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Above the Fold

Why Competition In the Politics Industry Is Failing America

Oct 2, 2017• 7

By DANNY STERN

Year after year, Congress fails to reach consensus on important issues, the electorate screams for change, and voters become more polarized along party lines and ideology. These struggles aren’t causes of America’s political malaise, says Michael E. Porter, co-chair of the U.S. Competitiveness Project at Harvard Business School; they’re symptoms of a much larger problem. U.S. “democracy” is a weak, uncompetitive industry controlled by a duopoly that pursues private interests at the expense of public good.

“To fix our political system, we must see politics as the major industry it has become, the major economic benefits it provides for its participants, and how today’s political competition is not serving the public interest,” as Porter explains in “Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing America,” a just-released groundbreaking study co-authored with business leader and former CEO Katherine M. Gehl.

Experts in the benefits and drawbacks of competition in the private sector, Porter and Gehl describe the four fundamentals of a healthy political system:

Practical and effective solutions to solve our nation’s important problems and expand opportunity
Legislative action to advance those solutions
A reasonably broad-based public consensus on policy
Respect for the Constitution and the rights of all citizens

Measured by these success factors alone, America’s system has already failed. But Porter and Gehl are adamant in their belief that we can recover our former sense of bipartisanship and dynamism.

Read Porter’s and Gehl’s paper to learn more about their poignant perspective on our nation’s most urgent problems and how business, strategy and competition can help solve them.

Danny Stern is Managing Director of the Stern Strategy Group

Lessons From Massachusetts’ Failed Healthcare Cost Experiment

Sep 27, 2017• 16

By SOUMERAI, KOPPEL & BOLOTNIKOVA

Massachusetts passed a massive medical cost control bill in 2012, a “Hail Mary” effort to make health-care more affordable in the nation’s most expensive medical market. The problems of the Massachusetts’ law offer invaluable lessons for the nation’s health-care struggles.

Driven in part by a Boston Globe investigation that exposed the likely collusion of the Partners Healthcare hospital system (including several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals) with Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the largest healthcare insurer in the state, the law marked the biggest health reform since Romneycare in 2006. While most agree Massachusetts needed cost controls, there’s no evidence that the 2012 law has accomplished its goal—and these same failed policies have been folded into the national Affordable Care Act.

Romneycare, Massachusetts’ universal health-care law, already lacked effective rules to control the rapid growth of state medical costs. That, paired with the Boston Globe’s exposure of the likely collusion between Partners Healthcare, the largest hospital system in New England, and Blue Cross Blue Shield to raise health care payments to hospitals and doctors by as much as 75 percent, led to passage of a hefty, 349-page cost-control law in 2012. The legislation included a dizzying number of committees, an uncoordinated “cost containment” process, and dubious quality-of-care policies, like “pay-for-performance,” a program that pays doctors bonuses for meeting certain quality standards, like measuring blood pressure. These incentives might make sense in economic theory, but have failed repeatedly in well controlled studies. They’ve even created perverse enticements, such as some doctors avoiding sicker patients. The cost control law also encouraged widespread use of expensive electronic health records, even though there’s no evidence that they save any money.

Hi, I’m Rob. I’m a Recovering Doctor

Sep 27, 2017• 8

By ROB LAMBERTS, MD

Yeah, I know I used that line once before, but it’s a special day for me today. Humor me. Five years ago today I earned my last money from an insurance company. Yep, today is my five year sobriety date.

Five years.

That was before the Affordable Care Act, before the Cubs won the World Series. Before anyone knelt for the national anthem, and if they had, people would’ve probably not minded. It was before the election of a reality TV star to our highest office, before “fake news” became a thing (there was plenty of it, but nobody called it that). It was before half of the rock legends died, before Anthony Wiener went to jail, back when Hamilton was a guy nobody knew much about who was on the 10 dollar bill, when the world wasn’t quite this warm, when Oprah hated me. Actually she still does. I’m not sure why.

I left my old practice because of “irreconcilable differences” with my ex-partners. Instead of going to the VA, joining another practice, or moving to New Zealand, I started a different kind of practice. My Yoda, Dave Chase (who wrote a book that you MUST read) told me about “Direct Primary Care,” where doctors don’t charge a lot, but are able to see a lot of people and give good care because they are paid by their patients. It made sense to me. There were a few folks doing it, and I talked to a couple (I’m looking at you, Ryan) who made it sound possible.

So I did it. I dumped all insurance and started charging people a flat monthly fee. People were skeptical and only my most loyal patients followed me (about 200). It took a while, but we figured out how to make it work, and my patients figured out that this was the best experience they ever had in healthcare.

