Morning Headlines 7/13/15

HIPAA Settlement Highlights Importance of Safeguards When Using Internet Applications

St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center (MA) will pay $218,000 to settle a HIPAA violation after  staff members are found storing the medical documents of 498 patients on an unnamed internet-based file sharing application.

Modern Doctors’ House Calls: Skype Chat and Fast Diagnosis

The New York Times analyzes the growing popularity of telehealth services and the reluctant but increasing willingness of insurance companies to reimburse for them.

Derek Streat’s software could change the way we train and evaluate doctors

A University of Washington spinoff raises $2.5 million to build a crowd-sourcing platform for surgeons that evaluates the skill and technique of peers based on uploaded videos of performed procedures. The developers say that the platform will deliver objective reviews at a fraction of the cost of traditional peer-reviews.

Harvard researchers tested 23 online ‘symptom checkers.’ Most got failing grades. Here’s how they stack up.

Harvard researchers evaluate the accuracy of online symptom checkers, finding that an accurate diagnosis is only returned as the primary diagnosis 34 percent of the time, and only identifies the correct diagnosis within the first three results 51 percent of the time.