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After years of big promises, telemedicine is finally living up to its potential. Driven by faster internet connections, ubiquitous smartphones and changing insurance standards, more health providers are turning to electronic communications to do their jobs—and it’s upending the delivery of health care. Doctors are linking up with patients by phone, email and webcam. They’re also consulting with each other electronically—sometimes to make split-second decisions on heart attacks and strokes. (Beck, 6/26)

Can an electronic nudge help doctors do the right thing when it comes to patient care? Health-care providers are exploring how electronic record keeping and digital communication can be used to influence doctors on a wide range of actions, including following up on worrisome test results, making a correct diagnosis and choosing the right treatment. The challenge: getting doctors to accept prodding that might interfere with their own judgment or intentions when they already feel overloaded with electronic alerts, reminders and other messages. (Landro, 6/26)

New research is raising serious questions about the cybersecurity practices of hospitals. The study, conducted by Ross Koppel of the Univerisity of Pennsylvania, found that sticky notes with passwords were prevalent in hospitals; that employees shared passwords; that keypad-protected doors to medical supply rooms often had passwords written on them; and that clinicians left computers logged on as a courtesy to whoever needed to use them next. (Uchill, 6/24)

As director of the Institute for Population Health Improvement at the University of California, Davis, Kenneth W. Kizer brings plenty of experience in the use of technology to help manage large populations. A physician by training who is board-certified in several specialties, Dr. Kizer was California’s top health official before serving as undersecretary for health in the Department of Veterans Affairs in the 1990s. At the VA, he is credited with modernizing the nation’s largest health system, including adopting one of the first major electronic health records systems. ... He recently answered questions from The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Landro. (Landro, 6/26)