Category: Uncategorized

What the candidates’ searches say about them

Jul 4, 2008• 4

By Craig Stoltz

One of the fun parlor games of Election ’08 is to look at Internet data and figure out what they mean.

The answer may be "nothing," of course.

But let’s play along and look at the latest Hitwise data on popular search terms. HitWise, a company that tracks Internet traffic, counted the search words that sent people to John McCain or Barack Obama’s websites. [Here’s a press release about the findings on the candidates’ top Internet search terms.]

"Health care" didn’t make Obama’s top 5 search terms in the first quarter of 2008. In the second quarter, health care took the number 4 slot. [Q1’s top term was "gay marriage," Q2’s "abortion."]

Meantime, "health care" took the tops spots for John McCain in both Q1 and Q2.

So: Does this mean people think they already know Obama’s healthcare plan and don’t need to search about it on the Internet? Or, don’t they have much interest in the issue?

As for McCain, do the searches mean his plan is little-known and people want information on it? Or do those interested in McCain care more about healthcare than Obama’s voters?

Retreat to the parlor and discuss, please.

UnitedHealth trying to regroup for an uncertain future

Jul 3, 2008

By Matthew Holt

In an attempt to put that messy options back-dating business behind it, yesterday
UnitedHealth Group settled with CalPERS (the ever vigilant pension fund of California state employees) and other class action suit members. And they settled for a bunch — $985 million. That’s even more than ex-CEO Bill McGuire gave back in his long running attempt to apologize without admitting criminal liability. Although, of course, United’s stock is down so much from the halcyon days of 2006 that it would require me to take my socks of both feet to work out if McGuire’s remaining options are worth anything these days!

Meanwhile, the CEO of Brocade is in jail (or may be out on appeal, I’m not sure) for back-dating options that helped his employees — and hurt his shareholders. Yet, McGuire (and for that matter Steve Jobs) seem to my untrained eye to have done the same thing without severe consequences. I’m still baffled.

United’s business seems to be heading into more trouble. Profits are down, lay-offs are up, and overall membership is down. More people and employers can’t afford health insurance in a weakening economy. And don’t forget total enrollment in commercial employment-based insurance plans fell during the most recent economic expansion!

The only logical rescue comes from an expansion of government plans. But there’s of course the little issue of how much they get paid for those government plans! The long-term question is whether they will lose more on the Medicare Advantage roundabout under the next Administration than they make up on any universal health care swings.

UPDATE: Wall Street didn’t like it too much. UNH is down 9% today

Healthcare Unbound, and HHS Genomics Workshop

Jul 3, 2008

By Matthew Holt

There’s lots of activity coming up next week. Matthew Holt will be at a star-studded workshop about personal genomics put on by HHS in Washington DC Monday afternoon. Details are here and if you can’t get there you can see the webcast.

Meanwhile, the Healthcare Unbound Conference is having a session on Monday afternoon in San Francisco about Health 2.0. David Kibbe is the moderator, and our very own Indu Subaiya is on the panel with Adam Bosworth (ex-Google, now with Keas) and Cris Ross from CVS MinuteClinic.

MARKETPLACE: Patient safety barbecue

Jul 3, 2008• 1

LeapforPatientSafety.org is hosting a patient safety barbecue in Aiken South Carolina July 4 to commemorate Patient Safety Day. The organization also has an online petition requesting increased protection for physicians who complain to hospital administrators regarding poor quality patient care.

Mitigating interference between electronic medical devices

Jul 3, 2008• 1

By John Halamka

Last week, JAMA published an article about the risks of active and passive radio frequency identification to other hospital equipment.

The Associated Press and ABC News issued major stories about it.

Although the study focused on RFID tags, the issue is more generic. Electronic Magnetic Interference (EMI) is generated by many devices including cell phones, laptops, and microwave ovens. Such devices emit RF energy which may interfere with the operation of sensitive electronic components used in medical equipment. The interference may be frequency related (signal jamming) or cause the device to fail because a chip or wire is exposed to too much energy from an emitting device. The very best defense is to have adequate shielding for medical equipment. It’s inconceivable that hospitals can keep patient care areas free of RF emitters. Thus, it is important for hospital clinical engineering departments to be vigilant in identifying potentially unsafe devices.

AMA and AHIP go head to head with TV ads

Jul 2, 2008• 3

By Sarah Arnquist

The American Medical Association this week began a television ad campaign, lambasting Republican Senators who failed to prevent the July 1 automatic 10.6 percent Medicare physician fee cut.

In the one-minute ad, AMA President Nancy Nielsen says, "A group of Senators decided it was more important to protect the health insurers than seniors."

Just as Robert Laszewski predicted here last week, the doctors are coming out in full lobbying force.

