Month: January 2013

Are Healthcare and Health IT in a Dysfunctional Relationship?

Jan 23, 2013• 26

By Edmund Billings, MD

What a week last week! First the disgraced cyclist confession and later the baffling college-football-player-and-his nonexistent-(dead)-girlfriend story, with the RAND report sandwiched somewhere in between. It’s positively a scandal-palooza.

What’s that? You don’t feel like the recent RAND report, which basically says that a 2005 RAND study financed by GE and Cerner was wildly optimistic in predicting about $81 billion in potential health care cost savings through widespread adoption of electronic health records, qualifies as a genuine hoax, controversy, scandal?

Me neither.

But it does neatly frame what is arguably a unique characteristic of the healthcare industry—a trait that extends to peripheral industries as well. Basically, healthcare is an interconnected environment. Call it the systems theory of healthcare, co-dependency … or just regular dependency. Call it what you want, but there is an interconnectedness in healthcare that we ignore at the expense of national wellness.

Witness key data points provided by the RAND report:

Modern health IT systems are not interconnected and interoperable, functioning “less as ‘ATM cards,’ allowing a patient or provider to access needed health information anywhere at any time, than as ‘frequent flier cards’ intended to enforce brand loyalty…”

Neither are they widely adopted, with an estimated 27 percent of hospitals utilizing a basic electronic record. Without broad adoption, interoperability is far less relevant.

Improvements in quality of care / patient safety and reductions in healthcare costs (which have grown by $800 billion since 2005) are not manifesting with EHR adoption, in part because hospitals and clinics are rushing to adopt mediocre solutions and garner federal funds.

The provision of care is the same as it ever was, even though EHRs are frequently promoted as the optimal tool for a different kind of care.

The reasons for these disappointing stats are readily apparent and unalterably interconnected.
Continue reading…

Six Awkward Concerns in My OpenNotes

Jan 23, 2013• 20

By Leslie Kernisan, MD

I found out this past weekend that the VA will be making clinician progress notes available for patients to view on the MyHealtheVet portal. In other words, the VA is going OpenNotes. (Note: I was a primary care provider in geriatrics clinic at the San Francisco VA from 2006-2010.)

My first reaction was to be impressed by this bold progressive move.

My next reaction was to feel mildly relieved that I’m no longer a PCP there.

Now, it’s not because I’m against transparency in healthcare, or am suspicious of patient engagement, or feel that patients shouldn’t see their health information without the assistance/gatekeeping/interference of a clinician. Far from it.

It’s because in my own VA practice caring for WWII vets, I used to frequently document certain concerns that would’ve been a bit, shall we say, awkward for the patient to see. Reading about these concerns would’ve quite possibly infuriated the patient, or the caregivers, or both.

So whew, I find myself relieved that I don’t have to figure out how to document (or not document?) these concerns.

Instead, I’ll get to see how my friends at the VA handle these issues.

Wondering what they are? Ok, I will tell you but shh … don’t tell my elderly patients that I may be considering these topics as I care for them.

Six awkward concerns in geriatric primary care practice

· Possible dementia. As a geriatrician, I focus on an age group that has a high incidence of dementia. Which means that when someone starts to tell me odd stories (concerns related to poison are a popular theme, as well as reports that someone is stealing things repeatedly), I start wondering about possible dementia. Ditto if he or she starts floundering with the medications, or starts having other difficulties with IADLs.

Why it’s awkward: Patients and families really hate it when I bring up the possibility that there might be dementia. Many find the possibility of a disease such as Alzheimer’s truly terrifying, both because it’s perceived as a terrible disease, and because they worry about having to leave their homes or otherwise losing their independence. Note that if I’m considering the possibility of dementia, I usually let the patient know during the visit.

THCB Calendar: 2013 Harvard Business School Healthcare Conference

Jan 23, 2013

The 10th Annual Healthcare Conference at Harvard Business School is to be held Saturday, February 2, 2013. This year’s topic is Consumer-Centric Innovation.

Top 5 Reasons to Attend:

Network with over 700 students and professionals from Boston and beyond focused on healthcare
Hear from our keynotes: David Kirchhoff, President and CEO, Weight Watchers International; Nancy-Ann DeParle, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Obama Administration; Kent Thiry, Chairman and CEO, DaVita Inc.; Tom Gentile, President and CEO, GE Healthcare Systems
Enjoy panel discussions across: pharma/ biotechnology, medical devices, diagnostics/ personalized medicine, healthcare financing, consumer health, payor/provider, IT, and emerging markets
Have a small group lunch with an industry leader of your choice
Attend our networking reception, with representatives from both established and emerging players

Please follow this link here to reserve your tickets. The current agenda and keynote speakers can be found at www.hbshealthcareconference.org

Open Health Data: An International Snapshot

Jan 23, 2013

By Eugene Borukhovich

The 2009 Digital Britain Report described data as ‘an innovation currency’ and ‘the lifeblood of the knowledge economy.’ We are now in 2013 and while there is tremendous buzz around open data in general, open health data is definitely lagging behind.

