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
Case Study: What Should the Health Plan Executive Do?
Here’s a hypothetical question Roger Longman posed to a panel at the recent Real Endpoints Symposium that is probably worth a little thought from everyone; since the issues raised are intended to be general, I’ve modified this scenario slightly to try to make it as non-specific as possible, so it explicitly doesn’t (and isn’t intended to) apply to a particular disease state or to particular drugs.
Here’s his hypothetical:
Let’s say you are the CMO of a not-for-profit health plan, and are considering costs and reimbursement approaches associated with therapies for a disease that could be treated with Drug A or Drug B. The disease doesn’t cause any symptoms, but if untreated, serious organ damage could occur after many years. Drug A offers a 95% cure rate. Drug B offers a 88% cure rate. The manufacturer of drug B offers a very good economic deal to the payor, saying “If you place our drug first, we’ll offer you excellent pricing and also pay for patients who are failed by our drug to receive drug A.” What would you do?
Beyond HIT Operability: Open Platforms Are Key
I want to begin by sharing well-known information for the sake of comparison. Both the Apple and Google Android platforms welcome the introduction of new and (sometimes) highly valuable functionality through plug-n-play applications built by completely different companies.
You know that already.
Healthcare IT companies welcome you to pay them great sums of money for enhancements to their closed systems. This is on top of substantial maintenance fees that may or may not lead to hoped-for updates in a timely fashion. (With all due respect to the just-announced CommonWell Health Alliance, Meaningful Use does mandate interoperability. The participants are, in effect, marketing what they have to do anyway to try to differentiate themselves from Epic.)
The respective results of these two divergent approaches are probably also familiar to you.
Consumer technology has taken over the planet and altered almost every aspect of our lives. These companies and industries have flourished by knowing what customers will want before those same customers feel even a faint whiff of desire. We are both witnesses to and beneficiaries of dazzling speed-to-solution successes.
Back on planet health IT, the American College of Physicians reports that the percentage of doctors who are “very dissatisfied” with their EHRs has risen by 15 percent since 2010; in a poll, 39 percent said they would not recommend their EHR to colleagues and 38 percent said they would not buy the same system again.
I will argue that the difference between health IT and every other progressive, mature industry is the application of open source, open standards and, most importantly, open platforms. These platforms supporting interoperability and substitutability have enabled Apple and Google—and NOAA weather data, the Facebook Developer Platform, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, Twitter, eBay, etc.—to drive innovation and competition instead of stifling it. They have created markets where everyone wins—the client, the application developer and the platform company.
The keys to open platforms are application programming interfaces (APIs) through which a platform-building company (i.e., Apple, Google) welcomes the contributions of clients and other companies. The more elegant the API, the more it can support true interoperability.
Why Haven’t Electronic Health Records Made Us Any Healthier?
Almost 20 years ago close to 4,000 people from 200 companies gathered in San Diego for a conference to discuss the future of health-care information technology. This was before the Web. This was back when computers in physicians’ offices, to the extent they were present at all, were used only for scheduling and billing patients. Paper charts bulged out of huge filing cabinets.
It was one of the first big conferences held by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). I was among a grab bag of physicians, technologists, visionaries, engineers and entrepreneurs who shared one idealistic goal: to use information systems and technology to fundamentally change health care.
We didn’t just want to upgrade those old systems. We imagined a future that looked a lot like what we were being promised throughout the economy as it sped into the Internet era. Computers would enable improvements in the practice of medicine—and make it safer, higher quality, more affordable and more efficient—all at the same time. We wanted people to be healthier.
Building a New SuperTool to Prevent Hospital-Acquired Infections
Over the past few years there has been a huge push across the country to reduce healthcare associated infections (HAIs).
This has created a big market for entrepreneurs. In fact, according to BCC Research the market for HAI prevention products is expected to be $14 billion by 2016, at which time the market for antibiotics to treat HAIs is expected to be only $6 billion. Some hospitals have purchased high-tech hand hygiene monitoring devices that use radiofrequency identification, some have installed video cameras to observe hand hygiene, while others have invested in hydrogen peroxide robots.
At my hospital we’re investing in coat hooks.
Continue reading…
Moving Toward An Identity and Patient Records Locator
Last week, five health IT vendors came together to announce the CommonWell Health Alliance, a nonprofit focused on developing a national secure network and standards that will:
- Unambiguously identify patients
- Provide a national, secure record locator service. For treatment purposes, providers can know where a patient’s records are located.
- Enable peer-to-peer sharing of patient records requested via a targeted (or directed) query
- Enable patients and consumers to withhold consent / authorization for participation in the network
Unambiguous patient identity matters
In banking, without certainty about identity, ATM machines would not give out cash. And in healthcare without certainty about identity, physicians are working with one hand tied behind their backs.
This problem will never be solved by the Feds. In fact, Congress has restricted any spending on it by the government at all. Industry working together may be the only practical alternative.
How Should Apps Be Prescribed?
Should I be prescribing apps, and if so, which ones?
I recently came across this video of Happtique’s CEO Ben Chodor describing his company to Health 2.0’s Matthew Holt. In it, the CEO explains that Happtique is creating a safe and organized space, to make it easy for doctors to prescribe apps and otherwise “engage with patients.”
Because, he says “we believe that the day is going to come that doctors, and care managers, are going to prescribe apps. It’s going to be part of going to the doctor. He’s going to prescribe you Lipitor, and he’s going to give you a cholesterol adherence app.”
