Instead of trying to reduce the number of people who have access to a patient's medical record by quarantining information, hospitals should explain the current meaning of confidentiality to patients as part of the informed consent process.
A requirement to uphold the confidentiality of information shared in the physician-patient relationship is a central tenet of medical professionalism that, while at risk and undermined in various ways in modern medicine, has been consistently endorsed from the time of Hippocrates.
This month theme issue editor, Trahern Jones, a fourth-year student at Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota, spoke with Dr. Edward Laskowski about the use of performance-enhancing drugs and substances among athletes today.
William Martinez, MD, MS and Thomas H. Gallagher, MD
Running away from the problems and inefficiencies of our current health care system and into the comforts of concierge medicine does little to advance health and well-being for the vast majority of people.
The use of coded patient data for reimbursement purposes can tempt clinicians to exaggerate the severity of the patient's condition, skewing the accuracy of the data and interfering with clinical decision support and research.
Rachel O. Reid, MD, MS and Ateev Mehrotra, MD, MPH
An effective policy regarding retail clinics in a primary care practice should address patients' need for timely and convenient acute care and build capacity for enhanced access to acute care within the primary care clinic itself.
Health information technology, like prior technological advances in medicine, can improve patient care and enhance the patient-physician relationship if used properly and thoughtfully.