Big Names, Big Ideas at Health 2.0 Fall Conference

Sep 27, 2017

By HEALTH 2.o SPONSORED POST

The Annual Health 2.0 Fall Conference has harnessed the creativity and passion of health care’s brightest professionals to tackle the industry’s most intractable problems and leverage technology-enabled solutions to drive more compassionate, more accessible patient-centered care.

Check out the full agenda of our eleventh show, Oct. 1-4, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Our killer line up of speakers covers the full spectrum of healthcare, and includes:

Innovative leaders, including Jason Pyle, CEO of Base Health; Simon Kos, CMO of Microsoft; Aashima Gupta, Global Head, Healthcare Solutions, Google; Brian Otis, CTO of Verily Life Sciences; Daniel Kraft, Founder and Chair of Exponential Medicine; and Jeff Margolis, CEO of Welltok.

Policymakers, such as HHS CTO Bruce Greenstein; ONC National Coordinator Don Rucker; former ONC Director David Brailer; and former U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra.

Patient advocates, including Dave DeBronkart (e-Patient Dave) and Patient Power President Andrew Schorr.

Representatives from more than two dozen major health systems, including UPMC, Mount Sinai, Dignity Health, UCSF, and more!

Major healthcare investors, including Providence Ventures, Merck Ventures, GE Ventures, and more!

Check out our full line up of speakers.

Limited amount of tickets are available. Register Today to secure your place at the Fall Conference-event starts this Sunday.

Graham-Cassidy is Dead. It’s Back to the Drawing Board. Why Not a Two-Tier System?

Sep 27, 2017• 14

BY BRIAN JOONDEPH, MD

Remember back in 2012 when then Vice-President Joe Biden told us, “Bin Laden is dead, General Motors is alive”? The good old days. Also around the time Senators John McCain and Lisa Murkowski promised to repeal Obamacare. Along with a bunch of other Republicans seeking reelection to Congress.

Fast forward to 2017. The new catchphrase is “GOP is dead, Obamacare is alive.” At least their credibility is dead. Buried in the rubble of broken campaign promises. Not only Obamacare repeal, but also tax cuts, immigration enforcement, balanced budgets, reduced spending, and so on.

Repeal and replace, as a promise was simple enough on the campaign trail. We heard this promise in 2010, when voters gave the House to Republicans. We heard it again in 2012, when voters gave them the Senate. Despite controlling Congress, Obamacare remained alive and well. Candidate Donald Trump, along with most Republican members of Congress, promised repeal and replace last year.

Eight months into the Trump administration, Obamacare is still kicking. Congress had three bites of the apple this year and each time came up with a worm instead. This week was their third attempt to fix Obamacare. Not the promised repeal, instead only financial window dressing to keep Obamacare alive in some shape or form.

How health IT organizations are using security as a competitive advantage

Sep 26, 2017• 4

BY ANDREW HICKS SPONSORED CONTENT

When speaking with our health IT clients, I’m hearing a distinct shift when it comes to cybersecurity. They no longer view it as an IT cost; they understand how it can facilitate growth, create competitive advantage and build trust in their products and brand.

Their executive management is on board with this thinking, too. They don’t want to hear about fear, uncertainty and doubt when it comes to data breaches, hacks and cyber threats, but rather how cybersecurity can help ‘protect the house and the product’ while at the same time enabling the business, customers and partners.

As more products and services in the healthcare continuum are connected, the need to proactively address cybersecurity increases. And as more consumer and business information is generated and shared, data privacy becomes a critical business requirement. This explains why we’re seeing forward-thinking health IT organizations moving to a new model of cybersecurity – one that’s adaptive to evolving risks and threats plus aligns with overall business objectives, such as increased revenue.

The one unifying thing we see with most health IT clients is the cloud. They need to design, build, assess, test and validate architectures and products on the cloud to confidently go to market with secure solutions. They’re finding that as they address cybersecurity in the design and development of products and services, they experience new ways to innovate and move faster. These cloud-integrated solutions can also enhance data privacy and boost customer trust and brand reputation. These are crucial safeguards as consumers are more concerned than ever about how their data is collected and shared.

Organizations aren’t waiting to hear that security program elements to demonstrate customer data protection are a requirement to closing a deal, they’re getting proactive by using cybersecurity as a sales strategy.Continue reading…

How Wellness Become the Wrong Word

Sep 26, 2017• 5

JIM PURCELL

What do employers want more than anything? Healthy, engaged, productive, energized, and thriving employees who provide great customer service and high quality products. What they have is all too often the antithesis of that.

