Tag: Uncategorized

Better Records On Our Cars Than Ourselves?

Mar 9, 2009• 20

By DOUG KLINGER

Did you ever stop to think that many people probably have better service records for their cars than for
their bodies and minds ?

Having spent many years involved with the collection and management of health data to facilitate predictive modeling, early intervention and disease management, it became clear that doctors, hospitals and insurers typically have far more information about our health than we do.

Maybe the time has come for the US healthcare establishment to follow President Obama’s lead and turn its collective attention to rapidly enabling the collection, storage and private and secure exchange of personal health information in a standardized, cost-effective and efficient manner.

Innovation + Economics: Keys to Successful Healthcare Reform

Mar 9, 2009• 56

By Dr. Albert Waxman

Now that the economic stimulus package has been negotiated and signed, healthcare is on deck. Not just for Congressional action, but also for the biggest wave of reform the industry has ever experienced. It *could* be a very good thing – not only for patients, providers and payers, but also for innovators and investors who contribute to the “new healthcare economy” that will emerge.

Everyone knows “change” will have to find its way into the hospitals, clinics, labs, doctor’s offices and insurance providers that make up our current healthcare “system” in America. The rate of healthcare inflation – which is currently twice the core inflation rate – can clearly no longer be supported, and changes are required to address the explosion in America’s aging population over the next two decades. Experts estimate that roughly one third of all medical care delivered in the United States is wasted or in error, suggesting there is ample room for improvement.

In spite of the bleak near-term indicators, we predict that the United States is poised to establish a new healthcare economy. Starting in 2009, we expect to see a ten-year transformational cycle that will re-define many dynamics of the American healthcare system. The new healthcare economy will depend on innovation to simultaneously drive down costs and improve quality of care – core criteria cited by President Obama in his inaugural address. It will also require better alignment of economic incentives across payers, providers and patients.

Online care….from Hawaii to Wall Street (journal only so far!)

Mar 7, 2009• 2

By Matthew Holt

Chris Lawton has an article in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal called (wait for it) Cough, Cough. Is There a
Doctor in the Mouse?

It’s a good general run down of American Well, TelaDoc & SwiftMD, which are the leaders in synchronous web-based care. Of course there’s also lots of asynchronous care going on online. In particular Kaiser Permanente has shown a huge amount of online communication between its clinicians and members, and RelayHealth has a similar service in which several health plans are paying doctors to communicate online with patients.

And this is all starting to come together and have an impact. The Health 2.0 Hawaii chapter will be having a meeting about this very topic on March 26.

Marketplace

Mar 6, 2009

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Classified: Health Support Systems

Health Support Systems offers disease management tools, personal health records, health risk
assessment tools, group health reports, remote monitoring solutions,
patient alerts and more – through web and mobile phones. Become a
channel partner and offer our products; support services to your
customers – with your branding. Contact sales@healthsupportsystems.com
for more information.

Calendar: Fourth National Pay For Performance Summit

Sponsored by the Integrated Healthcare Association. Co
sponsored by Bridges to Excellence, Leapfrog Group, the National
Business Coalition on Health, the National Committee of Quality
Assurance and the National Quality Forum. March 9 – 11, 2009 San
Francisco, CA. .www.PFPSummit.com

Classified: Fair Managed Care

What's fair in managed care? Get involved. Join the conversation. FAIR
is an emerging national grassroots movement focused on changing the
debate about health care costs and holding managed care companies
responsible for their behavior. Supported by patients, hospitals,
physicians, business owners and policy makers, FAIR brings a unified
voice to the table at the peak of a national discussion on health care
reform.

Why and How Secretary Sebelius Should Avoid a Network Monopoly

Mar 5, 2009• 13

By ADRIAN GROPPER MD

Obama is smart. His signing of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health

(HITECH) Act (as part of the Stimulus package) recognizes the
importance of health IT as the foundation for health care reform and
cost savings. Good data and good consumer experience is a way to drive
a policy consensus when payment reform and health reform come to a vote
on Capitol Hill.

Technology certification and meaningful health
records exchange are the cornerstones of the HITECH Act. Health IT
should be engineered to promote transparency in health care
effectiveness and to reduce regional differences. To achieve this, the
secretary of HHS must ensure that scope of the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) does not extend beyond hospital health records.

HHS
must stimulate reform through systems and services innovation. As with
previous federal actions, such as the the break-up of the AT&T
monopoly, HHS can enable future generations of innovation by excluding
health information exchange and patient-controlled health records from
the domain of CCHIT, big hospital and big vendor interests.

Value-Based Insurance Design and Medicare Part D – A Perfect Match?

Mar 5, 2009• 2

By TANISHA CARINO

Medicare could immediately modernize its benefit structure by incorporating value-based insurance
design (VBID) into the Part D program. This benefit design tool maps directly to the new Administration’s goals of improving quality and preventing complications of illness—and, as I’ll point out, it can be implemented without any new legislation.

VBID abandons the traditional approach of uniformly applying cost sharing to health services regardless of their effect on a patient’s health. Instead, VBID tailors cost sharing—so, the more clinically beneficial the service is to a patient, the lower that individual’s cost sharing for the service. In some cases, employers such as Marriott and Pitney Bowes have actually eliminated cost sharing associated with diabetes medications and achieved positive cost and quality outcomes.

With more than 26 million enrollees, Medicare Part D is a large target for this type of innovative, quality-focused benefit design. The 23% of Medicare beneficiaries who have five or more chronic conditions account for 68% of the program’s spending, and there is heavy reliance on medication to treat chronic illness.

Classified: iConecto Delivers Engagement

Mar 4, 2009

Consumers
spent $6.7 billion dollars on video Gaming4Health in 2007. iConecto
is the expert in applying health e-games, social media, virtual worlds and
immersive simulations for better health and performance. The “Health eGames Market Report” is available now… contact
info@iConecto.com. Visit www.Gaming4Health.com for news and
insights.

Classified: Leadership Summit on Member Retention for Health Plans

Mar 4, 2009

According to ConnextionsHealth, growing losses of
individual and group plan members are eroding acquisition costs,
profitability and competitive advantage at all major health plans,
making member retention a strategic priority for 2009. At some health
insurers, member turnover is running as high as 40%. Further, McKinsey
& Co. found that health plans capture less than 10% of members lost
through job termination, early retirement and elimination of
employer-funded coverage. This “employee transition” market segment
alone is estimated at $40 billion annually.To address this
emerging market need, ConnextionsHealth and World Health Care Congress
are hosting a first-of-its-kind Leadership Summit on Member Retention
for Health Plans scheduled for March 18-19, 2009 in Orlando, FL.
Designed for health plan senior executives, the Summit will provide an
insider’s look into the underlying issues and successful strategies for
retaining individual and small group plan members and building brand
loyalty. More information is available at www.worldcongress.com/retention.