He goes on to say that they have a special process to make sure apps are “safe” and says this could be like the good housekeeping seal of approval for apps.
Hmm. I have to admit that I really can’t imagine myself ever prescribing a “cholesterol adherence” app. (More on why below; also found myself wondering what it exactly meant for Happtique to say an app was safe. What would an unsafe cholesterol app look like?)
Why Patient Engagement Really Does Matter and Why So Many People Are Getting It Wrong
“Patient engagement.”
What is “Patient Engagement?” It sounds like a season of “The Bachelor” where a doctor dates hot patients. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was. After all, patient engagement is hot; it’s the new buzz phrase for health wonks. There was a even an entire day at the recent HIMSS conference dedicated to “Patient engagement.” I think the next season of “The Bachelor” should feature a wonk at HIMSS looking for a wonkettes to love.
Here’s how the Internets define “Patient engagement”:
The Get Well Network (with a smiley face) calls it: “A national health priority and a core strategy for performance improvement.”
Leonard Kish refers to it as “The Blockbuster Drug of the Century” (it narrowly beat out Viagra) – HT to Dave Chase.
Steve Wilkins refers to it as “The Holy Grail of Health Care” (it also narrowly beat out Viagra) – HT to Kevin MD.
On the HIMSS Patient Engagement Day, the following topics were discussed:
-How to make Patients Your Partners in Satisfying Meaningful Use Stage 2 Objectives; Case Studies in Patient Engagement, session #64;
-Review Business Cases for Implementing a Patient-Centered Communication Strategy and Building Patient 2.0, session #84;: and
-Engaging People in Health Through Consumer-Facing Devices and Tools, session #102.
So then, “patient engagement” is:
-a strategy
-a drug
-a grail (although I already have a grail)
-a “meaningful use” objective
-something that requires a business case
-something that requires “consumer-facing devices and tools” (I already have one of those too).
Top THCB Blog Posts of the Last Two Weeks
What Will Tomorrow’s Doctor Look Like? (12)
What skills will doctors need to survive and succeed in the future? At this point pretty much everybody gets that they’ll need to be good with technology. But beyond that? This is what we know: tomorrow’s doctor will need to be comfortable dealing with e-patients armed with information. They’ll need to efficiently communicate and coordinate care with colleagues using new-fangled means. And oh yeah, lest we forget: they’ll need to adapt quickly and to a changing world on a regular basis. Just like everybody else.
Not Knowing What You Don’t Know (25)
The new thinking among many experts is that nurse practitioners and physicians assistants should take over many mundane day-to-day tasks to free up doctors for more important work. But many doctors remain violently opposed to the idea. Dinosaur MD offers a cautionary tale.
The HIT Job (44)
The New York Times investigation on the sketchy influence of federal money in health IT was inevitable from the moment Washington announced it would be paying incentives to drive electronic medical record adoption. Unfortunately, the newspaper’s hard-hitting reporting almost entirely misses the point, argues UCSF’s Bob Wachter.
The Other Scandal (47)
Sorry. The real scandal is the healthcare industry’s continued refusal to adopt electronic medical records and other new technologies that could revolutionize care and save tens thousands of lives every year. What’s really going on here? It turns out that the answer isn’t as straightforward as one might think.
Death of an Evangelist(33)
An early adopter of electronic medical records says enough already. This has gone on long enough. Better technology is indeed the answer. But we have just isn’t good enough. It’s time to roll up our shirt sleeves and get to work, argues Rob Lamberts.
Choosing Alternative Medicine (57)
Steve’s death was a hard one. Facing Stage 2 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma he fought for life using every weapon he could lay his hands on. Herbal teas. Acupuncture. Mysterious elixirs. The one thing he didn’t try? Chemotherapy. With a growing number of patients choosing alternative therapies, the story is a familiar one.
Praying For Obamacare to Fail (49)
The Affordable Care Act is now the law of land. Looking for ways to obstruct implementation of the new healthcare law is becoming a cottage industry in some circles. And that’s a crying shame.
CommonWell Is a Shame and a Missed Opportunity (28)
One of the big stories coming out of HIMSS this year is a new star alliance featuring some of the biggest names in health IT. Adrian Gropper argues the effort misses the mark. And that’s a damn pity when real innovation is desperately needed. Continue reading…
Death By Remote Connection
Not long ago the Atlantic published a provocative article entitled “The Robot Will See You Now.” Using the supercomputer Watson as a starting point, the author explored the mind-bending possibilities of e-care. In this near future, so many aspects of medicine will be captured by automated technology that the magazine asked if “your doctor is becoming obsolete?”
The IT version of health includes continuous medical monitoring (i.e. your watch will check all vital functions), robotic surgery without human supervision, lifelong personal database with genetic code core and intensive preventive care modeled for each person’s need; all supervised by artificial intelligence with access to a complete file of medical research and findings. The e-doctor will never forget, never get tired, never get confused, never take a day off and will give 24/7 medical care at any location, anywhere in the world, for a fraction of the cost. Perfect care, everywhere, at every moment, for a pittance.
While the transformation for doctors seems clear, a shift from being at the core of medicine to being what the article described as “super-quality-control officers,” what intrigues me is not how doctors will change (retire); the real question is how patients will adapt to this new healthcare world? Particularly when experiencing extreme or life threatening illness, will patients accept that family, friends and a pumped up Ipad are enough?
