Category: Uncategorized

CASTING CALL: The Future Role of the Doctor

Feb 18, 2009• 1

Health 2.0 is working on a new documentary focusing on the next generation of physicians and healthcare professionals.

We
are looking to cast 3-5 medical students who are willing to share their
perspectives on how the field of medicine is changing, how they expect
to be practicing when they're out in the world, and how Health 2.0
technologies factor into their lives.

Are you (or can you
recommend) a dynamic and engaging medical student or health
professional in training who is currently working to bring the medical
profession/healthcare system into the 21st century? Are you working on
projects that relate to social media/the web/mobile/ changing the world
with technology? Then we want to talk to you!

The short film
will debut at the Health 2.0 conference in Boston in April and be
distributed online through various partner organizations.

Please send all recommendations and references to Lizzie Dunklee, Executive
Producer at Health 2.0 at li****@********on.com.

Podcast: Blues VC fund invests in Phreesia

Feb 17, 2009• 9

By MATTHEW HOLT

I’ve been following Phreesia since it was two guys in an apartment trying to figure out how to make the patient check-in at the doctors office a better and more useful experience. Today they announced an $11m series C round with new investor BCBS Ventures, a new-ish fund backed by 11 Blues plans. (FD: Phreesia has presented and exhibited at Health 2.0, and I think they’re a great example of using light-weight web technology to solve a messy process problem.) I spoke to Chaim Indig, CEO & President of Phreesia, and new investor Paul Brown, Managing Director of BCBS Ventures Inc this morning. Here’s the interview.

Calendar: The Transforming Healthcare Summit 2009

Feb 16, 2009

The Transforming Healthcare Summit 2009: Impact & Opportunity in the Obama Plan, Thu. Feb. 26, 2009, 5:45 pm in Boston with Keynote Jim Roosevelt of Tufts and the Obama Transition Team and panelists Jim Glaser of Partners, Jonathan Bush of athenahealth, and Charlie Baker of Harvard Pilgrim.

The American healthcare sector has never experienced such a time of crisis, uncertainty, and opportunity. As a result, the Obama Administration has made healthcare the centerpiece of its stimulus and reform plans. Billions of dollars are flowing into healthcare from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and tens of billions more are expected from the American Recovery and Reinvestment (Stimulus) Plan and from the forthcoming comprehensive healthcare reform plan. But how do you and your organization learn about the change and get ahead of it?

An Interview with Lynn Jennings, CEO of WeCare TLC, an Onsite Clinic Company

Feb 16, 2009• 4

By RICHARD REECE

The
American entrepreneurial economy distinctly differs from that of
socialistic European economies. American organizations must be able to
make decisions based on proximity to performance, the market,
technology, society, environment, and demographics. In Europe, on the
other hand, distance from the market of centralized systems makes
innovation and responsiveness difficult

"Innovation-Driven Health Care: 34 Key Concepts for Transformation" — Jones and Bartlett, 2007

Background

Q: What is your position?

A: I am CEO of Alliance Underwriters. It has two subsidiaries. One is called Medwatch. The other is called WeCareTLC. Alliance Underwriters
is a Managing General Underwriter for stop-lost insurance for
self-funded employers on their health insurance. We have been in
business for over 20 years. Medwatch is a utilization management company doing case management and disease management. It has been in business over 20 years. WeCareTLC
is an on-site employer clinical management company, and it has been in
business about three years. In these three companies, we have a total
of about 100 employees, and our fee revenues are about $8 million. We
are located in Orlando, Florida.

Checklists (The Sequel)

Feb 15, 2009• 3

By Bob Wachter

Last month’s New England Journal included another astounding checklist study,
an international extravaganza that found nearly 50% reductions in
mortality and complications after implementation of pre- and post-op
surgical safety checklists.

Wow.

Coincidentally, I read the study, conducted by a research team led by surgeon/author extraordinaire Atul Gawande,
on my way home from a meeting at the headquarters of the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The AHRQ gathering brought
together the advisors to a new rollout of the Hopkins/Michigan
checklist program to prevent central line-associated bloodstream
infections (CABSI) to 10 additional states. You remember that study, published in the NEJM in 2007: implementation of a simple 5-item checklist in more than 100 Michigan ICUs led to over 1000 lives saved.

