Tag: Conferences

Health 2.0 Tools: The power of Twitter

Oct 23, 2009• 6

The power of Twitter is real kids, and not for what you think. Used properly Twitter is an information filter. Exhibit A is what happened to the Von Schwebers who run PHARMASurveyor. They were a huge part of the Tools Panel which featured interoperation among 8 members of the Health 2.0 Accelerator at Health 2.0 a couple of weeks back. Then last week they were at an AHRQ conference on Drug Interactions when this happened. Erick von Schweber’s email picks up the story ..

The Chief Medical Officer of Express Scripts is doing his talk, about halfway through, and then tells this rather academic audience of scientists and researchers that there’s something new they need to attend to. It’s called Health 2.0, he says, and he puts up a PowerPoint slide with screen captures from WebMD, HealthVault, Healthline, DoubleCheckMD, etc. Then he tells the audience that the prior week he saw tweets about something new in the space, so he checked it out. He says this is the next major leap ahead in drug safety. So up comes a series of four slides, all screen grabs of PharmaSURVEYOR. And he calls us the Accelerator and explains what we do, disclaiming that he had no knowledge that we’d be there at the conference (I had moderated that morning’s session on making DDI evidence more relevant to patients and physicians; Hansten and Horn were my speakers, the guys who introduced the term “drug interaction” in the mid-sixties). He tells the audience that they must go to PharmaSURVEYOR as well as begin thinking in terms of consumer generated healthcare.

Now it just so happens that the Chief Scientist of Express Scripts but not the Chief Medical Officer had been to Health 2.0 and (I assume) seen the Tools panel demonstrations. But, and this will amaze no one, busy executives at big corporations don’t always immediately communicate all of their learnings with each other. So how did the Chief Medical Officer find out? He probably saw a re-tweet of the #health2con hash tag. That, ladies’n’genelmen, is how our kids is learning these days.

And do you want to see the incredible tools panel from Health 2.0 which contained both the accelerator integration project (in two parts), the debut of Keas, and Eliza showing the first Health 2.0 marriage? Funny you should ask.

From Health 2.0 meets Ix: A Breathtaking Display of Possibilities

Apr 2, 2009• 5

<p class="byline"By BRIAN KLEPPER

(Boston) Jane Sarasohn-Kahn and I were quickly comparing notes this morning. Our impression is that, compared to past meetings, this one seems more characterized by doers than observers.

This conference brings together a dizzying array of tools and experiences, which is testament to the organizers’ encyclopedic handle on the vast diversity of activity in this sector. Josh Seidman, Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt have done yeomans’ jobs in putting these impressive presentations together.

Mingling, I’ve spoken to person after person actively involved in mostly consumer-oriented ventures, leveraging science and user-generated information to facilitate a more favorable patient experience. There are some real steps forward, like the demo that Mayo and Microsoft showed, that takes information entered into Health Vault and applies the rules that Mayo has developed through many years of experience. Or the work that groups like Up-To-Date and HealthWise are doing, that continually, organically update descriptive information throughout medicine and health care.

Musings on Integrating Care at the IOM

Feb 26, 2009• 5

By Matthew Holt

So I’m in
DC figuring out how the East coast medical policy elite tries to change the world. While the rest of DC is buzzing about Obama’s speech and budget, The Institute of Medicine is having a conference on Integrative Medicine. But most people think it should be called integrative health.

What is integrative health, you ask? Good question.

The majority of the panelists are mainstream health care players like Bill Novelli (AARP), George Halvorson, (Kaiser Permanente), Ralph Snyderman, (Duke). They’re talking about integrating coordinated allopathic health care and information across an individual’s personal health plan. Snyderman, said we need to move from “find it, fix it” to a “personal health plan”. Halvorson said (surprise, surprise) that we need electronic health data on every patient, and to not just replicate the current silos of care in our new data strategy. Novelli went straight at the environmental factors—smoking, fast food et al. And to not ignore them. Mehmet Oz (he of the Oprah show) said that

Check Out The TED Talks

Feb 11, 2009

By Brian Klepper

The uber-fabulous (and expensive) TED conference – 4 days, $6,000 and sold out a year in advance – a collection of some of the world's most thoughtful, innovative and high achieving individuals, has just finished, and many of the talks are free to watch. They cover a breathtaking array of topics.

Take 20 minutes each morning and get your mind into gear with one if these. I just watched Bill Gates' excellent presentation about the issues associated with tackling malaria and with creating great teachers.

Sleepless in Seattle

Dec 4, 2008• 10

By Matthew Holt

In a 36 hour span I left the mountains of Copa Ruinas in Western Honduras, had dinner in South Beach, Miami and after stopping off to see that Health 2.0 central in SF hadn’t collapsed, ended up in Seattle. I woke up early (had to get that in there to match the title) and hustled off to the main symphony hall because it’s the 25^th anniversary of the Group Health Center for Health Studies. (The research arm of Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound)

There the question of the day is, why haven’t integrated group practices (like Group Health & Kaiser) spread across the nation? And is there something that the new Administration can do to help make it so?

