The Health 2.0 Conference is a scant 5 & 1/2 weeks away, and as of Monday midnight on the west coast the rate for attending goes up $300 to the full rack rate. So please visit www.health2con.com and get your pass today.
Perils of Pay for Performance
Dr. Sandeep Jauhar wrote an essay this week in the New York Times about the perils of pay-for-performance (P4P). Specifically, Dr. Jauhar discusses how P4P may have unintended consequences and create perverse incentives due to poorly designed performance measures. The point is well taken, but it’s important not to confuse the merits of P4P with the measurement issues that exist.
With respect to the latter, back in my days as Director of Measure Development for the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), I co-authored a paper with Partners’ cardiologist Tom Lee, Jim Cleeman from NHLBI, and others working with us at NCQA on the development of new HEDIS cholesterol management performance measures. In the JAMA article, “Clinical Goals and Performance Measures for Cholesterol Management in Secondary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease,” we tried (among other things) to communicate the difference between quality improvement measures and comparative performance measures.
Conference to explore innovation in health care
Second Annual Innovation in Services Conference: "The Service of Health Care"
explores the innovations in technology, policy, operations and methods that address the deceptively simple question: How can we improve the service of health care?
Panels of academic, technology, government and policy experts will discuss the impact of information and digital service on patient care, considering such innovations as telemedicine, mobile services, serious gaming, personal health records, and Web 2.0.
Conference agenda and registration information are available here. A limited number of complimentary spaces are available for students and those with demonstrated need. For more information, please contact CITRIS at (510) 643-2217, or ci****@*******uc.org.
Using social networking to breakdown research silos
On September 4, a group of collaborators at Harvard launched a new website called Catalyst that is publicly available. I encourage you to visit it.
This site is remarkable in many ways. It brings together all the people, lifelong learning, and resources for the Life Sciences across Harvard and its affiliates.
In the People area, you’ll find social networking for the research community called Profiles. It not only shows traditional directory information, but also illustrates how each person is connected to others in the broad research community.
Health2.0: User-Generated Healthcare 2008
October 22 – 23 | The Marriott, San Francisco
Building on the excitement generated by the first two Health 2.0
conferences, Health 2.0 User-Generated Healthcare promises to take the
conversation to a new level across an even more dynamic and panoramic
landscape.You’ll see action-packed demos of new services and
tools. You’ll see how these new technologies are transforming – and in
some cases not transforming — the healthcare industry. You’ll network
with more than a thousand other health care & tech industry leaders.
Wednesday, October 22nd
| 8:00am |
Introduction: The Future of Health 2.0Indu Subaiya, MD / Matthew Holt |
| 8:20am |
Keynote: Health Comes Everybody?New media pioneer(ing) pundit Clay Shirky gives a new health-related talk |
| 8:45am |
Health 2.0 Across America: The Great American Health
|
| 9:30am |
Networking BreakSee the exhibitors and/or catch a sponsored “Deep Dive” Sponsored Deep Dive from
|
| 10:10am |
Consumer Aggregators — One Year LaterJane
Plus some surprise guests and announcements of new partnerships. We’re also really excited that Federal Health IT Czar Robert Kolodner will be a special commentator on this panel. |
| 11:30am |
Lunchtime Unconference & Launch!The return of the popular Health 2.0 Unconference & the introduction of Health 2.0 Launch! |
| 1:00pm |
Search in the Long Tail & Intelligence in CommunitiesMuch Search:
Social Networks:
Reaction and commentary from Gilles Frydman, founder of ACOR — the listserv engine that revolutionized the cancer community. |
| 2:45pm |
Breakout Demo Panels – Session AThere’s
|
| 3:30pm |
Networking Break in the Exhibit HallSee the exhibitors and/or catch a sponsored “Deep Dive” Sponsored Deep Dive from
|
| 4:10pm |
Breakout Demo Panels – Session B
|
| 5:00pm |
The Business Case for Health 2.0How
|
| 5:50pm |
Day 1 Wrap UpIndu Subaiya & Matthew Holt will keep you from cocktails for a minute or two. |
| 6:00pm |
Cocktail ReceptionNetwork with your new (or old) friends, talk to some of the exhibitors, hang out in the Lounge, play games, and have fun! |
| 8:00pm |