Commentology

Feb 15, 2009• 1

MToubbeh, MD wrote us in response to Eric Novack's slightly incendiary post. ("The Expansion of the Federal Healthcare Bureaucracy Bill")

I don't think that when we built the Highway system
in the country that people were worried that the Government was going
to control the flow of travel. The ONC was established under the Bush administration, is headed up by
a provider and the new advisory board (NeHC) has at least 8 physicians
on it including many who post on this blog regularly.

This
bill in fact has blocked the power of many lobbying groups (ie it isn't
a vendor dominated organization) and is only one small part of the
total amount of money that needs to be implemented in health IT. The
private sector has been catering to their clients (hospitals) and both
providers and consumers have been left out of this process up until
now.

Bev MD had this comment on David Kibbe's landmark post on Clinical Groupware:

"As
a former medical laboratory and blood bank director, I have seen every
conceivable(and some inconceivable) way that a patient's identity can
be mistaken and incorrect information entered in a patient record. This
is one reason why every blood bank will re-draw a patient's blood on
every admission to confirm their blood type is really the same as what
is in their record. And no, one cannot rely on the patient himself to
verify the information, for a variety of reasons. Please do not
overlook the critical necessity for at least one, preferably two,
unique patient identifiers in any type of system that is developed – or
you may literally kill someone."

The Japanese Dr. Koop

Feb 13, 2009• 3

By John Halamka

As readers of my blog know, I'm a great fan of the Japanese culture,
lifestyle, and people. I'm on a speaking tour of the country this week,
meeting with government, academia, and industry leaders in
Tokyo,
Nagoya and Kyoto. Every time I visit Japan I learn more about the
language, the arts, and tradition. The trip thus far has been
remarkable with many insights into the challenges of their healthcare
system, their plans for EHRs and their emerging interest in PHRs. I've
met many friends and colleagues, had great vegetarian meals, and
mastered the Tokyo subway system.

One of the most interesting
experiences was having lunch with Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, the most
famous physician in Japan. He's 97 years old and loved by everyone –
the Japanese version of Dr. Koop. He has published over 150 books since
his 75th birthday, including one "Living Long, Living Good" that has
sold more than 1.2 million copies. As the founder of the New Elderly
Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a long and happy life, a
quest in which no role model is better than the doctor himself.

The Stimulus Pregame

Feb 13, 2009• 18

By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

"Drug Makers Fight Stimulus Provision"

"Lobbying War Ensues Over Digital Data"

The first was a recent and the second headline comes from the Washington Post. Both refer to what were supposed to be two already agreed on health
care reform ideas–comparative research about which treatments work
best and the creation of a nationwide system of medical records.

The lesson here is that in health care nothing is easy, simple, or widely agreed to.

Why Clinical Groupware May Be the Next Big Thing in Health IT

Feb 13, 2009• 46

By David C. Kibbe

What would you call health care software that:

Is Web-based and networkable, therefore highly scalable and inexpensive to purchase and use;
Provides a ‘unified view’ of a patient from multiple sources of data and information;
Is designed to be used interactively – by providers and patients alike – to coordinate care and create continuity;
Offers evidence-based guidance and coaching, personalized by access to a person’s health data as it changes;
Collects, for analysis and reporting, quality and performance measures as the routine by-product of its normal daily use;
Aims to provide patients and their providers with a collaborative workflow platform for decision support; and
Creates a care plan for each individual and then monitors the progress of each patient and provider in meeting the goals of that plan?

I call this Clinical Groupware. The term captures the basic notion that the primary purpose for using these IT systems is to improve clinical care through communications and coordination involving a team of people, the patient included. And in a manner that fosters accountability in terms of quality and cost.

The Expansion of the Federal Health Care Bureaucracy Bill

Feb 13, 2009• 8

By ERIC NOVACK

With the conference report available on the web, here are the references to the health care provisions in the conference report of the 'stimulus' bill. I have not gone into great detail on the privacy provisions (which are, in large part, dedicated to a new aggressive federal watchdog/ punishment regime to enforce the privacy standards– that have not been developed yet).