Nudging the value glacier

Dec 4, 2008• 2

By Sarah Arnquist Glacier

In just two years, seniors will spend a quarter of their monthly Social Security checks on Medicare out-of-pocket expenses, including premiums, co-payments and deductibles.Meanwhile, Medicare bookkeepers predict total health spending in the U.S. to increase from 2.2 trillion today to 4.3 trillion in 2017.

At that rate of growth, it won’t be long before the entire Social Security check goes toward medical care. So what’s the solution?

Barry Straube, CMS chief medical officer, said the solution is transforming Medicare into an active purchaser that seeks to get more bang — in terms of high quality care and improved health — for its buck.

In health care lingo, that’s called value-based purchasing – the topic of a two-day conference put on by the ECRI Institute that Straube,and other health care bigwigs attended this week in Washington D.C.

“Medicare should be paying for care that promotes health, prevents complications, optimizes quality and efficiency, and keeps health care costs down,” Straube said. “… We have a system that arguably is based on resource consumption and volume irrespective to the value associated with that care.”

Fact or Fiction: Electronic health records save money

Dec 1, 2008• 24

Note by Brian Klepper: Today the actuarial consulting firm Milliman is convening a town hall meeting in Seattle focused generally on health care reform, but specifically on Electronic Health Records (EHRs). The larger Seattle metropolitan area is a hotbed of health care innovation, with Virginia Mason Health System, Costco, Starbucks, Boeing, Premera and other forward-thinking firms. The conference will have representatives from CMS, Microsoft, the VA, Group Health Cooperative, and Milliman, and is open to the public. Should be an interesting session.

To kick it off, here’s a little piece on EHRs by Jeremy Engdahl-Johnson, Managing Editor at Milliman.

By JEREMY ENGDAHL-JOHNSON

Of all the initiatives endorsed by outgoing Secretary of Health Mike
Leavitt, few are likely to be met with as much agreement by his likely
successor, Tom Daschle, as the need for wider adoption of electronic
health records (EHR). While there is general agreement on the need for
this technology investment—both presidential campaigns included EHR in
their health platforms—the cost ramifications are still up for debate.
Will electronic health records reduce costs? There are compelling
reasons to answer both “yes” and “no.”

America’s CEOs set priorities for Obama Administration

Nov 21, 2008• 11

By Brian Klepper

This past Monday and Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal convened an extraordinary conference of about 100 CEOs to develop and recommend issue priorities for the new Administration. (See the participant list here.)

This meeting brought together the nation’s industry power players. Several Senators and Congressional representatives participated, as well as Rahm Emanuel, the President-elect’s new Chief of Staff, and others who advise Mr. Obama.

Based on their business’ core focus, the attendees were assigned into four major areas: 1) Finance and the US Economy, 2) Energy and the Environment, 3) American and the Global Economy, and 4) Health Care.

Then in the General Session that followed, the focus groups’ recommendations were incorporated into a final list and reranked by all the participants. Here’s the graph showing the relative ranking of all issues.

e-Patient Dave tells his story

Oct 28, 2008• 7

By Matthew Holt

In the Connected Health conference at Partners I sat in on a great session in which e-Patient Dave (Dave deBronkart) and his physician, Danny Sands described his use of listservs, the Internet, email and BIMDC’s PatientSite and other tools in his (successful!) battle with renal cancer—after being told median survival was 24 weeks. I won’t tell the whole story as they’re trying to get it published in an authoritative journal—so that physicians will pay attention and promote this use of technology by patients.

Danny Sands says most patients with his condition feel incredibly alone. but "Dave told me he didn’t think he was isolated. He felt
connected.”

Dave said, “Reading and connecting online makes me a better patient. But it doesn’t make me an oncologist.” But doing all these things via ACOR and the use of CaringBridge and PatientSite did, he believe, increase his hope & outlook, and helped make his treatment successful.

A remarkable story and one that we’ll tell more about later.

(Note: I made a minor edit as my original note got garbled between my ears and my fingers!)

Entering the era of participatory medicine

Oct 28, 2008• 2

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

I’ve returned from a week of Health 2.0 immersion on the west coast. The top-line finding: we’ve entered the period we can call Participatory Medicine. For some, like the pioneering Gilles Friedman of ACOR, this is nothing new. Other people have never heard of it. It’s global. It’s local. It’s a movement and a verb, as I pointed out thirteen months ago following the inaugural Health 2.0 conference. H20logo_2

Here are some reflections…

On Tuesday, I appeared on a panel on Health 2.0 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco for KQED public radio, sponsored by the California HealthCare Foundation. The Club’s motto by founder Edward Adams is, "We only propose to find truth and turn it loose in the world." My fellow panelists resemble that remark! They were the inspiring Amy Tenderich, founder and blogger of Diabetes Mine; and the ebullient, motivating and insightful Dr. Ted Eytan, now with Kaiser Permanente. We riffed on the roots of H2.0, the risks and benefits of people sharing health information and opinions online, and prospects for the future. Amy and Ted were stellar and shared their special perspectives as patient and doctor, respectively. When the podcast online is available, I will point you to it.