Self-Organizing Dinner GroupsUnleash |
Thursday, October 23rd
| 7:00am |
Breakfast & catch a sponsored “Deep Dive”
|
| 8:00am |
Introduction to Day 2 & RecapIndu Subaiya, MD / Matthew Holt |
| 8:15am |
3 Health 2.0 CEOs3 |
| 9:00am |
Health 2.0 Around the WorldOutside
|
| 10:00am |
Networking Break in the Exhibit HallSee the exhibitors and/or catch a sponsored “Deep Dive” |
| 10:45am |
Tools for ConsumersAlong with search and community, tools are the “third leg” of the Health 2.0 Panelists will include:
…and many special guests and surprises Panel Sponsored by
|
| 12:00pm |
Lunch |
| 1:30pm |
Getting Past the Privacy ConundrumThe |
| 2:30pm |
Breakout Demo Panels – Session C
|
| 3:15pm |
Networking Break in the Exhibit HallSee the exhibitors and/or catch a sponsored “Deep Dive” |
| 4:00pm |
Breakout Demo Panels- Session D
|
| 4:50pm |
Looking ahead—The Business and Society of Health 2.0As
|
| 5:45pm |
Conference Wrap UpIndu |
| 6:00pm |
CocktailsNetwork |
Also at Health 2.0
You’ll also see and/or
take part in the following special features, with more to be announced:
- The Health 2.0 Unconference (the audience favorite from the last two conferences)
- Health 2.0 Launch! — special introduction of new companies and new products
- IDEO will run another great design workshop
- And you can relax in the Health 2.0 Experiential Lounge, with games and demonstrations.
(Agenda is subject to change)
Person Greg Simons
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Around the Web in 60 Seconds (Or Less)
Associated Press: Only 2 percent of medical students plan on going into primary care, according to survey published today in JAMA (subscription required). "I didn’t want to fight the insurance companies," said Dr. Jason Shipman, 36, a radiology resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., who is carrying $150,000 in student debt.
Scientific Blogging: Do you go through withdrawal if you haven’t checked your email in more than eight hours? You may be addicted to the Internet. "According to Dr. Louise Nadeau, a professor in the Department of
Psychology at the University of Montreal, mental health professionals
now have a new affliction to face: Internet addiction."
NYT Magazine: For better or for worse, social networking sites and microblogging via Twitter have increased the level of ambient awareness we have about our friends and acquaintances. "The growth of ambient intimacy can seem like modern narcissism taken to
a new, supermetabolic extreme — the ultimate expression of a generation
of celebrity-addled youths who believe their every utterance is
fascinating and ought to be shared with the world," Clive Thompson reports.
Sacramento Bee: California lawmakers still haven’t agreed on a new state budget nearly three months after it was due, making this the longest stalemate in state history. Can you say complete political failure?
Arizona Republic: Arizona’s smoking ban had little to no negative financial impact on the state’s bars and restaurants. The ban went into effect in May 2007.
The Olympian: As Washingon state debates a ballot initiative to allow euthanasia, it’s looking for guidance to the south at Oregon — the only state to allow physician-assisted suicide. "Those who choose to use legal, lethal drugs to end their lives
typically are cancer patients who are white, educated and have private
insurance," the Olympian reports.
BBC: Experts are worried about rising rates of antibiotic resistance among multiple pathogens.
Grim economic outlook
Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag is playing a role he admittedly hates: the grim economist. The CBO released the annual summer update to its Fiscal Outlook for 2008 to 2018.
On the "Director’s Blog," Orszag explains the economic report and gives it context, including what the takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac means for the federal budget. The blog, in my opinion, is a great resource and worth a regular read.
Here are some bullets from the update — note health care costs nearly top the list of the nation’s fiscal concerns:
CBO estimates that the deficit for 2008 will be $407 billion higher than last year’s $161 billion. As a share of the
economy, the deficit is projected to rise to 2.9 percent of GDP this
year, up from 1.2 percent of GDP in 2007.Over the longer term, the fiscal outlook continues to depend mostly on
the future course of health care costs as well as on the effects of a
growing elderly population. CBO estimates that federal spending on
Medicare and Medicaid will grow to 6 percent of the GDP in 2018 and 12
percent of the GDP by 2050.
Health 2.0 Road Trip Vroom! Vroom!
This country is simply meant to be seen from a motorcycle. It’s big, it’s wide open, and all sorts of Health 2.0 activity is happening.
