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When patients use a telemedicine service offered through their health insurer or employer, they can get modest routine care at any time, without having to go to a doctor’s office or urgent care center. But they usually know very little about the doctor or nurse on the other end of the phone or on the screen. “It’s a blind date,” said John Jesser, an executive with Anthem, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, which offers its customers telehealth services through LiveHealth Online, giving them access to medical care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now American Well, the company behind Anthem’s service, is betting that people would rather choose the doctors or nurses they consult with online, much as they select an urgent care center or a specialist. (Abelson, 5/16)

The new software that the Brigham’s parent company, Partners HealthCare, bought for its hospitals and clinics is modernizing the way it tracks patients’ medical care. Doctors and nurses will know more about their patients more quickly — from emergency room visits to medications. Partners executives say this will result in safer care. But for [the] nurses and doctors at Partners, the new system has become a disruptive presence. They say it has an insatiable demand for information that, keystroke by keystroke, click by click, overwhelms the already tightly wrapped day inside a hospital, eats away at time with patients, and sometimes forces them to work longer shifts. (Dayal McCluskey, 5/17)