Author Archives

Matthew Holt

Calling All Patients: Blue Button Patient Co-Design Challenge

Jun 7, 2013• 1

By Pat Salber

June 3rd was the kick-off for an amazing Challenge – the Blue Button Patient CoDesign Challenge. Developers everywhere are being invited by the Office of the National Coordinator to develop apps and other tools to use patient data, acquired via the Blue Button. You might be thinking: why is that so amazing? Because the entire Challenge has been designed to actively involve the ultimate users of the tool – patients. Imagine that!

Here are the details:

http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/blue-button-co-design-challenge/

From now until June 11th, patients (which includes almost all of us) are invited to go to Health Tech Hatch to post their ideas about how they want to see their data used to create tools that they can use themselves or with their doctors. There are already over 50 ideas already posted, which include:

Please help my wife manage our children’s immunizations
A tool that simplifies the management of chronic multiple conditions,
Make my prescription management stink less (my favorite)

Let’s Have Dinner and Talk About Death

Mar 21, 2013• 9

By Alexandra Drane

Our family debates a lot of things over our dinner table – the best Looney Toon character, politics, whether or not (and where or when) something is appropriate… For many of these topics, there are no right answers and no wrong answers – just a whole lot of discussion and opinions.

A few months ago, on the heels of the Health 2.0 conference, a small group of us gathered in a San Francisco kitchen for one of the most powerful experiences most of us had ever had around a dinner table.

Naked political plug: Aneesh Chopra in California this week

Mar 15, 2013

While my politics are well known to THCB readers, I rarely encourage people to do anything about it–especially in a state where I don’t get to vote, but today is different. Aneesh Chopra is running for Lt Gov in Virgina. He’s the former CTO of the US and a really good guy–who is running based on improving science and technology in a vital state, where the Republicans are literally into trans-vaginal ultrasounds & creationism. To my SF and LA-based friends, you can meet Aneesh at Cigar Bar & Grill on Mon 18th 5.30-7 in downtown SF and in in 1240 Shadow Hill Way, Beverly Hills on Tuesday 19th 7-9pm. This is a chance for the tech community to support one of its own, so I encourage you to go along and write a check. For more information or to RSVP please contact Caitlin Blair at Ca*****@*********va.com or (703) 468-1456, or I’m sure if you show up Aneesh will be happy to see you!–Matthew Holt

Certifying apps? Happtique’s big new idea

Feb 27, 2013• 2

By Matthew Holt

Happtique has been spending a lot of effort cataloging all the health, clinical and fitness Apps in the Apple App Store, Google Play and more. Their goal is to create prescribable apps, and proprietary app stores for providers. The idea is that a hospital or clinic can help its physicians suggest the right apps to patients by giving them a select group to choose from, and by having them cataloged in a way that is far more detailed than Apple or Android can do.

That in itself is a big advance, but even though they’ve cataloged 15,000 of the approx. 40,000 health apps out there, they don’t think it’s enough. Happtique is introducing a new certification program today. The idea is to have all apps assessed both for technical proficiency and also for content. Happtique will be reviewing the applications for technical, security and privacy–in other words, where any data goes and whether the app does what it says it does. In addition it’ll assess whether the app links properly to a particular devices or a particular EMR–something that presumably is pretty important to users. (I had an Android phone once which a major tracking device could not link to, even though the device had an Android app!). Here’s the release.

Happtique’s partners (academic med center group AAMC, nurse credentialers CGFNS International & testing lab Intertek) will provide clinicians and other experts who will review the apps for content. The idea here is not to rate or review the content but to see whether the content is from a valid source, and is true to what it says it is.

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.

Engage with Grace this Thanksgiving

Nov 21, 2012

By Alexandra Drane

Once again we’re hosting the annual Engage with Grace blogrally. Engage with Grace aims to get people talking about their wishes for end of life and advanced care. If you want to host this on your blog please do and feel free to get the html for this post here — Matthew Holt

One of our favorite things we ever heard Steve Jobs say is … “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” We love it for three reasons: 1) It reminds all of us that living with intention is one of the most important things we can do. 2) It reminds all of us that one day will be our last. 3) It’s a great example of how Steve Jobs just made most things (even things about death – even things he was quoting) sound better.

Most of us do pretty well with the living with intention part – but the dying thing? Not so much. And maybe that doesn’t bother us so much as individuals because heck, we’re not going to die anyway!! That’s one of those things that happens to other people …

Then one day it does – happen to someone else. But it’s someone that we love. And everything about our perspective on end of life changes.

If you haven’t personally had the experience of seeing or helping a loved one navigate the incredible complexities of terminal illness, then just ask someone who has. Chances are nearly 3 out of 4 of those stories will be bad ones – involving actions and decisions that were at odds with that person’s values. And the worst part about it? Most of this mess is unintentional – no one is deliberately trying to make anyone else suffer – it’s just that few of us are taking the time to figure out our own preferences for what we’d like when our time is near, making sure those preferences are known, and appointing someone to advocate on our behalf.

Goodness, you might be wondering, just what are we getting at and why are we keeping you from stretching out on the couch preparing your belly for onslaught?

