The Washington and Oregon Chapters of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) opened up their conference at the top of the week in Bellevue, and may be instrumental in opening up Doctor’s notes to patients at the very same time.
A recent study, conducted and recommended by Dr. Sue Woods, a physician with Oregon Health Sciences University and the VA in Portland, observed how patients accessed visit notes with their doctors frequently, a large majority reported clinically relevant benefits and minimal concerns, and virtually all (99%) patients wanted the practice to continue. With doctors experiencing no more than a modest effect on their work lives, open notes seem worthy of widespread adoption.
Dave Chase, CEO of Avado, and a longtime Seattle24x7 contributor, writes: “Before long, a provider not having Open Notes will be an anachronism. It will be viewed the same as it would be to refuse to share notes with other clinicians.” [24×7]
Ticket? Just Click It!
Got a traffic ticket in Seattle you’d like to contest?
A local Internet-based service can help.
eTicketBuster, founded by Seattle attorney Steve Hemmat, invites you to upload your tickets, pay a small deposit and have Hemmat’s firm prepare and submit a written appeal.
“What we offer is an easy, accessible way for people to use the Internet [and] get limited assistance through an attorney office,” said Hemmat. “This may very well be the wave of the future for the court system itself.”
eTicketbuster will charge you a $6.50 processing fee and split the cost-savings of any reduction it can achieve in the process that results from the appeal. If there are no savings, there’s no charge beyond the $6.50.
More than 2,600 tickets are written every day in the state, generating more than $140 million in fines last year alone. Got a ticket. Just “click it!” [24×7]
Starbucks Accepting Square Wallet Payments Next Month
About 7,000 Starbucks Corp. U.S. locations will begin accepting payments using Square Inc.’s mobile payment application, Square Wallet.
In August, Starbucks invested $25 million in the Square startup, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz joined the company’s board of directors.
For customers to use the Square payment system they must download the Square Wallet to their smart phones. The Wallet can be linked to a debit or a credit card. Customers then tap “pay here” and/or scan their QR code.
“Starbucks believes in the values and vision of Square, and just three months after announcing our partnership with Square, we are thrilled to make the convenience of paying with the Square Wallet app available to our customers starting today,” said Adam Brotman, Starbucks chief digital officer, in a statement. [24×7]
Amazon.com Now Selling Wine
Amazon.com is now selling wine online at its own site, with Amazon available to ship wine to residents of Washington state among 11 other states.
As reported on TechFlash, the Seattle etailing giant said customers in California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and the District of Columbia can now order wines online, with other states added soon.
“What Amazon has done with their new wine store is take the experience of hundreds of tasting rooms and put them online. We could not be more excited by the possibilities of growing our business and reaching new customers,” said Tom Hedges of Hedges Family Estate in Red Mountain in Eastern Washington, in a statement.
Wines on Amazon’s new wine site range from a 187-ML can of 2011 Francis Ford Coppola Winery Sofia Mini Blanc de Blancs for $5 to a 3-liter bottle of 2008 Mercer Estates (Columbia Valley, Wash.) Cabernet Sauvignon for $199.99.
Amazon previously sold wine from other, external web sites. [24×7]