I have been a great proponent of the movement for a number of years after being inspired by Todd Park at a Health 2.0 NYC Chapter event. But it really clicked with me when I saw three young entrepreneurs mashup various environmental and health data, create an MVP app in 6 hours and win two prizes at an open data hackathon. These three students are on their way to starting a company and making a difference in this world while helping healthcare consumers make better decisions in their everyday lives. This is the power of open health data! We, the citizens, ultimately own the data, not our governments and while there is certainly a need to preserve our privacy, there is a lot of “innovation currency” locked up in vaults, desperately waiting to be unleashed.

Below, you will find a brief report (50 slides, but don’t get scared!) that Katarzyna Rabczuk and I put together. It showcases how nascent this movement really is, while showing samples of social and economic impacts of these initiatives across the US, UK and a select few Western European countries picked at random.

The United States is undoubtedly leading the way with HealthData.gov and almost 400 valuable datasets published, ranging from Medicare data to epidemiology. Health Datapallooza is already turning 4 with the next event taking place in June of this year.

The United Kingdom is right behind (or ahead, depending which side of the pond you are on) with Tim Kelsey pushing forward and “unleashing the power of the people to save the NHS from a crisis”. The next NHS Hack day will take place on January 26^th-27^th in Oxford and some of the recent initiatives to open up prescription data generated a tremendous amount of buzz after a team that included two startups, Mastodon C & Open Healthcare UK as well as Ben Goldacre, published a report that showed how to save the NHS ~ £200M – this news reached even The Economist.

And With the Stroke of a Pen, Health Insurance Exchanges Become Health Insurance Marketplaces ….

Jan 23, 2013• 6

By DAVID WILLIAMS

Thanks to David Kerrigan of the Massachusetts Health Connector for pointing out that the Obama Administration has suddenly switched terminology: health insurance exchanges are now health insurance marketplaces. I think it’s a great idea, which is why I wrote a blog post on this very topic on Friday. The Hill (Obama officials ditch ‘exchanges’ in rebranding of healthcare reform law) covers the story.

However, the Hill has a weird angle on this. The article heavily features an anti-ObamaCare activist, Dean Clancy who says:

“They could call them motherhood or apple pie, but it wouldn’t change our feelings about them… We’re encouraged that they’re showing signs of desperation. I think that it’s too late in the game to try to start calling this something different. And [we’re] not going to spend a lot of effort fighting over a word.”

Clancy’s website is called blockexchanges.com, so he may actually have more commitment to the word exchange than the Obama folks. Somehow blockmarketplaces.com just doesn’t have the same ring to it. (That domain is still available at this writing in case you want to grab it.) Blockexchanges also has some misleading information on its home page:

“Remember, without the state exchanges, ObamaCare cannot function.”

Actually, the federal government will step in if the states don’t.

Personally, I don’t sense desperation but rather a gradual wising up about what implementation will require. The term “marketplace” makes a good deal of sense for someone who is comparison shopping for health insurance. Here’s to more commonsense improvements as ObamaCare is rolled out.

David E. Williams is co-founder of MedPharma Partners LLC, strategy consultant in technology enabled health care services, pharma, biotech, and medical devices. Formerly with BCG and LEK. He writes regularly at Health Business Blog, where this post first appeared.

Why Employers Should Stop Worrying About Health Costs

Jan 23, 2013• 4

By Leah Binder

A report published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on high-value health care attracted attention when it was issued last June. Authored by a group of eleven leading hospital executives, A CEO Checklist for High-Value Health Care describes programs at various hospitals that resulted in quality improvements and lowered costs. The report has a section called “Yield,” quantifying the extent of these improvements. These programs sound notable, and in fact I know some of the executives and hospitals involved, and would vouch that many significantly improved patient care.

But the report is less impressive when it tackles the cost side of the value equation, especially when it names cost control outcomes like: “days cash on hand increased from 180 to 202,” and “multiple years of 4-5 percent [hospital] margin.” Clearly, the hospitals improved their own bottom lines, but by how much did patient bills decrease? The hospital executives don’t account for that in the “yield.”

It seems this report defines “high-value” to mean highly valuable to hospital CEOs. Strikingly, though, the authors do not find it necessary to explicitly say so anywhere within the report. Perhaps they simply assume that a high-value checklist for hospital CEOs is automatically high-value to CEOs in other industries that are paying for services from hospitals. No offense to these well-meaning and highly accomplished hospital executives, but that is not always the case. Purchasers don’t see high-value health care in hospital cash flow or profit margins. They see value when they get the best service at the best price.