Unless, of course, you’re in downtown New York City, where you’d have to be crazy to drive anything. I kicked off the Great American Motorcycle Tour for Health 2.0 in Manhattan, in hot pursuit of the real people of Health 2.0, including Tara Parker Pope of the New York Times, and a host of folks who came to the HelloHealth opening party in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Jay Parkinson was the master of ceremonies, but I also interview Nat Findlay of Myca and Howard Krein, MD of Organized Wisdom. Sans Honda Goldwing. So, I took the subway, did a lot of walking, and shot a lot of film.
I’m asking all the interviewees the same question: Are YOU Health 2.0? And you will be surprised at some of the answers I’m getting. Who are these people, and why are they blogging, starting medical practices with videoconference capability built in, creating new kinds of health search and knowledge engines, and generally finding new and exciting ways to use Web 2.0 technologies? The stories behind the obvious are what I’m after, in a Zen sort of way, of course.
Next stop: Chattanooga, Tennessee. And, yes, this time I’m going to be traveling by motorcycle all the way. Vroom!
Palin’s health care sense on target
By Don Johnson
Alaska’s Sarah Palin, who is running for vice president with Sen. John McCain, has better health care policy sense than Sen. Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden.
Palin has pushed for less regulation of health care providers and more competition, while Obama and Biden are pushing for socialized medicine and ultimately a single-payer plan patterned after the failed systems in Canada and the U.K.
Her approach, which is described here by the Washington Post, is supported by many physicians and advocates of a pro-competition approach to health care and health insurance market reforms, and it will be opposed by executives and employees of entrenched hospitals and local health care monopolies and ologopolies who don’t want to lose business to independent clinics and specialty hospitals.
Sarah Palin’s limited health care record staunchly free market
Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has very little
on her health care policy resume from her short time in office as
Alaska’s Governor but what she does have fits right in with Senator
McCain’s strategy to use the market more effectively in bringing down
America’s health care costs and improving access to the system.
Her health care efforts have focused on two things in Alaska:
- Eliminating the 1970s era strategy of requiring providers to
file Certificate of Need (CON) applications before being able to build
more health care facilities.
- Providing consumers with more information.
Continue reading "Sarah Palin’s limited health care record staunchly free market."
Where does Sarah Palin stand on children’s health coverage?
By 
The entire country now has heard about how Sarah Palin and her
husband knew in advance that their son, Trig Palin, would be born with
Down Syndrome. The Palins also must have known that they would have
health insurance and the financial resources needed to pay for the
extensive medical care Trig is likely to need throughout his life.
Here is 3-year old Emily Demko, another child with Down Syndrome, who lives with her
family in Ohio. The family has given permission to share this photo of their beautiful daughter and the story (details here) of their trials securing health coverage for Emily. As of this spring, Emily was uninsured. Due to her Down Syndrome,
the family could not find a private insurer willing to offer them
affordable coverage for Emily. If the Bush Administration had not shut
down Ohio’s efforts to expand its State Children’s Health Insurance
Program (SCHIP), Emily would have been able to continue to secure
decent, affordable public coverage. But the Bush Administration in
August of 2007 issued a controversial ban on coverage of children in moderate-income families and twice vetoed bills to reauthorize and expand the SCHIP program.
Continue reading "Where does Sarah Palin stand on children’s health coverage?
Emily’s mom responds to comments
I would like to introduce myself as the mother of the child portrayed in the story above. I can assure you, it is NOT a B.S. story, and our income is several thousand less than $75k per year. As a matter of fact, we were less than $200 away from Medicaid eligability! I live in southeast Ohio, where the median income is less than $42K per year. Also, my daughter has no option of private health care, since she has a genetic condition. The group plan I was part of when she was born did not want to continue full coverage on her because the medical bills were so extensive. we ARE a working class income family, we both work hard to provide, yet we have NO ACCESS to health care for our daughter. Her medical bills would astound you, sir. I pay what I can every month, and pray that I can continue giving her the best medical care I can. I am sure that Gov Palin will never see a $100 bill for 20 min of speech therapy, or a $22,000 bill for a 6 day hospital stay. Neither will her grandchild. They will always be covered, and we as taxpayers would foot that bill if she were to be elected. How is that not an upeer middle class person bilking the federal government?
