The American journal of managed care
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Telemedicine offers a promising solution to the growing physician shortage, but state-based medical licensing poses a significant barrier to the widespread adoption of telemedicine services. We thus recommend a mutual recognition scheme whereby states honor each other's medical licenses. Successfully implementing mutual recognition requires policy, technological, and administrative changes, including a federal mandate for states to participate in mutual recognition, consistent standards for using and regulating telemedicine, a mechanism to enable interstate data sharing, financial support for states, and a "state of principal license" requirement for physicians. Reforming the United States' outdated system of state-based medical licensure can help meet patient demand for virtual care services and improve access to care in rural and medically underserved areas.
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Implementation of retail health consumer tactics in primary care poses challenges for primary care doctors that must be recognized and addressed.
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To mark the 25th anniversary of the journal, each issue in 2020 will include an interview with a healthcare thought leader. Because January is our annual health information technology issue, we turned to Eric Topol, MD, of Scripps Research.
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Teams of healthcare providers use health information technology (HIT) to facilitate communication and collaboration. Effective team-based care requires trust, yet we know relatively little about how physicians build and maintain trust with their fellow providers and, further, how HIT affects trust among provider team members. We describe priority areas for advancing our understanding of trust within healthcare teams, which may inform policies and HIT design in efforts to improve clinical decision making, provider satisfaction, quality of care, and patient health outcomes.
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The learning health system (LHS) has gained traction as a powerful framework for improving the cost and quality of healthcare. The goal of an LHS is to systematically integrate internal data and experience with external evidence so patients receive higher-quality, safer, and more efficient care. ⋯ We also discuss how integrating data on the social determinants and activities to reduce patients' social risk factors could advance the mission of the LHS to enhance patient engagement, improve the delivery of personalized care, and more accurately evaluate the effectiveness of care. Without the collection and integration of data on the social determinants of health, the LHS may fail to reach its full potential to improve health and healthcare.