Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, talked with Matthew about mergers, consolidation and payment changes taking place in the healthcare system.
GE Healthcare @ HIMSS11
Matthew spoke with GE Healthcare IT’s SVP and General Manager of eHealth, Earl Jones, about the health IT giant’s strategies.
Is Economic Credentialing A Tool for Primary Care to Lead ACOs?
By VINCE KURAITIS, JD
Is economic credentialing — the use of economic factors such as loyalty and utilization rates in the physician credentialing process — a potential tool for primary care physicians to lead ACOs? and reestablish the vitality of primary care in American health care?
Keith Wright and Gregory Drutchas’ incisive article Economic Credentialing: A Prescription To Secure Shared Savings Under Accountable Care
provides useful history and context about economic credentialing:
For many years, the use of economic factors by hospitals in making medical staff credentialing decisions has been the subject of much discussion and debate among physicians, groups such as the American Medical Association (AMA), healthcare providers, payors, and attorneys….the implementation of healthcare reform is likely to bring the debate over economic credentialing to the forefront once again.
While economic credentialing has been talked about a lot, it’s rarely been used.
The controversy over economic credentialing arises again with ACO’s…and this time the answer might be different — and opportunistic for primary care.Continue reading…
Jonathan Bush @HIMSS11
We caught up with always outspoken athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush backstage in Orlando.
Robert Reich Connects the Dots
By JANE SARASOHN-KAHN
“I’m not a class warrior. I’m a class worrier,” Robert Reich told a standing-room only crowd of thousands of health IT geeks as he delivered the first keynote address of the annual meeting of HIMSS, the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society. This year’s crowd will have reached about 31,000 people interested in health information technology’s transformative role in health care. The 31K represents an 18% increase in attendance from last year’s crowd. The HIMSS economy is strong.
Robert Reich warns, however, that the U.S. macroeconomy is far from healthy…and health care costs will be a long-term threat to the nation’s economy unless policymakers slow them down.
Reich, who has served under 3 Presidents, written 14 books, and has been named one of the 10 most successful cabinet members, told the HIMSS audience that not only did “the great recession wear me down,” noting his small stature, but that the “gravitational pull of the great recession wore everything down.”
He noted that “We have two economies” in America: one is doing well, with the Dow hitting 12,000, corporate profits up, and companies sitting on about $2 trillion worth of cash.Continue reading…
HIMSS11 Update from the Chairman
By C. MARTIN HARRIS, MD
As the Chairman of the board of HIMSS, the Health Information Management Systems Society, which is the largest information technology organization in the world, I’ve been very busy at our annual conference in Orlando, Fla.
As I move through this enormous venue, talking to as many of our 30,000 attending members as possible, I can’t help but think about how much work we all have to do in the coming years.
As healthcare and IT professionals, we are privileged to live at a moment in history when the work we do, the product of our shared passion, the professional discipline to which we devote so much of ourselves, is taking its place as the central catalyst of a transformation in healthcare that is in many ways, unprecedented.
Whereas previous breakthroughs in medical technology, such as the invention of the X-ray or the discovery of antibiotics, have obviously been profound, and powerful; I can think of none that ever impacted the entire medical practice model.
And that is exactly what the technology-driven transformation of healthcare is poised to deliver.Continue reading…
HIMSS11 Live: Meaningful Use
What can be said about “meaningful use” of electronic health records that hasn’t already been said? Actually, plenty, if the events leading up to Monday morning’s official opening of HIMSS11 are any indication.
Last week, HIMSS honcho Steve Lieber told me in an interview at his Chicago office that most of the confusion about Stage 1 meaningful use has subsided, but that there still was plenty of “uncertainty” about the future. As in, uncertainty about the transition from Stage 1 to Stage 2 of the federal EHR incentive program and uncertainty about leadership, as national health IT coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal prepares to return to Harvard in April. (Yes, it is April. Blumenthal apparently spilled the beans to former Sen. Dave Durenberger a few weeks ago.)
“Everybody’s real clear on Stage 1,” Lieber said. The uncertainty is about future stages of meaningful use, particularly in the transition from Stage 1 to Stage 2. The fact that there will be a new national coordinator is another source of uncertainty, but it just means that there could be further refinements to existing regulations.
Vendors seem anxious to see the Stage 2 regulations so they can begin modifying and recertifying their products to help customers meet the next round of requirements. (Yes, everything will have to be recertified to meet Stage 2 criteria.)
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) late last week formally asked for more time to transition from Stage 1 to Stage 2 because it’s unclear if many physicians and hospitals are even ready for the first stage. “CHIME believes that it would not be prudent to move to Stage 2 until about 30 percent of (eligible hospitals and eligible providers) have been able to demonstrate EHR MU under Stage 1,” says CHIME’s comment letter. “We believe this approach would strike a reasonable balance between the desire to push EHR adoption and MU as quickly as possible, and the recognition that unreasonable expectations could end up discouraging EHR adoption if providers conclude that it will be essentially impossible for them to qualify for incentives.”Continue reading…
The Surprise
Check out this March 3rd article – ( click here ) – from the recent HIMSS conference, in which Dave Garets, President and CEO of HIMSS Analytics,“gazes into the future and predicts major trends for the next 12 months.” HIMSS Analytics is the research and consulting arm of the health IT vendors’ association, and presumably on Health IT’s leading edge.
From the article:
“Q: What will constitute the surprise of 2010 – the one technology or policy or X-factor that no one saw coming.”
“A: Clinical groupware in the ambulatory market that may be the disruptive innovation of ambulatory EMRs.”Continue reading…
Aneesh Chopra on txting in Haiti
Here’s a quick video I took at the end of Aneesh Chopra’s (the Federal CTO) talk at HIMSS. It’s a remarkable story of the role of SMS, tools and crowdsourcing in aiding in a disaster zone. A mash-up of the military, a silicon valley start-up called Crowdflower and creole speakers across the world.
Epocrates–reference present and EMR future
I met with Bob Quinn the CTO and Geoff Rutledge, the CMO, of Epocrates at HIMSS last week. The company has a big footprint in mobile (and web) reference content for physicians. The big news is that it’s looking to move into an EMR product. Bob and Geoff explain what they do and where they’re going.
Epocrates from Health 2.0 on Vimeo.
