ABOUT THIS BOOK

With computerized health information receiving unprecedented government support, a group of health policy scholars analyze the intricate legal, social, and professional implications of the new technology. These essays explore how Health Information Technology (HIT) may alter relationships between physicians and patients, physicians and other providers, and physicians and their home institutions. Patient use of web-based information may undermine the traditional information monopoly that physicians have long enjoyed. New IT systems may increase physicians' legal liability and heighten expectations about transparency. Case studies on kidney transplants and maternity practices reveal the unanticipated effects, positive and negative, of patient uses of the new technology. An independent HIT profession may emerge, bringing another organized interest into the medical arena. Taken together, these investigations cast new light on the challenges and opportunities presented by HIT.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

DAVID J. ROTHMAN is president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP) and Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine at Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons. His many books include Strangers at the Bedside and The Pursuit of Perfection with Sheila M. Rothman.

DAVID BLUMENTHAL is national coordinator for health information technology in the Department of Health and Human Services. When he contributed to this volume, he was director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System and professor of health care policy and Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

REVIEWS

"This book provides an effective review regarding the development of the current issues in quality regulation, use of 'big data,' and report cards for those involved in or pursuing further training in public health."

— Family Medicine

"Rothman and Blumenthal's compelling book, Medical Professionalism in the New Information Age, fills a current gap in the literature on the possible implications of information technology for practicing physicians, health care organizations, and the profession more generally, thereby advancing both policy analysis and clinical practice."

— Melissa Goldstein, George Washington University Medical Center

"The value of this collection is that it raises some intriguing issues which will be of interest to social scientists who study health and the internet, law and the professions, patient-doctor relations, communication, health policy and inequalities."

— Sociology of Health and Illness

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction by David J. Rothman and David Blumenthal

Chapter 1. Expecting the Unexpected: Health Information Technology and Medical Professionalism by David Blumenthal
Chapter 2. Quality Regulation in the Information Age: Challenges for Medical Professionalism by Kristin Madison and Mark Hall
Chapter 3. The "Information Rx" by Nancy Tomes
Chapter 4. When New is Old: Professional Medical Liability in the Information Age by Sara Rosenbaum and Michael W. Painter
Chapter 5. Patient Data: Professionalism, Property, and Policy by Marc A. Rodwin
Chapter 6. Impact of Information Technology on Organ Donation: Private Values in a Public World by Sheila M. Rothman, Natassia M. Rozario, and David J. Rothman
Chapter 7. Changing the Rules: The Impact of Information Technology on Contemporary Maternity Practice by Eugene Declercq
Chapter 8. A Profession of IT's Own: The Rise of Health Information Professionals in American Health Care by Mark C. Suchman and Matthew Dimick

Notes
About the Contributors
Index