Category: Uncategorized

Is “Cloud Computing” Right for Health IT?

Aug 12, 2009• 3

By ROBERT ROWLEY, MD

The announcement of Salesforce.com investing and coordinating development efforts with Practice Fusion has brought talk of “cloud computing” to the fore. Salesforce has been known as a leader in cloud computing, and moving healthcare IT to that “cloud” has raised questions by a number of observers. What, exactly, is “cloud computing?” Is it appropriate for health IT? What are the security issues and risks?

“Cloud computing” is a term described as a style of computing in which on-demand resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a type of cloud computing, where users do not need to install or maintain any software themselves – simple Internet access and a browser are all that is needed. Users do not need to have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the “cloud” that supports them – the Internet site (e.g. Practice Fusion) provides a unified dashboard to the user, and works out the technical issues of presenting that data in the background.Continue reading…

Shaking my fist at Jon Cohn

Aug 12, 2009• 4

By Matthew Holt

Today Stephen Hawking gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Not bad for a guy the British NHS had its “death panel” kill off in the 1960s. Meanwhile the real star of the day is not the guy who was on Canadian TV yesterday, but instead it’s The New Republic health care guru (and blogger at The Treatment) Jon Cohn who was just great on the Colbert —even revealing to Colbert that his insurance policy included death panels too. Colbert of course thought that this meant he could have his staff put to death.

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jonathan Cohn
www.colbertnation.com

Rx For Medical Research

Aug 10, 2009• 5

By David Shaywitz, Stephen Friend and Eric Schadt

Most biomedical research is framed by an outdated view of disease, a linear mind-set that focuses on simple causes rather than complex relationships within dynamic systems. If we are to achieve President Obama’s audacious goal of “a cure for cancer in our time,” we must radically alter the way we think about biology and disease.

Physicians and medical researchers are traditionally taught to consider disease in terms of simple causes and isolated linear pathways. This one-gene-one-disease approach also informs the way most animal models of disease are developed. Technology readily enables researchers to engineer mice with specific molecular defects in one or a small number of genes as an experimental proxy for human disease. While some of these models are informative and reasonably predictive, most are not.

The limitations of animal models are highlighted by results emerging from powerful genomic studies of human diseases ranging from Type 2 diabetes to pancreatic cancer. For these and many other conditions, the cause is not a single defect, or even a handful of defects, but rather, combinations of hundreds of possible defects, each contributing slightly to the overall risk of disease.

AHLA on the Stark Law and its Revision: a Step Towards Holistic & Ethical Reform

Aug 10, 2009• 3

By KATHLEEN M. BOOZANG

Health reform that focuses exclusively on health care finance — that
is, how we pay for universal access to insurance coverage — will not
produce successful reform. Reform must be holistic, with a focus on
the entire system, as well as its component parts, including whether
the system is structured to deliver the right kind of health care
services in the most appropriate setting, whether we have sufficient
quantity and kind of health care professionals and technology
geographically dispersed to provide the health care services that
people will presumably have insurance to access, and whether the system
properly incentivizes health care professionals to make decisions that
are efficient, effective, and in patients’ best interests. This is a
massive undertaking, with a tremendous risk that important components
will be overlooked precisely because of the size of the undertaking.
The Stark Law represents the kind of on-the-ground healthcare delivery
problems that healthcare reform must tackle.

The American Health Lawyers Association’s Public Interest Committee today released a Whitepaper entitled: “A Public Policy Discussion: Taking Measure of the Stark Law” analyzing the ” Ethics in Patient Referrals Act” (and its progeny), more commonly known collectively as the “Stark Law“, after its primary sponsor, Congressman Pete Stark,
who now counts himself among the many who believe that while the
problem the law aimed to address is real, the statute and its
multitudinous exceptions have become a nightmare.

