The Health Care Blog – Page 177 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

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Bruce Greenstein to Health Tech: “This is The Make-or-Break Time” | WTF Health on Covid-19

Mar 18, 2020

By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

“Health tech providers — this is the make-or-break time. If you can’t prove your value in the next, say, eleven weeks, then you should NOT be in the health care game. It’s time to get serious.”

Bruce Greenstein, former CTO at HHS and current Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at LHC Group, one of the country’s largest home health care providers, stops by to share what he’s learned about the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bruce represented the home health industry during last Friday’s (3/13/20) White House meeting, which culminated in a Rose Garden press conference starring the ‘who’s who’ of American health care, retail, and pharma leadership. (Bruce was the guy who elbow bumped Trump.)

Lots of attention on virtual care and telehealth during that presser, and Bruce weighs-in for our health tech and digital health audience about how they can get involved and what big health care companies like his are looking for in digital solutions right now (LHC Group works with 350 hospitals caring for 100K patients.) And how about those HHS Interoperability Rules that have been basically lost in this news cycle? We get Bruce’s feedback on how HHS did, plus his insider info on the HHS “hack.”

Some guidance to help you navigate this chat. Hot Tip: Open up the transcript in YouTube and navigate to these different breaks in the conversation.

The ‘Trump Bump’ & Gossip from the Rose Garden Press Conference & White House Meetings
8:40 mark — Advice for health tech startups (must-watch)
15:25 mark — Find out what startups can do that would lead Bruce to “put them in Health IT Hell for the rest of their existence”
16.45 mark – HHS “Hack”
18.14 mark – HHS Interoperability Rules

A Healthcare System, If We Can Keep It

Mar 18, 2020

By KIM BELLARD

We are in strange days, and they are only going to get stranger as COVID-19 works its way further through our society. It makes me think of Benjamin Franklin’s response when asked what kind of nation the U.S. was going to be: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

The versions of that response that COVID-19 have me wondering about are: “A federal system, if we can keep it,” and, more specifically, “a healthcare system, if we can keep it.” I’ll talk about each of those in the context of the pandemic.

In times of national emergencies — think 9/11, think World Wars — we usually look to the federal government to lead. The COVID-19 pandemic has been declared a national emergency, but we’re still looking for strong federal leadership. We have the Centers for Disease Control, infectious disease experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, and a White House coronavirus task force. But real national leadership is lacking.

How Concerned Should Patients Be About An Irregular Heartbeat?

Mar 17, 2020

By KOUSIK KRISHNAN, MD

As many industries and individuals are struggling publicly with burnout, a new study from the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology links the “burnout syndrome” with atrial fibrillation (afib). The findings are both interesting and valuable. In general, the public benefits from anything that can raise awareness of heart disease, because early intervention directly impacts improved patient outcomes.

However, headlines that describe afib as a “deadly irregular heartbeat” go too far in the name of public awareness. The truth is, afib is not a sudden killer like a heart attack, cardiac arrest, or stroke. While afib is undeniably serious, it can often be identified in advance and managed with evaluation and treatment.

Afib is a very common arrhythmia that has numerous risk factors, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and sleep apnea, to name just a few. When the heart goes into atrial fibrillation, the upper chambers go into a fast, chaotic and irregular rhythm that often makes the pulse race and feel irregular. Other symptoms can include palpitations, shortness of breath, and dizziness. Some people may not have any symptoms at all. Stroke is the most devastating consequence of atrial fibrillation, but is rarely the first manifestation of the disease.

It is also important to note that afib may not always be present. For this reason, often the arrhythmia is gone by the time someone seeks medical attention, making the arrhythmia harder to diagnose. Fortunately, consumer devices, such as the new Apple Watch, have algorithms to help detect atrial fibrillation. These technologies hold immense promise. They are already helping many people manage their health, and even potentially diagnose some people who never knew they had afib.

Why Peak Viral Load makes temperature screening alone insufficient for COVID-19

Mar 16, 2020

By TONY ESTRELLA

And how South Korea and Taiwan’s approach to diagnosis and tracking is leading to positive results

By now, the sight of people wearing surgical masks, flinching at the sights and sounds of someone coughing or sneezing, governments restricting large gatherings, and sports leagues suspending or cancelling matches is familiar across the world.

Even though this newest coronavirus we now call COVID-19 is not the deadliest disease as measured by daily deaths, the concern over the outbreak is forcing urgent actions.

Daily deaths from COVID-19 compared to other diseases. Source: informationisbeautiful

One of the core concerns is limiting how quickly the virus can spread. Having too many people require urgent care can overwhelm healthcare systems. This anxiety has led to a call to ‘flatten the curve’ to avoid this challenge.

