In the second quarter of 2015, wearables tech company Fitbit saw its sales revenue more than triple to $400 million, up from $113 million in the same quarter last year. This upward trend in the wearables market isn’t just being seen by Fitbit, either. While they definitely seem to be leading the pack, many other tech companies have introduced their own wearable devices in recent years, usually in the form of wristbands that track a wearer’s stats/behavior for things such as heart rate, step counts, calorie intake/burn, and even sleeping habits—Apple Watch, the Nike+ FuelBand (though this device discontinued last year as part of a new fitness-wearable joint venture between Nike and Apple), MiBand, and Jawbone, to name just a few.

This has already been a wild year when it comes to data breaches, beginning with the hack of insurance giant Anthem back in February that compromised the personal data of 80 million clients. A month later, 11 million customers had their medical and financial details compromised in a cyberattack on Premera Blue Cross. Since then, things have only gotten worse.

Originally discussed in President Obama’s State of the Union speech back in January, the White House is now looking for the help of those in the medical industry to ensure the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) is a success. In the official blog of the Executive Branch, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist in the Office of Science and Technology Policy DJ Patil and PMI Project Manager Stephanie Devaney asked for the feedback of both the public and private sectors.

The world is more mobile than ever before and it now appears a greater number of physicians are doing the same in throughout the workday According to a new survey conducted by Black Book Market Research, 52 of ambulatory practice physicians currently access patient records or reference data from a mobile device. But the use of mobile devices doesn't stop there for ambulatory physicians.

Due to the intricate nature of specialty physician practices, dissatisfaction among these doctors is often rooted in the implementation of a solution that’s not fit for their specialty or practice. With 77 percent of specialty physicians attesting to this issue, it’s no surprise that a recent survey conducted by AmericanEHR Partners and the American Medical Association (AMA) discovered EHR satisfaction is trending in a negative direction. Compared with a report in 2010, satisfaction among physicians has decreased from 61 percent to just 34 percent satisfaction in 2015.

Trying to organize your schedule of patient appointments can be a lot like driving with a cup of hot coffee between your thighs—it can be a refreshing pick-me-up when the cup is filled to a proper level. If the cup is too full, however, you’ll more than likely just get burned (not to mention you’ll have to spend the day with coffee stained pants). Okay, on second thought, that might not have been the best simile for this particular situation.

We’ve had a lot of discussions on this blog about how to keep your practice’s computers safe and secure. While performing regular cybersecurity tasks (such as keeping your antivirus software up-to-date) is undoubtedly important, there are also some other routine PC maintenance tasks that you should be performing in order to keep your practice’s computer running smoothly and efficiently.

When Meaningful Use began for eligible professionals (EP’s) back in 2011, the physicians who chose to participate in the government program rushed to implement electronic medical record solutions in order to meet Stage 1 requirements and receive the maximum incentive payments.