Category: Uncategorized

The Myth of Prevention and EHR’s?

Jun 30, 2009• 11

By SCOTT SHREEVE 6a00d8341c909d53ef010536f31133970c-pi

I was just referred this article which I found to be thoughtfully crafted. Abraham Verghese is a Professor and Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University. I found the article interesting, by somewhat anachronistic in terms of his perception of prevention and electronic medical records.

First, he raises an important point about the many overstatements as they relate to prevention. When we talk about how effective screening programs could be in identifying people for early interventions we have to realize what we are saying and what tools we are using for identification. Some tools can be too blunt, and not find the people we are looking for (false negatives), while other tools can be too sensitive and capture too many who actually may not have the disease (false positives). This is brought home in the example Dr. Verghese uses around the pitfalls of new diagnostic imaging equipment (and the situation is much worse with genetic testing at this point in time!).Continue reading…

Unions May Get a Pass on Health Care Benefits Tax

Jun 29, 2009• 6

By ROBERT LAWSZEWSKI

There is a major bipartisan effort going on in the Senate Finance Committee to reform the health care system.Reportedly, one of the elements of that effort may be a tax on "gold plated" health insurance benefits
above a certain threshold–$17,000 for family coverage is one option
being discussed. The new tax could raise close to $300 billion over ten
years to help pay for a health care bill.

Health 2.0 NYC Chapter Meetup, July 9th

Jun 29, 2009• 1

Once again we are looking forward to an exciting and packed event on July 9th. So RSVP early and please make it firm. Before we get to the agenda, I urge everyone to explore and endorse “A Declaration of Health Data Rights.”

Presenters:
1. HandHold Adaptive, LLC, Dan Tedesco – Dan will present iPrompts – the portable, customizable, visual prompting tool for those with special needs.

The Message Is The Medium

Jun 28, 2009• 5

By MERRILL GOOZNER

Emory University psychologist and political consultant Drew Westen in the weekend Washington Post offers a troubling view of the public’s role in health care reform. While reform’s reality involves complicated technical issues like insurance exchanges, public plan governance, physician and hospital payments and who will pay higher taxes, the public’s understanding of these issues is virtually non-existent, Westen assumes.

THCB Marketplace Beta Now Open

Jun 28, 2009

Go take a look: www.thehealthcareblog.com/marketplace

And in reply to the ABC Obamamercial…

Jun 26, 2009• 2

By Matthew Holt

Stephen Colbert’s Republican Health Care Infomercial. Quite wonderful. Can’t get it to embed but here’s the link

The EHR TimeBar: A New Visual Interface Design

Jun 26, 2009• 6

By RICK WEINHAUS, MD

The EHR TimeBar functions as a high-level overview of the patient record, as a query device, and as an intuitive navigation tool. Each EHR file (event) for the patient is represented by an icon. The set of icons and their labels are displayed in column format on the right side of the screen.

The icons are connected to the TimeBar by vertical lines. Because the vertical lines accurately position each event on the TimeBar, the date of each event is usually omitted in order to reduce clutter.Continue reading…

Data to the People

Jun 26, 2009• 1

By GREGORY PARK

I have been a strong proponent of the creation of a National Health Record (NHR), but will it increase the quality of care for each citizen? Without 100 percent compliance by all healthcare providers the establishment of the NHR will bear little fruit for its expense. Proponents of a NHR site the achievements of the VHA. VHA patients include highly mobile active and inactive soldiers. Ubiquitous methods for viewing clinical data are critical, however Joe Outpatient doesn’t move around in this manner nor does he stray far from the facilities where he receives care.

Commentology: National Health Information Networks; What is the Benefit?

Jun 26, 2009

Gregory Park from DB Technology, wrote in to say this about National Health Information Networks:

"I was wondering where is the debate on the real benefits in NHINs.
What is the benefit exactly? The way that I see it, most of the
benefits could be achieved by lower tech efforts such as disease
hotlines which exist today.