The recently launched Health Care Notification Network (HCNN) will speed FDA safety alerts to physicians by e-mail. Insurance companies expect the system to cut the risk of malpractice litigation.
“The majority of U.S. liability carriers are asking their physicians to enroll today. Delivering product re-calls and warnings immediately online has the potential to directly improve patient safety and reduce malpractice claims—and, ultimately, decrease malpractice insurance premiums,” said David Troxel, MD, an iHealth Alliance board member and medical director of The Doctors Company, the nation’s largest physician-owned liability carrier.
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“We are finally moving from the Paper Age into the Internet Age,” declared Nancy Dickey, MD, a former president of the American Medical Association who now chairs iHealth Alliance.
Like the nascent drug-monitoring system, the HCNN grew from a collaboration among the FDA, medical societies, health plans, and the pharmaceutical industry. It’s powered by Medem, a company founded by the AMA and other medical societies to provide secure online communication services within the health-care industry, and governed by the iHealth Alliance, a not-for-profit organization designed to protect the electronic privacy rights of physicians and patients.
HCNN will be used exclusively for safety alerts to physicians. It will carry no advertising. For more information and to enroll in the network, go to www.hcnn.net.
