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Health 2.0 Casting Call

Media2_3We are excited to announce a new panel format at our Spring conference, “Connecting Consumers and Providers” in San Diego on March 3-4, 2008. In addition to spotlighting demos and reactions from industry experts, we will be capturing the user-experience of people living with health conditions as they use Health 2.0 technologies in their everyday lives.

Has the web changed your life? Does it help you deal with the isolation of a condition or improve your quality of life in some other way? We are looking for a few good consumers/patients to feature live on stage or in a video segment. Our roving video crew will be traveling the country to document interesting real-life stories showing how Health 2.0 impacts both people and the healthcare system.

User-generated content

And for those of you budding videographers, we are also accepting user-generated video clips that show how you are using Health 2.0 technologies in your daily life. Maybe it’s an active online community where you’ve found support, a portable medical device, an online tracking tool, a blog, a video game, a virtual world, or some combination of the above. If you have something to say, we’d love to hear about it so we can help you share your stories with your peers and other members of the Health 2.0 community. We welcome you to join the conversation with some of the most progressive minds in healthcare including consumers, health providers, technologists and entrepreneurs. If you are a physician using health 2.0 technologies to connect with your patients or if you know of patients for whom technology has made a real difference, please drop us a line.

Email John our resident Health 2.0 web guru/talent scout at john@health2con.com

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8 replies »

  1. Let me also say that one thing that would help that could be done right away is looking at who and how medical tech/clerks/office people are hired.

  2. Not enough emphasis is given to the enormous befit to our national productivity that would come from relieving our employers from the burden of providing health benefits to employees.

  3. Not enough emphasis is given to the enormous befit to our national productivity that would come from relieving our employers from the burden of providing health benefits to employees. This issue as well as others related to univeral coverage are discussed in my blog “BLOG. WORTHYLAKE.COM”

  4. Check out both commentary/story and film clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9lxNdbQhRfY
    ———-
    ON THE TOPIC OF MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY and NEW TOOLS/2.0, et al
    I worked for years not only for health insurance companies but I also worked in medical technology – most notably working on the earliest attempts at creating an electronic medical record accessible by both patients and care providers (EDS, Medicus, and others). I have too much to say on this for typed-in words but I will say this – part of the problem in developing effective tools as such is that healthcare professionals tend to (I’m just sayin’… I’m just reporting my experience here…) freak out at computer technology in general. There is a tendency to just shove it off on somebody else “to do” like an over-worked nurse, or the barely educated receptionist hired at an extremely low wage in order to maintain the head guy’s BMW collecting habit, or somebody’s son or daughter.
    I know everybody is swamped and overwhelmed and overworked in the medical world. I know! And everybody pretty much feels they’re not getting paid enough but folks, there is a lot that could be done much more cheaply using cheaper than you think electronic-based tools that would not require waiting for a big government grant or some big fancy system – but it will take a bit more willingness to set aside pre-conceived ideas about technology and cultivate a more open mind about such stuff including developing a willingness to sincerely learn new concepts about doing tasks and using machines.
    I worked in Apple’s HI group on designing all kinds of stuff and we had our problems rolling these tools out to folks (even stuff that people would check out and get really excited about) but there also was an attitude of “oh, I’d rather just use the old fashioned….” bit where the assumption is that if it’s “old” it must be better and more reliable and/or “if I can’t learn it in 3 min., it’s not worth spending 5 min. to learn it and must be unreliable”.
    There are tools out there and sites such as was mentioned by somebody here that ARE promising but with a tendency towards fear and just plain closed-mindedness let alone unwillingness to explore new options/ideas/technologies on the part of not a few in the medical field, it’s not going to happen regardless of how much $ is thrown at it. Basic technological literacy and a change in attitude and behavior on the part of the fancy big time MDs all the way down to the file clerk is needed just as much as people who are genuinely creative (and not just EEs from foreign countries who can code fast and clean) to make new tools.
    Let me also say that one thing that would help that could be done right away is looking at who and how medical tech/clerks/office people are hired. The emphasis in big hospitals and clinics is to just look at the person and hire them if they graduated high school, can type, can code, and run one or two particular pieces of software and/or machines/hardware platforms. Ok – THAT is a HUGE problem – these are people who will not be able to solve problems that come up and/or come up with new innovative solutions on the fly or adapt to new tools as they are developed. I’m telling you that this ONE change in how lower-end personnel are hired (and it’s not a matter of throwing more money out there to attract such people because there are plenty of workers who have those skills that would come in for lower wages – including older workers, et al) would be a HUGE step towards solving the administrative and technological foul up and crises noted in the commentaries I’ve read here.

