community physicians and other prescribers in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Nearly 230,000 times these doctors were warned about potential drug interactions, and 90% of the time they decided to proceed as if the alert had never appeared.

The whole shebang.

My lede:

The Washington State Dept. of Health has finalized rules implementing Initiative 1000, the Death With Dignity Act.

Voters approved the measure in November 2008, and the law took effect March 5. The rules are virtually the same as Oregon’s, where more than 340 patients have died with physicians’ help since 1998.

The whole shebang.

My lede:

Katie Couric’s on-air colonoscopy in 2000 was just one element of a larger awareness-raising effort that helped increase the colorectal cancer screening rate among eligible adults from about 25% a decade ago to 60%, according to 2008 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Yet experts have looked for ways to help primary care physicians push the rate even higher. Screening all eligible patients for colon cancer could prevent an estimated 75,000 cases annually through the timely removal of precancerous polyps, according to the American Cancer Society.

Now there is more evidence that time-squeezed doctors weighed down with recommending ever more preventive health measures need help getting patients screened.

A randomized controlled trial at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a 14-site multispecialty group practice in eastern Massachusetts, found that mailing individualized screening reminders to patients worked better than using electronic medical records to alert physicians. The results from the study of 110 doctors and 21,860 patients were published in the Feb. 23 Archives of Internal Medicine.

The whole shebang.