Tag: Uncategorized

Say it Ain’t So, Joe by Paul Levy

Dec 20, 2007• 1

I heard a great presentation this morning by Joe Newhouse,
from the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard Medical
School. There was one point that he made that really caught my
attention. It was a cite to a 2004 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association
(Dimick, et al, JAMA 2004; 292: 849) that presented the issue of how
many cases you would need to collect of a certain clinical procedure to
be able to make a determination that a given hospital’s mortality for
that procedure was twice the national average. It turns out that only
for CABGs (coronary artery bypass grafts) are there enough cases
performed to have statistical confidence that a hospital has that poor
a record compared to the national average. For other procedures (hip
replacements, abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs, pediatric heart
surgery, and the like) there are just not enough cases done to make
this assessment. (By the way, if you just want to know if a hospital is
say, 20%, worse on relative mortality, you need even a bigger sample
size.)

HEALTH 2.0 UPDATE

Dec 20, 2007

If you missed Health 2.0 User-Generated Healthcare this September you are now officially in luck. The 4 DVD box set of conference highlights is now available for
purchase. And just in time for Christmas! Starring Dr. David Brailer,
Sermo’s Daniel Palestrant, Esther Dyson, Google, Yahoo! Healthline,
Microsoft, Cisco, WebMD, Patients Like Me, Daily Strength, Organized
Wisdom, Enhanced Medical Decisions, Health 2.0 founders Matthew Holt
and Indu Subaiya and many many more.

POLICY: Overtreated gets huge plaudit

Dec 20, 2007• 4

OK. It’s official. David Leonhardt is a convert, even one who can’t quite leave his past behind. In is NY Times selection for Economics book of the year he picks Shannon Brownlee’s Overtreated. (If you want to hear me and Shannon having a good gossip about the American health care system, see here).

Leonhardt can’t quite shake his Stephen Colbert-like past (the market has spoken so it must be true). He still says this:

As I’ve written before, there is nothing wrong with devoting a large chunk of our economy to medical care. Since the 1950s, doctors have made incredible progress against diseases that were once inevitably fatal. That progress is probably the finest human achievement of the last half century. If we weren’t wasting so much money on overtreatment, it would be a lot easier to repeat the achievement over the next half century.

Of course, and it’s been pointed out ad nauseam here, those results were achievable at a much lower cost than we’ve paid, and the difference could have been spent on something with a higher economic return (or in invading any middle eastern countries we haven’t got to yet).

But it’s great to have Leonhardt on board, at least for the Wennberg thesis. Now he just has to convince the rest of the NY Times editorial board.

POLICY/QUALITY: Uninsurance does indeed kill you quicker

Dec 20, 2007• 2

I’m not going to go into the whys and wherefores of what’s wrong with cancer care in this country. But when the IOM said that people die early because of uninsurance, people scoffed. The same people (and you know who you are David Gratzer) say (pretty disingenuously) that we do cancer care much better than countries with universal insurance, and for at least partly that reason universal insurance is a bad idea.

So presumably they have a good answer for this new report from the American Cancer Society, which essentially shows that–whatever the state of American cancer care maybe overall–you’re much more more likely to have a good outcome if you’ve got insurance. Some tidbits from the release:

For all cancer sites combined, patients who
were uninsured were 1.6 times as likely to die in five years as those with
private insurance.The
relationship between access to care and cancer outcomes is particularly striking
for several cancers which can be prevented or detected earlier by screening and
for which there are effective treatments, including breast and colorectal
cancer. At every level of education, individuals with health insurance were
about twice as likely as those without health insurance to have had mammography
or colorectal cancer screening.

THCB is proudly sponsored by CDW Healthcare

Dec 19, 2007

POLICY: As Goes California, So Should Go the Nation, by Mary Kay Henry

Dec 19, 2007• 4

Now I can’t claim to be an optimist about the future of California’s health reform bill. But at least someone is. And that someone is SEIU Executive Vice President Mary Kay Henry. Here’s her take on the latest California news and why the SEIU is at least one union buying in.

ABx1 1: no, it’s not the holiday season’s hot new video game. It’s the bill name for historic legislation approved yesterday by the California State Assembly to make healthcare more secure and affordable for those who have insurance, and provide coverage to millions who don’t.

Months of intense negotiations drew on the collective creativity and wisdom of elected officials, consumer groups, healthcare professionals, and labor and business community leaders to generate the comprehensive plan. The measure has the potential to transform the healthcare reality for millions of Californians, and it will fundamentally change the healthcare debate nationally.

THCB Sponsor Shout out

Dec 19, 2007

A quick reminder that THCB would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. We’d like to give a shout out to
CDW-Healthcare, who were the first gold sponsor to sign on this year. If you haven’t been over to take a look at their site since they remodeled it’s well worth a quick look. They specialize in everything tech for the Healthcare market, from surge protectors to PACS systems to cool little gadgets with blinking red and green lights that look really useful. Your purchases help THCB continue to provide cutting edge industry analysis, commentary and discussion of the issues that matter. Tell ’em we sent you.

We’re pleased to announce CDW Healthcare have signed on again as gold sponsor for 2008. Meanwhile,if you are interested in reaching a monthly audience of 35,000 plus healthcare professionals, wonks and other healthcare observers, we are accepting sponsorship applications for the coming year. You may also want to consider a sponsorship of the Health 2.0 conference, which (unbelievably, horrifyingly) is just right around the corner. The theme of the March event in San Diego is connecting patients and providers. There will be an exclusive, tres cool healthcare crowd in attendance. For details on opportunities jo**@********on.com

BLOGS: Diabetes Year in Review

Dec 18, 2007

Our friend and colleague Amy Tenderich has a just excellent Diabetes Year in Review up at DiabetesMine. It covers Health 2.0 (of course) but also drugs devices, design, and the growth of people with diabetes as a social force.

Amy knows that she’ll always be the #1 blogger in my heart!

JOB POST: Director of Medicare and Medicaid Markets

Dec 17, 2007

Silverlink Communications, Inc. December,
2007

Summary
of duties and responsibilities:

Information availability and communications effectiveness
are among the top drivers of member satisfaction with health plans. Providing
members with the right healthcare decision-support and self-management information
and tools at the right time can engage members, support health decisionmaking
and ultimately reduce administrative and medical costs. Industry research shows health plans that
implement innovative communication strategies connect more effectively with
their members and drive satisfaction and loyalty. Silverlink helps make communications
effectiveness a key competitive differentiator for its customers.

HEALTH 2.0 UPDATE

Dec 13, 2007• 3

Meanwhile, if you’ve been thinking about signing up for a pass to the next Health 2.0 conference you have until midnight today to qualify for our early bird rates. Health 2.0 Connecting Consumers and Providers will be held March 3-4 in San Diego at the Westin San Diego. We’ve worked out a great deal with the Westin that will get you a room for the low rate of $229 plus tax a night. The Reservations Hotline is 888.627.9033. You’ll need to mention Health 2.0 when you call to be eligible for this rate.
As a gentle reminder, if you’ve signed up for Health 2.0 San Diego but not completed the registration process you’ll need to finish the process by giving us a credit card in order to qualify for the rate.