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HEALTH2.0: Is Google jumping the shark?

Veteran IT insider Robert X. Cringley seems to think so, and worse he compares its behavior in dealings with smaller competitors to you know who in this article, The Next Microsoft.

Cringley’s other concern is, though, much more serious about a big company behaving badly towards the little guys. It’s that click fraud is a big deal that is going to hurt Google’s main model of making money, Adsense, because fairly soon advertisers will be throwing too great a proportion of their ad budgets down click-fraud ratholes, and not getting enough back from their ads.

Why is this a real concern for the Health 2.0 crowd? Because, most Health 2.0 consumer companies are basing their model on ad revenue one way or another. Most of that revenue will probably come from some kind of broker-based model, and if the main broker (which is Google) loses credibility with customers, that will doubtless have two ripple-on effects.

First, there may not be enough revenue around to justify those ad based business models. Second, if there’s a serious downturn in Google fortunes, that will hit the whole software/Web services sector before it’s really taken off in health care.

So overall, I’m hoping Cringley’s wrong. Thus far I think he is. The cost of click-fraud is not enough to kill the overall high ROI of search-based advertising. But it needs to be watched.

Health 2.0, Computable Data Exchange, and The Sparse Information Model, by David C. Kibbe, MD MBA

One of the processes that Health 2.0 will certainly come to depend upon for its growth and utility is that of computable data exchange. What I mean is this: how do we help our customers/users get their basic health information; how do they upload it to our applications; and how do we store it for them in such a way that it can be re-used, re-connected, and re-purposed? An important corollary of such a process specification involves answering this question: what do we mean by “basic health information” ? I’m going to suggest that we employ what I’ll call a Sparse Information Model to help solve these problems. The purpose of this blog is to get a discussion going about this process.

After all, we don’t want to re-create the experience of the frustratingly infamous “clip board” and its paper forms, which must be filled out over and over again at the doctor’s office or hospital. Health 2.0 applications and web sites don’t want to force users to type in their own health information repeatedly, do they? No, much better would to collect the important health data and information one time, and store it in a manner that can be used many times. To do this all Health 2.0 applications must know precisely how to import, read, and interpret the data when presented with them. This might be the “glue” that holds numerous Health 2.0 partners together, allowing many different kinds of sites and applications — search, social media, decision support tools, pricing sites, etc. — to make the user’s experience of sharing his or her health data seamless and easy, across those domains.

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BLOGS/HEALTH 2.0: The Health 2.0 Blog

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Today, with Indu Subaiya my partner in the Health 2.0 Conferences, I am very happy to announce the logical continuation of the increased focus on Health 2.0: The Health 2.0 Blog.

This is a new group blog to which anyone in the Health 2.0 community can contribute, and we hope that it’s going to be a forum for great discussion. We’ll be crosslinking with THCB but hopefully you’ll see the emphasis here move slightly away from all that Health 2.0 stuff. Please head over there to find out more.

And to celebrate we’re having drinks tonight at the Hibernian Lounge, 34 East 4th Street, New York at 6pm.

HEALTH 2.0: Drinks for Health 2.0 in New York City

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Indu, John and Matthew will be in New York City tomorrow night (Wednesday 7th), and we thought that we’d invite any Health 2.0 folks on the East coast who are in New York to join us for impromptu happy hour. Time is 6pm.

So please join us at the Swift Hibernian Lounge. The address is 34 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003, and we’ll be in the back room with the long tables. Please come stop by to hear about our plans for Health 2.0 in San Diego and share a drink.

THCB: At last, comment feeds

Apparently Typepad (which hosts this blog) is moving into the early 21st century and allowing comment feeds–a feature I’ve wanted for about 3 years which appears to be on every other blog.

So now when you’ve commented on a post you’ll be able to get pinged when there are new comments without having to come back and check. We’ll let you know when it’s fully operational over here on THCB.

Man Bites Dog: Candor in Washington, By Michael L. Millenson

Something odd happened when the health policy establishment gathered in Washington last Thursday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Health Affairs and honor founding editor-in-chief John Iglehart on his retirement. Perhaps because so many of the participants knew each other so well, the Health Policy Summit was marked by genuine thoughtfulness and persistent outbursts of candor.

In the former category, former-Bush-administration-all-purpose-expert Mark McClellan gave a closely reasoned keynote calling for a health care system that functioned as a “learning organization” for the advancement of evidence-based medicine.  Unfortunately, the dense content was difficult to fully follow in a paper read off with the pace and inflection of a husband assuring his wife he’d remembered to pick up all the groceries.

In the candor category, Gail Wilensky, a high-ranking official in Bush I, noted that the health care reform proposals of the Republican candidates at this point in the primary season did not represent serious attempts at universal coverage. HCA CEO Jack Bovender, identifying himself as a life-long Republican, was even blunter.  Asked what he liked about the Republican proposals, he replied: “Nothing.” Bovender then rattled off a three-point plan for universal coverage that he thought Republicans could support.

Nor did the Republicans have a lock on political non-pandering.

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POLICY: Dogs and sores at the Gray Lady, yet again

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I thought that the NY Times was getting better, honestly. After all Gina Kolata, a major offender in the dogs licking sores series of last year, did feature Jack Wennberg this summer. But then recently the Times published an op-ed written by a big Pharma PR flack. At least that was an op-ed, even if it should have been on the op-ed pages of the WSJ. Now, we have “economic view” on health care written by Greg Manikw, the former chief Bush economic adviser who appears to be reinventing himself as a Romney flack. Manikw has some interesting ideas about carbon taxes (which of course never saw the light of day while he had any influence in the Administration), but why does the Times “economic view” on health care means regurgitating a bunch of Manhattan Institute talking points?

For that matter, if he’s an economist, why isn’t Manikw making any attempt at balance? And why is the Times letting him get away with this. As I said, it’s not the WSJ.

OK, so what are the points he makes. Standard Manhattan talking point stuff, so let me add the standard talking point answers.

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Woodstock of the Wonks: The Health Policy Establishment Honors One of its Own – Michael L. Millenson

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Ha25yr
You might call it the Washington Woodstock of the Wonks.

Hundreds of members of the health policy establishment gathered in the nation’s capital last Thursday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the premier health policy journal, Health Affairs, and honor editor-in-chief John Iglehart on his retirement from the position he’s held since the journal’s founding. How a publication whose first issue is dated Winter, 1981 can celebrate a 25th anniversary on the eve of Winter, 2007 was a question that went unanswered. On the other hand, when’s the last time numbers coming out of Washington actually added up?

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