Announcement: Metropolitan College Offers Scholarship to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Patients and Survivors

Aug 9, 2009

Boston University’s Metropolitan College (MET)
recently announced a scholarship for those currently in the care of Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute (DFCI) which will offer patients and survivors an opportunity
to jumpstart their educational initiatives. Starting with the Fall 2009
semester, The Boston University Metropolitan
College Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Scholarship will enable
patients to either begin or continue their undergraduate studies and resume
their interaction with the education community while working toward future
personal and professional goals. The scholarship is offered to any current or
recent (within 18 months) DFCI patient toward any full-time, part-time, or
non-degree MET classroom program at the undergraduate level.

Thus far, MET has raised over $25,000 in scholarship
funds for the program and is working to engage the local community in an effort
to fund the program for years to come. Donations can be made through the
scholarship website: bu.edu/met/scholarship/dfci/.

And the real reason health reform matters

Aug 8, 2009• 7

By Matthew Holt

And in case you’d forgotten what the health care reform battle is really about, here’s video from Reuters about an open air clinic for the uninsured in Virginia…

A Practicing Doctor’s Prescription for Health Care Reform

Aug 7, 2009

By JORDAN SHLAIN

Our national healthcare system needs a ‘step-change’, not incremental change. We are facing a vast and complex problem. Let’s use it as an opportunity; rather than blaming our nation’s health problems solely on corporations, providers, insurers, or the government, let’s also think constructively about individual behavior and incentives.

Why do we stop at a red light? Why do we pay our grocery bill when we check out? Why are we compelled to ‘service’ our car when the red indicator light starts to flash? The simple answer is that if we don’t we know we will incur a penalty. Either we have to pay to get things fixed later, or we pay extra financial fees, or we get nasty looks from our neighbors.

A behavioral sociologist would offer a more complex answer: such contracts form the heart of a civic society. We behave in accordance with laws and a sense of civic duty (we abide traffic signals) because we understand that preserving the community is ultimately self-preserving. We act in ways consistent with financial incentives, or disincentives (we service our cars) because it is immediately self-preserving.Continue reading…

Report Identifies Five Key Challenges to Health Information Exchange

Aug 7, 2009• 2

By SHEERA ROSENFELD

The government’s $19 billion investment
in health information technology is a pivotal catalyst in our pursuit
of a smart, fully interconnected health information system. However,
as we wait for this investment to take root, there are several immediate
issues the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of
the National Coordinator of HIT must address.

In a recent paper for the Federation
of American Hospitals, my Avalere colleagues and I distilled the following
five concrete issues that officials must tackle to ensure we create
an HIT infrastructure that fulfills its promise of improved access,
quality, and value.

Commentology

Aug 6, 2009• 3

Reader Murry Ferris writes in:

I am a 65 year old retired ad exec and also an insulin-dependent
diabetic. I have other medical complications, but taking care of the
diabetes is the big one.

Every day I test my blood glucose
levels as many as ten times. A box of test strips retails for between
$40-$60 and lasts less than a week…. you do the math. In case you
were not aware, your glucose levels are in a state of constant flux
depending on your intake of food and exercise.   Bottom line, keep your
levels, "level" and you'll lead a more normal life.

Now with all the
talk about raising taxes to pay for the rising cost of health care I
hear absolutely no discussion about reining in the unjustified
increases of medical supplies and equipment.   Just ten years ago I
could buy test strips for $10.   Now they come in slick PVC canisters,
wrapped in four-color labels and packed in plush slick cardboard boxes
stuffed with layers of "instructions" and phony code strips.   Remember
all you need do is stick your finger an put a drop of blood on the end
of the strip.   How hard is that?

So, for $2,600 a year I get to
stick my finger ten times daily, throw a pile of unread and expensive
packaging in the trash, and pay increasingly higher health care
costs.

Here’s how Navigenics Health Compass works, part 1

Aug 4, 2009

By Matthew Holt

Here's part of the fun of working on health 2.0 projects–you get to try interesting stuff. Want to know how doing the spit for a Navigenics DNA test works? Here’s Health 2.0 star intern Lauren Verrilli (who we happen to share with Navigenics showing you how.

Click here to see it