  5. How dare the medical community call their product “healthcare.” Certainly, there are exceptions, but exceptions don’t change the rule: The common person’s encounter with medicine is neither satisfying nor satisfactory. The best we can hope for is medical treatment — followed by a persistent flood of confusing and repetitive bills from every single person and agency involved. The profession has corrupted itself at the expensive of this great country and her great people.

  6. I would like someone to get to the bottom of our CORRUPT healthcare (or lack thereof) system in this country. I, for one, at 58 years of age, am at the point of making the choice NOT TO EVER SUBJECT “MY MIND” TO THE AFTERMATH OF BEING TAKEN CARE OF IN AN EMERGENCY ROOM IN THIS COUNTRY EVERY AGAIN – EVEN IF IT MEANS I THINK I’M HAVING A HEART ATTACK AND GOING TO DIE- THAT’S HOW FURIOUS I AM. I just got the BCBS statements reflecting what Southcrest Hospital has billed them for my recent ER visit and my subsequent “follow up doctor’s visit.” I went through this a few years ago with another hospital in this town. I am NOT one of those people that rushes out to a doctor! Quite frankly, I think 99% of them are ripoff artists. I refuse to even go for “annual exams.” My recent experience has me OUTRAGED. I had 3 very strange physical events that landed me in an urgent care clinic (THAT doctor bill paid was reasonable and he didn’t add “fake stuff” on his bill), the ER, and at my “new” primary care physician’s office for a follow-up who directed me (I am NOT a logical candidate for heart problems) to have an echocardiogram. My gut feeling was to tell her to forget that but I (like an idiot) went along with it. When I look at the charges on the ER visit I (a) feel like I AM having a heart attack and (b) understand why people get “postal!” For the minute amount of blood drawn in the ER, they had SEVEN “diagnostic lab tests” with a total amount of $1063!!! PLUS some “diagnostic test” for $227! There were two “prescription drug” costs AND THEY GAVE ME NO PRESCRIPTION DRUGS. The “medical care” cost was “$1280” and the doctor saw me “maybe 3-5 minutes” MAX. When I went in, they checked me in, threw me in a bed in the ER, hooked me up to their monitor, took ONE chest X-ray, drew A LITTLE blood, and let me lay there a few hours – then the doctor talked to me 3-5 minutes and they let me go home. $2,836.25 FOR THAT???????? SOMEONE NEEDS TO INVESTIGATE THE HEALTH CARE COSTS IN THIS CORRUPT COUNTRY AND GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT. HOW CAN WE ALL JUST IGNORE THE ABSURD WAY THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY CAN BILL AND THE INSURANCE COMPANIES JUST PAY “WHAT’S ALLOWED” EVEN IF YOU TELL THEM YOU THINK THE BILL IS AN OUTRAGE AND WHAT THEY “REALLY DID TO YOU.” When I’ve spoken to the FEPBLUE reps about their statements and providers’ bills, they just say they depend on the consumer to review their bills and note any discrepanceis; however, WHEN YOU TO BRING RIDICULOUS BILLS TO THEIR ATTENTION, YOU GET BRUSHED OFF. HOW can hospitals/providers decide on their own what (if any) lab tests they’ll take — how do we know these lab tests were even performed??? DOES ANYONE EVER AUDIT THIS CRAP AND ASK FOR PROOF WHAT WAS BILLED WAS ACTUALLY DONE?????? Everything on the bills/insurance statements is “coded” to the point of nothing making sense and WE (THE CONSUMER) are responsible for “ensuring it’s accurate”??? Then, when you call a foul, no one listens anyway??????? WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?????????

  7. I was researching this whole communication in the medical field this week and found that HIPAA is really limiting what can be done and used for communication in the medical field. I also found a site that allows physicians, medical professionals, as well as patients to communicate in a HIPAA compliant portal. The site was imedicor.com and i just wanted to see if anyone else has seen this site. It looks great and very useful.