Author Archives

Matthew Holt

Florida 2010: Practice Fusion Demonstration

Aug 1, 2010• 1

By Matthew Holt

Demonstration by Robert Rowley from Practice Fusion at the Health 2.0 In the Doctor’s Office Conference held in Jacksonville, Florida on April 24, 2010. Practice Fusion is one of a new generation of SaaS-based electronic medical records.

Interview with Aneesh Chopra

Jul 31, 2010

By Matthew Holt

At the Health 2.0 Washington DC Conference on June 7, 2010 we captured this interview with Aneesh Chopra, Federal Chief Technology Officer of the United States.

Closing remarks from Health 2.0 Goes to Washington

Jul 31, 2010• 2

By Ida Strom Seljeseth

In this video from Health 2.0 Goes to Washingston on June 7, 2010, founders of Health 2.0 Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt review the day. They talked about what really stood out for them and how they are optimistic about the conference. They also thanked the sponsors and the team that made Health 2.0 Goes to Washington Conference possible.

Technology Showcase: Health 2.0 Tools for Consumers

Jul 31, 2010

By Matthew Holt

This is the technology showcase of communities and consumer tools from Health 2.0 Goes to Washington on June 7, 2010, It includes Greg Fitzgerald from HealthCentral, Howard Steinberg from dLife, representing communities, with Ellen Badinelli from ScanAvert & Alexandra Drane from Eliza showing some wellness and adherence tools.

The showcase concludes with Julie Murchinson from the Health 2.0 Acclerator showing some tool interoperability from Mike Kirkwood (Polka), Erick Von Schweber (SurveyorHEALTH) and Matt Parker (DestinationRx).

Not All Ratings Are Equal

Jul 30, 2010• 22

By JOHN MORROW

Earlier this month USNews and World Report released their annual list of America’s Best Hospitals. This list is terribly misleading and is a disservice to the readers of that magazine, in my opinion. The fine print is revealing:

“Central to understanding the rankings is that they were developed and the specialties chosen to help consumers determine which hospitals provide the best care for the most serious or complicated medical conditions and procedures—pancreatic cancer or replacement of a heart valve in an elderly patient with co- morbidities, for example. Medical centers that excel in relatively commonplace conditions and procedures, such as noninvasive breast cancer or uncomplicated knee replacement, are not the focus.”

Since when did breast cancer and knee replacements become so commonplace that they didn’t matter? On July 19, The New York Times published Doubt About Pathology Opinions for Early Breast Cancer, suggesting that diagnosing Stage 0 breast cancer was fairly difficult. And what is the bright-line test between “uncomplicated” and “complicated” knee surgery?Continue reading…

Health 2.0 Washington DC Conference: interview with Gilles Frydman

Jul 30, 2010

By Matthew Holt

Subtext: Interview with Gilles Frydman, Founder and President of ACOR, at the Health 2.0 Goes to Washington Conference, June 7, 2010. ACOR is an online community for cancer patients.

Closing remarks from Health 2.0 Goes to Washington

Jul 29, 2010

By Ida Strom Seljeseth

Use Emotion to Drive Adoption—Not Rejection—of Health IT

Jul 28, 2010• 9

By LYGEIA RICCIARDI

Last week I heard uber marketer Seth Godin speak about the power of fear. Fear is one of the strongest human emotions, based in the core of our brain–the “lizard brain” that evolved prior to our higher order thinking skills. Fear served us well throughout most of ancient history (stay away from the tiger!)–but it’s not always productive in modern day society.

Consumer fears about health information technology (health IT) privacy are a case in point. Surveys show that more than half of consumers voice fears which are, (in my opinion) appropriate, to an extent: risks such as discrimination are real, and public concerns should hold policymakers, vendors, and providers to the highest standard of privacy protection.

The real problem is fear mongering. Debroah Peel, founder of Patient Privacy Rights, has put herself and her organization on the map with sensationalism. As she said in a KTVU report earlier this month: “Anything that’s in there, any information that’s in there, can and will be used against you in the future. It’s very important to know that in the electronic health world…” and, “This is a nightmare. It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before in medicine.”

Extremist statements like this are usually misleading and often just plain wrong.. But a response that focuses on the logical and rational alone doesn’t cut it. In March Peel wrote an opinion for the Wall Street Journal online called “Our Medical Records Aren’t Secure.”

It got 179 comments. A measured rebuttal by Mary Grealy, President of the Healthcare Leadership Council, got only 4.Continue reading…

Interview with Patrick Soon-Shiong

Jul 28, 2010

By Ida Strom Seljeseth

In this brief interview at the Health 2.0 Goes to Washington conference June 10, 2010 Executive Chairman of Araxis Health, Patrick Soon-Shiong, talks about the Health Transformation Institute.

The Reform Dartboard: Predicting Healthcare Costs

Jul 28, 2010• 6

By Roger Collier

One thing about a democracy, everyone is entitled to publish their predictions about the future, and on the costs (or savings) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act over the 2010-2019 decade, there are enough to cover the dartboard.

Whether any have hit the bull’s-eye is another question.

The two most authoritative darts so far are those of the CBO and CMS’ Office of the Actuary. Each assumes that reform will be implemented exactly as stated in the new law, with no successful legal challenges and with legislated cost reduction targets achieved. The CBO forecast is limited to federal spending, while the OA projections cover both federal and overall national expenditures.

The CBO’s well-publicized (by reform advocates, anyway) dart hit the board immediately prior to passage of PPACA with an estimate of federal savings of $86 billion (excluding advance premiums from the new CLASS long-term care insurance program), or slightly less than one percent of projected federal health care spending.

The OA dart, thrown a month later and applauded by reform opponents as contradicting the CBO forecast, landed on the $289 billion number for increased federal spending (prior to CLASS premium collections), and on $310 billion for increased national health care expenditures.