Julia Cheek, Everlywell, & its response to COVID-19

Mar 14, 2020

I interviewed Julia Cheek, CEO of Everlywell about their response to COVID-19. Last week they issued a $1m challenge to labs to promote the rapid capability to develop COVID-19 testing. Her goal is to get the US up to 250K home tests per day within a month, but it won’t be easy. This is the first in a series of news and tracking that THCB & Catalyst @ Health 2.0 will be doing on health tech companies’ response to the pandemic — Matthew Holt

41 Countries Later, This Doc’s Pick for Best Health System “Hack” | Dr. Niti Pall, KPMG & AXA

Mar 13, 2020

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Dr. Niti Pall has experience working in 41 different health systems around the world in her roles as Global Medical Director for KPMG, Senior Mobile Health Advisor for AXA, and as a General Practitioner in the U.K. With that type of diverse experience across health systems rich and poor, tech-enabled and not, OF COURSE we had to ask which was the best health system ‘hack’ she’s seen so far. The answer takes us to Bangladesh, involves a huge telecom company, and leads to a completely new category of healthcare provider. Is this a model we’ll see Amazon, Apple, Google or other non-traditional healthcare players take up as they head into the health industry? Niti talks about how tech is the underpinning of “proper 21st Century healthcare,” but that’s not all it will it take to overcome global clinician shortages and help consumers feel like they are getting value out of their healthcare dollars worldwide.

Filmed at Barcelona Health Hub Summit in Barcelona, Spain, October 2019.

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 112 | COVID-19, HealthDevJam & loads of deals

Mar 13, 2020

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is joining somebody for their self quarantine in the Oval Office! Shenanigans aside, I give a quick coronavirus update and a shameless plug before diving into our regular coverage of all the deals. As for COVID-19, there’s a ton of activity going on in the digital health world with companies trying to figure out how they can help with this. Catalyst will be presenting some of that, either this weekend or early next week. Next, there’s an FHIR-related HealthDevJam event (free, online) TODAY at 1pm Eastern with lots of great people speaking.

Diving into some non-coronavirus related deals, eConsult company RubiconMD raises $18 million, Lyra Health getes a chunk of change—$75 million—for its mental health platform, Fruit Street Health gets $17 million from an unlikely source, b.well raises $16 million for what’s not a personal health record, and CVS announces that it added 5 digital health companies to its point solution management system. Finally, there’s been some sneaky stuff uncovered about Sanofi. Tune in for all the details on Episode 112. —Matthew Holt

There Is No Time for That

Mar 13, 2020

By ROMAN ZAMISHKA, MPA

Some of the most important engineering lessons were demonstrated on the tank battlefields of World War II when German Tigers faced off against Soviet T-34s.

The Tiger tank was a technical masterpiece of for its time with many features that did not appear in allied tanks until after the war. Despite its much heavier armor it was able to match the speed of lighter enemy tanks and keep up with its own light tank scouts. The armor featured almost artisanally welded interlocking plates. The ammunition featured innovative electric trigger primers and high penetration tungsten shells. The double differential steering system allowed the Tiger to rotate in place. A complex system of interleaving wheels distributed weight evenly, improved off-road mobility and even allowed mobility with damaged tracks.

But while the Tiger was a star on the blueprints, it was a disaster on the Eastern front, not because of its combat performance but because it was a logistical and operational nightmare. The heavy armor made the tank a gas guzzler, which made tanks inoperable when supplies were low. The electric trigger primers would fail in cold weather. When rotating in place the gearbox would often break and German training manuals forbid the maneuver. The highly specialized internal mechanics made production slow and meant the tank often could not be repaired in the field but had to be sent back to Germany, and the great logistic costs meant that Tigers couldn’t drive to the front but had to be brought there by rail.

Pandemic Fears: What the AIDS Battle Should Teach Us About COVID-19

Mar 12, 2020

By ANISH KOKA, MD

As the globe faces a novel, highly transmissible, lethal virus, I am most struck by a medicine cabinet that is embarrassingly empty for doctors in this battle. This means much of the debate centers on mitigation of spread of the virus. Tempers flare over discussions on travel bans, social distancing, and self quarantines, yet the inescapable fact remains that the medical community can do little more than support the varying fractions of patients who progress from mild to severe and life threatening disease. This isn’t meant to minimize the massive efforts brought to bear to keep patients alive by health care workers but those massive efforts to support failing organs in the severely ill are in large part because we lack any effective therapy to combat the virus. It is akin to taking care of patients with bacterial infections in an era before antibiotics, or HIV/AIDS in an era before anti-retroviral therapy.

It should be a familiar feeling for at least one of the leading physicians charged with managing the current crisis – Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci started as an immunologist at the NIH in the 1960s and quickly made breakthroughs in previously fatal diseases marked by an overactive immune response. Strange reports of a new disease that was sweeping through the gay community in the early 1980’s caused him to shift focus to join the great battle against the AIDS epidemic.

A Patient’s View of the Cures Regulations

Mar 11, 2020• 1

By ADRIAN GROPPER, MD

How should we react to 1,718 pages of new regulation? Let’s start by stipulating the White House and HHS perspective:

“Taken together, these reforms will deliver on the promise to put patients at their center of their own health care — you are empowered with control over your own health care choices.”

Next, let’s stipulate the patient perspective via this video lovingly assembled by e-Patient Dave, Morgan Gleason, and the folks at the Society for Participatory Medicine. In less than 3 minutes, there are 15 patient stories, each with a slightly different take on success.