So a ton of news today, but also a ton of work for your host from outside the blog world requires some brevity. So go look elsewhere for more on these, although you’ll get the caustic comment from me.
First up Google enters blog searching. This is supposed to make Technorati et al very scared. I actually don’t understand how to use Technorati, but I understand how to use Google. (BTW somehow Google already searches THCB stories). My educated blog friends tell me that Technorati is important and so Google must be on to something. However, they totally screwed up Blogger when they bought it — so much so that I left it and went to TypePad despite the fact that Typepad costs money and Blogger is free! Hopefully they do searching better than tools.
Second, another study, this time from RAND says that the healthcare system can save a gazillion dollars ($162billion or maybe 10% a year) if it would only use IT better. Ha, bloody ha. Exactly who is going to give back their share of the pie? And by the time that happens we’ll figure out that $162 billion is about the annual increase of health care spending, so we’re just back to where we were the year before. I’m not at all convinced that these grandiose studies with their huge mythical numbers help, but the key is that we need something to start health spending going down year after year — not up — if I’m really going to be impressed. Unlikely!
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Hey, Matt –
Remember when I was trying to describe to you the security issue inherent in the downstream transmission of datasets?
Well, the problem has been demonstrated:
http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_4087726,00.html
And it’s bull to say this is an “isolated’ problem. It’s an INHERENT problem with the downstream linking of systems.
The blog search is in Beta for a reason; I did a search for phrases in my most recent post and it didn’t turn them up. This could also be a result of the frequency with which it sends out its spiders, of course.
Nonetheless, I was bummed. 😉
Does it mean anything that my browser crashed when I clicked on the Google blog search link?
//Exactly who is going to give back their share of the pie?//
That’s what I’ve been saying! Every time Kaiser, for example, hikes its membership fees to cover cost of technology investment, the supposed cost saving of the technology does not translate into a cut in membership fees.
On the other hand, a gazillion dollars a year could be saved if HMOs (again I’m extrapolating – Kaiser is the only one I’m familiar with) would stop using their IT infrastructure as a basket of patronage positions for people who don’t know anything about technology. The waste is not just on nepotism, but also on the poorly functioning technology and infinite rework that results.