In Defense of Narrow Networks

Jan 22, 2013• 27

By David Dranove & Craig Garthwaite

It wasn’t long ago that the newly established health exchanges were being celebrated. Before the ongoing website catastrophe, politicians and policymakers were lauding the low premiums in these new health insurance market places. On September 24, President Obama said, “And the premiums are significantly lower than what they were able to previously get … California — it’s about 33 percent lower. In my home state of Illinois, they just announced it’s about 25 percent lower.”

How times have changed! Even supporters of the exchanges have rightly criticized the technical problems that have prevented millions of Americans from signing up. However, many critics are also complaining about the large number of health plan offerings with “narrow networks” of physicians that enrollees can visit for medical services. The Missouri Health Advocacy Alliance expressed “major concern” when Anthem excluded BJC HealthCare from its narrow network. Seattle Children’s Hospital, which was excluded from several exchange plans, has sued the Washington State Office of Insurance for “failing to ensure adequate network coverage.”

Criticism of narrow networks is misguided and counterproductive. As we explain below, narrow networks will be of little consequence to most of the individuals who sign up for the exchanges, and the elimination of narrow networks could eliminate our single best opportunity to harness market forces to reduce costs and improve quality. Indeed, narrow networks are largely responsible for the low premiums that were being celebrated just one month ago.

So, What Exactly Is a Health Insurance Exchange Anyway???

Jan 21, 2013• 24

By David Williams

I’m a health care expert who follows health reform closely, so when I’m confused about something I know most people are.

When Massachusetts passed the universal coverage law in 2006 I didn’t understand exactly what the Connector was supposed to do. If they had called it a health insurance store or marketplace or comparison site I would have grasped the concept better. Once it’s explained it’s obvious, but why use the word “connector” in the first place?

The federal Affordable Care Act makes matters even worse. It calls these things health insurance “exchanges.”

That word has the wrong connotations. When I hear the word “exchange” I think of a stock exchange. That’s not somewhere I go to buy or compare products or services to use. Others think of “exchange” as what they do when they made a purchase that was the wrong size or received a gift they didn’t like.

Even for health wonks that fully grasp the concept, the word “exchange” is confusing, because the term is also used in the context of health information exchanges, which are used to exchange clinical data. I often hear people asking about the impact of the “exchange” –without specifying “insurance exchange” or “information exchange,” and I have to ask them which they mean.

There’s a simple solution to this: let’s dump the word “exchange” and use a term that’s more understandable and appropriate. How about:

Store
Marketplace
Comparison site
Supermarket

Obamacare’s Fiscal Cliff

Jan 21, 2013• 10

By John Goodman

Did you notice that in the standoff over the fiscal cliff, all the discussion was about the Bush tax cuts? Which ones would be made permanent? And for whom? There was no discussion about the ObamaCare tax increases. I think that was a huge tactical mistake on the part of the Republicans.

Over and over again, President Obama claimed he was trying to protect the middle class from higher taxes. It was a claim that went unchallenged ― by the Republicans and by the mainstream media.

Yet five of the tax increases Americans are facing this month are new taxes created under the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). Three of the five will hit people who are solidly middle class.

Next year, things will get worse. The new tax on health insurance is about as regressive as a tax can be. It will total $100 billion over the next 10 years and very little of that amount will be paid by anyone who can be called “rich.”

The health insurance tax will fall on private sector Medicaid plans, which have about 70% of all Medicaid enrollees.
The tax will fall on Medicare Advantage plans whose enrollees have below average incomes and are disproportionately minority.
The tax will hit every small business and every individual who buys insurance in the commercial market place.
The tax will not fall on self-insured plans whose enrollees include the highest paid workers and the highest paid CEOs.

The Chart-Eating Virus, Me Too Software and Other Emerging Digital Threats

Jan 21, 2013• 12

By David Shaywitz, MD

The ability to gather, analyze, and distribute information broadly is one of the great strengths of digital health, perhaps the most significant short-term opportunity to positively impact medical practice. Yet, the exact same technology also carries a set of intimately-associated liabilities, dangers we must recognize and respect if we are to do more good than harm.

Consider these three examples:

Last week, a study from Case Western reported that at least 20% of the information in most physician progress notes was copy-and-pasted from previous notes. As recently discussed at kevinmd.com and elsewhere, this process can adversely affect patient care in a number of ways, and there’s actually an emerging literature devoted to the study of “copy-paste” errors in EMRs. The ease with which information can be transferred can lead to the rapid propagation of erroneous information – a phenomenon we used to call a “chart virus.” In essence, this is simply another example of consecrating information without first appropriately analyzing it (e.g. by asking the patient, when this is possible).
At a recent health conference, a speaker noted that a key flaw with most electronic medical record (EMR) platforms is that they are “automating broken processes.” Rather than use the arrival of new technology to think carefully, and from the ground up, about the problems that need to be solved, most EMRs simply digitally reify what already exists. Not only does this perpetuate (and usual exacerbate) notoriously byzantine operational practices and leave many users explicitly complaining they are worse off than before, but it also misses the chance to offer conceptually original approaches that profoundly improve workflow and enhance user experience.