Month: May 2007

POLICY: Slagging off Philip Longman, defending Jon Cohn

May 3, 2007• 3

Up at Spot-on I’m defending Jon Cohn from a way-off topic review of his book from Philip Longman in the Washington Monthly. This is an important topic because Longman is in the “we can’t afford universal health insurance because the delivery system is inefficient” camp. He’s way wrong about that and he’s not alone. In fact his logic is backwards. We need to sort that out quickly, and I have a go at doing so in a piece called New America? Old Excuses. (The “New America” is the Foundation Longman is from which for some reason has teed off my editor over at Spot-on in the past). Here’s the intro:

Last week, I came to criticize Jonathan Cohn (for being too nice). Today, I come to defend him. Phillip Longman who hails from the New America Foundation complains in the Washington Monthly that Cohn’s new book Sick is Misdiagnosed because Cohn concentrates on the financial consequences of living without health insurance and not on the overall problems with inefficient and ineffective care in the U.S. system. He doesn’t exactly get off to a roaring start, taking Cohn to task and getting it totally wrong in the process.

Read the rest and come back here to comment

TECH: KP promoting EHRs

May 2, 2007• 1

Kaiser Permanente is trying to shift the focus on its EHR programs back to the good things about it (and we’ve heard plenty about the controversy). They are having a conference today in DC with big guns like Carolyn Clancy and have put out a survey. Their spin on the survey is that Americans Want to Go Digital When it Comes to Their Health Care.

And while approximately one in ten (12%) of Americans currently review their personal medical records on their health insurance company’s Web site, over half say they would like to be able to check claims and coverage (56%) or access personal records (51%) electronically in the future.

It’s not all sweetness and light, but there clearly is more interest in accessing information that’s pertinent and personalized about health care from health plans, and of course KP is not the only one making steps in that direction. So they’re roughly right. As for HealthConnect, as I’ve been saying for a while, the proof of the pudding will be in the actual use when fully rolled out in California. And for that you’re going to have to wait.

TECH: Medecision launches blog

May 2, 2007

There’s lots of blogs about health care IT, but not too many from health care IT companies themselves. Today Medecision launches one. For more on Medecision and what it does see my interview with President John Copabianco

PHYSICIANS/PHARMA: Fool me once-shame on you. Fool me twice…..er won’t get fooled again? by The Industry Veteran

May 1, 2007• 3

So there’s been a fair amount of fuss about a new paper by two academics, one a former drug rep, about the tricks big Pharma uses to “fool” physicians when it details them. You may not be impressed and may be willing to blame Pharma with its cheerleader sales reps and beauty queen detailers. The Industry Veteran, in his usual gentle style, assigns blame elsewhere. You have, as usual, been warned!

This newswires and every health care site in the blogosphere carried a story about a former Lilly rep who published an article about the sales tactics that pharma reps use to influence physicians’ prescribing. I’m shocked and horrified — NOT! So pharma reps have been taught Sales Skills 101. What the hell, are physicians such delicate flowers that they must not be subjected to the lures of salesmanship? Sorry if I appear obtuse, but I don’t see anything disreputable if a rep assesses the type of physician he’s seeing and tailors a pitch to that type.

JOB POST: Blue Shield of California

May 1, 2007

Blue Shield of California is a long-established health
care firm which is embarking on a major program to reengineer its core business
and to modernize the technology that supports it. The Legacy Modernization
program will provide the key technology and business processes which are
fundamental to delivering on the firm’s strategies for future growth. Under the
umbrella of the LM project, there, are a number of critical business
opportunities which have become available. These opportunities are available in
both San Francisco and Sacramento, CA and are as follows:

Business Architects
Director of Business Architecture
Senior Project Managers -PMO Office
Sr. Systems EngineerSenior Performance Engineer
Director of Finance-PMO
Director of Package Configuration
IT Product Configuration Lead
Senior Business Analyst
Please send all responses to: ca************@**********ca.com. When responding please include THCB job board in your subject line.

Blue Shield of California is an equal opportunity employer.

– Go read more job listings on the THCB job board. (BETA)