Thanksgiving is a time for gathering, for communing, and for thinking hard together with friends and family about the things that matter. Here’s the crazy thing – in the wake of one of the most intense political seasons in recent history, one of the safest topics to debate around the table this year might just be that one last taboo: end of life planning. And you know what? It’s also one of the most important.

Here’s one debate nobody wants to have – deciding on behalf of a loved one how to handle tough decisions at the end of their life. And there is no greater gift you can give your loved ones than saving them from that agony. So let’s take that off the table right now, this weekend. Know what you want at the end of your life; know the preferences of your loved ones. Print out this one slide with just these five questions on it.

Laughing at the Chutzpah of the Right on Medicaid

Oct 30, 2012• 27

By Matthew Holt

There’s no one that pisses off the right in this country as much as Paul Krugman, and there’s nothing that pisses off the right as much as welfare for the poor. So when Krugman wrote recently in the NY Times supporting a program that is welfare for the poor, and describing how Romney/Ryan would decimate it, well you can expect an explosion from the GRWC. Yes the topic of today’s right-eous indignation is Medicaid.

The place to go to see that explosion is the comments section of John Goodman’s blog. That’s the halcyon world where the poor are oppressed by government programs and would much rather be set free to swim in the happy waters of the free market. Goodman proves to himself that studies showing that people without health insurance on average die prematurely must be wrong because they’re not seen in any “credible, peer-reviewed social science journal” — just in biased rubbish like the American Journal of Public Health and reports from the crack-smoking wackos at the Institute of Medicine.

Having read the comments on Goodman’s article I’m very surprised that Heartland’s Peter Ferrera hasn’t gone on welfare to show how it’s now a guaranteed path to unlimited riches (as opposed to say the tough job of taking payola from a convicted felon) and that Goodman himself hasn’t rejected his health insurance and gone naked on the income of the single mom & waitress in Dallas that Uwe teased him about a few years back. After all it would give him so much buying power to impact the market!

The Health 2.0 Top 10 List

Oct 2, 2012• 1

By Indu Subaiya

THCB and Health 2.0 are sister companies, but we don’t do too much cross promotion. Time to break that rule! With just five days left, Health 2.0 Co-Chairman & CEO Indu Subaiya shares her ‘Top 10 Reasons’ to love and attend Health 2.0’s 2012 Annual Fall Conference, October 7-10. It you haven’t registered yet and want to meet 1,500+ at the best health care meeting of the year do it here before we sell out!—Matthew Holt

TOP 10 REASONS

SIX pre-conferences: Health Law 2.0, Employers 2.0, Research 2.0, Doctors 2.0, Patients 2.0, & iPharma.
23andMe will discuss the CureTogether acquisition and share the stage with Sproutel, the creators of the diabetic bear.
Jillian Michaels (The Biggest Loser, Everyday Health) talks about the cross section of entertainment and health.
We’ll be showcasing tools that automate doctors’ handwriting and do voice capture — all on mobile devices.
Sensors for everything (movement, breathing, heart rate, and sleep) that are leading to clinical integration and impact!

Why We Avoid Telling Patients the Truth

Aug 18, 2012• 18

By STANLEY WINOKUR, MD

When I started practicing oncology, I was frequently asked by my patients, “What’s my prognosis, what can I expect?” At first, I was reluctant to tell the patient very much, especially when I knew the prognosis wasn’t good. I wanted to spare the patient the details of the inevitable outcome of his cancer, so I downplayed the truth. Some may call it sugarcoating the information. I just wanted to do anything I could to protect my patient from learning that not only didn’t we have a cure for his cancer, we didn’t even have a treatment to extend his life. The best we could do was to maybe improve the quality of his life for as long as possible.

Now, years later, not much has changed. Today, most patients with cancer never receive information from their physicians about their prognosis or even imminent death. According to a recent article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, not telling patients their prognosis leads to a worse quality of life for both patients and their caregivers.

Why are physicians so reluctant to give their patients truthful answers regarding their prognosis? When asked, most oncologists say that they don’t want to take away their patients’ hope of recovery. Others say they are afraid that if they tell them the truth, the patients will stop treatment. Some worry that their patients will leave and seek the advice of another physician.

“Healthcare” vs. “Health Care”: The Definitive Word(s)

Aug 17, 2012• 44

By MICHAEL L. MILLENSON

A recent contributor to this blog wondered about the correctness of “health care” versus “healthcare.” I’d like to answer that question by channeling my inner William Safire (the late, great New York Times language maven). If you’ll stick with me, I’ll also disclose why the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is not abbreviated as CMMS and reveal something you may not have known about God – linguistically, if not theologically.

The two-word rule for “health care” is followed by major news organizations (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal) and medical journals (New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine). Their decision seems consistent with the way most references to the word “care” are handled.

Even the editorial writers of Modern Healthcare magazine do not inveigh against errors in medical care driving up costs in acutecare hospitals and nursinghomes. They write about “medical care,” “acute care” and “nursing homes,” separating the adjectives from the nouns they modify. Some in the general media go even farther, applying the traditional rule of hyphenating adjectival phrases; hence, “health-care reform,” just as you’d write “general-interest magazine” or “old-fashioned editor.”