But wait. The Association of Health Insurance Plans is also running ads filled with nice looking seniors saying that to protect seniors Congress must protect the Medicare Advantage program.

Who is a senior taking 10 prescription medications for six chronic diseases with a calendar full of doctor’s appointments to believe?

Here are the ads.

We need to make some changes to change health care

Jul 2, 2008• 5

By Charlie Baker

Charlie Baker is the president and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc., a nonprofit health plan that covers more than 1 million New Englanders. Baker blogs regularly at Let’s Talk Health Care.

One of the reasons the operating model in health care doesn’t change much over time is pretty simple: most of the people who think about it, write about it, work in it and study it have trouble seeing the model any differently than they see it today. I was struck, therefore, by Hebrew Senior Life’s Len Fishman the other day when he and I served on a panel at the 30th annual meeting of the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium. We were told to discuss health care 30 years from now — me from the plan perspective, and Len from the long term care perspective. I went pretty far out there in my remarks, imagining, among other things, a world in which there were no health plans at all(!). Len did too. His presentation on the future of long term care could not have looked more different than what we have today. He literally re-imagined the whole thing. It was startling — and refreshing.

This question — is the future just like the past, or something different — was raised again for me earlier this week when Brian Rosman — a good guy with whom I almost never agree — posted a blog on the Health Care for All Web site that basically said that more publicly available information on health care cost and quality could/might/will lead to higher costs and higher prices, because no one really cares about costs, and if they do, they’ll flock to higher cost options, because they’ll think they’re better than lower cost ones.

Consumer genetic movement: Cease and desist? How about understand and resist!

Jul 2, 2008• 1

By Scott Shreeve

I have been following health care consumerism for several years now. Particularly, the “Direct Access” or “Direct To Consumer” laboratory testing market. While analytic lab testing has led out in this area, genetic testing has received all the regulatory attention, national press, and policy efforts (GINA).So it is no surprise that consumer genetic movement would be the first legal test of the Health 2.0 movement. As reported by Matthew Holt here on THCB, and a host of national outlets (Wired has had extensive coverage here, here, and here), there seems to be quite a hornets nest unleashed by our friends at the California and New York Departments of Health who are attempting to prevent consumers from accessing their own genetic information.

Thanks to some transparency efforts of the blogosphere, you can read the actual cease and desist letter written by Karen Nickels, the California Department of Pubic Health Chief of Laboratory Field Services. I actually know Karen Nickels personally. She has been a long time steward of ensuring regulatory exactness of all things laboratory within the State of California for 30+ years. She has a well deserved reputation as one tough cookie for the “precision” with which she carries out her dutiesUltimate Genetic Fighting – Which Genetic Variation Wins?

Docs get mad, 2.0 style, at Sermo

Jul 1, 2008• 8

By Matthew Holt

Sermo Of course, it’s not just cornering a Senator at July 4th picnic that changes policy.
These days there are online communities doing it too. And with increased grumpiness among many doctors, and now the almost-here-rather-than-looming-on-the-horizon cuts in Medicare, you can expect a response online. And here it is: Fed up Sermo docs draft manifesto. Yup, those docs hanging out on Sermo are not just discussing clinical cases, they’re on the verge of getting politically active. As you might expect, they’re pissed off with insurers, the government and lawyers. And who could disagree? (I know, I know it’s more complex than that….)

Never one to miss a trick, Sermo has allowed itself to be used as a vehicle for the open letter that’s going to get much more publicity (and yup, as a doc you have to sign up for Sermo to sign the letter, to verify that you are a doc!). Here’s the site called Doctors Unite.

Every other form of political activism has moved online, so don’t be surprised to see more like this. Of course, if the details get specific, it’s tricky to know whether the coalition of pissed off docs will hang together, and also whether Sermo will become type-cast as representing a particular flavor of doctor (see: Medical Association, American) which may somewhere down the road limit its business initiatives. But for now, it’s fun to see online organization get serious in health care.

Google Health and the PHR: Do Consumers Care?

Jul 1, 2008• 28

By Keith Schorsch Keith_2

Google Health’s unveiling last week and Microsoft’s HealthVault launch last October
are important milestones in the evolution of Health 2.0. Both of these heavyweights have the resources and potential to improve the health consumer’s customer experience. I have followed the active (and important) conversations about privacy concerns, HIPAA, and Google Health’s terms of service, which are well represented by Erik Schonfeld’s post on Techcrunch and Larry Dignan’s post on ZDnet. And I read with interest Google’s rapid response offered by Google Senior Product Counsel Mark Yang.

What’s missing from all of these conversations is the elephant in the room: Do consumers really care about having online personal health records?