Three years after federal rules governing the privacy of patients’ medical records went into effect, compliance seems to have declined for 6 percent, according to an annual survey conducted by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). Read more about this at here.

E-Health has become an integral part of present-day healthcare delivery. With healthcare consumers, increasingly the focus of most health systems, the widespread implementation of health information and communications technologies offers cost-effective opportunities to meet their increasingly sophisticated healthcare needs.Bankix Systems Ltd has released its latest e-book. It is a 200-page in-depth analysis of the issues involved in “Making E-Health Work,” the e-book’s title. Read more about this e-book at here.

Residents of the Texas Gulf Coast region have a new way to locate local health services with the introduction of the Go Local Texas Gulf Coast Web site. It’s available through MedlinePlus, the consumer health resource created by the National Library of Medicine at medlineplus.gov/tgc. Read more about this at here.

At some point, most of us--including nearly half of all American adults--will encounter health information we cannot understand. Not surprisingly, even well-educated people may have trouble comprehending a medical form or doctor's instructions regarding a drug or procedure. Health care transparency is the standardizing of performance metrics and outcomes reports, and making them easily accessible to everyone. The question is how feasible this goal would be. Read here for one perspective.

"UCompareHealthCare has just unveiled its Web site, ucomparehealthcare.com, which features free reports on the nation's nursing homes, hospitals and physicians to help consumers make informed healthcare decisions. I checked the web site and found it very informative for health consumers to help them make informed decision about their choices of doctors, hospitals and others." Read more about this at UCompareHealthCare

"'In a nationwide first, Floridians have a new tool to assess local hospitals -- an online state analysis of every hospital's track record for infections, deaths, complications and even prices. Although health care specialists say the new Web site is limited and does not allow for direct hospital-to-hospital comparisons, they say public disclosure of previously secret data on medical outcomes could spur hospitals to work harder to combat preventable conditions.' Read more at State web site discloses once-secret data on infections, deaths, prices at hospitals: South Florida Sun-Sentinel." Read more at Florida Sun-Sentinel.