This article is about why and how to move away from “wellness” to “wellbeing.” Wellness is one dimensional—the absence of illness. But for employees to thrive, they need so much more. The essence? They need to be happy with what they are doing and where they are doing it. Without that, good physical health, engagement, and productivity are almost impossible. It’s as simple as that, and with happiness comes success on multiple levels for the employee and the employer. And yet the all too many of today’s American employees are dreadfully unhappy with their jobs and bosses. It’s time for that to change.

The companies that successfully address the deteriorating health (both physical and mental/emotional) of their employees have a huge competitive advantage, and not just from reduced healthcare coverage, but in cultivating more enthusiastic, productive, and engaged employees which drive competitive and financial success through better products and better service.

Dee Edington confirmed this in his book Zero Trends when he wrote: “Our mission is to create shareholder value. We create shareholder value because we have innovative, creative, and quality products and services. We have innovative, creative, and quality products and services because we have healthy and productive people.”

This is, as we say in Massachusetts, “wicked important.” Yet most American CEOs do not yet see it as even rising to their level of attention. That is nothing short of astonishing given how much they pay for healthcare coverage and the truly poor value they receive in return. Starbucks pays more for employee coverage than for coffee. GM pays more for coverage than for steel. Businesses don’t realize it, but they are truly in the healthcare coverage business whether they like it or not. And that doesn’t even begin to total up the costs of disengagement, absenteeism, and turnover.Continue reading…

Bringing Behaviorial Health Into Primary Care Settings

Sep 26, 2017• 2

BY MARTHA WHITECOTTON SPONSORED POST

The integration of behavioral health into the primary care setting has resulted in a number of benefits. Traditionally, behavioral health and medical health operated separately, but in recent years, the integration of these two systems has improved access to care, ensured continuity of care, reduced stigma associated with seeking care and allowed for earlier detection and treatment of mental health and substance abuse issues. By bringing behavioral health specialists into primary care facilities, healthcare systems have streamlined care and brought down costs, working collaboratively and reducing the number of appointments and hospital visits.

At Carolinas HealthCare System, we use technology to take behavioral health integration one step further. A robust behavioral health integration project was developed through myStrength, using virtual and telehealth technology to ensure that every primary care practice has the capabilities for early detection of mental illness and substance abuse and upstream intervention, easing the connection between behavior health specialists and patients who might otherwise be averse to seeking professional help.

Postgaming Sunday’s Graham-Cassidy Action

Sep 25, 2017• 1

By CRAIG KONNOTH

Another day, another draft of Graham-Cassidy. And yet another slew of special deals for Alaska, which I have criticized as unconstitutional elsewhere. Congressional Republicans must pass their recent version of Obamacare repeal by September 30 to avoid the filibuster rules that are usually applicable, and which would require a 60 vote threshold. Until then, they need only 50 of the Senate’s 52 GOP Senators to eke out a victory. John McCain has said he won’t vote for the bill; Susan Collins has said she is leaning against it. Rand Paul, after signalling early disapproval of the bill because it did not go far enough, is now negotiating with the bill’s authors to roll back even more patient protective regulations.

If Paul shifts, eyes once more will turn to Lisa Murkowski. In anticipation of this, news outlets are once more reporting sweeteners to Alaska that characterized earlier versions of the bill. The reporting is somewhat vague and sometimes inaccurate, so I thought a deper dive would be helpful.

I must caveat all of this by noting that this analysis is based on a quick read of a bill that was released just today—I welcome any corrections or additions.

An Op-Ed Ghostwriter Speaks

Sep 25, 2017• 4

By WILLIAM S KLEIN

Is it “a breach of trust” for a publication to publish an opinion piece that was written with the participation of public relations professionals? That was the conclusion of a recent article in Health News Review, a publication that bills itself as “Your Health News Watchdog.”(“Another ‘breach of trust’ at STAT: patient who praised TV drug ads says pharma PR company asked her to write op-ed”).

The article traces the origins of an op-ed that appeared in STAT, the respected medical blog published by the Boston Globe, headlined “You can complain about TV drug ads. They may have saved my life.” Health News Review managing editor Kevin Lomangino found that a public relations firm working for Gilead, a pharmaceutical company that makes the hepatitis C drug Harvoni, had reached out to a patient named Deborah Clark Duschane and asked her to write about her experience with drug ads.

Lomangino quotes Charles Seife, a professor of journalism at New York University, who called the situation a “breach of trust.”

“The whole point of ghostwriting is to hide the hand of an actor — to make an industry position seem like it’s coming from an unaffiliated individual,” Seife said. “That’s deception. It’s meant to disarm the natural skepticism that we have when an industry makes self-serving statements. And when someone tries to disarm our skepticism, well, it ain’t good.”

As a professional ghostwriter, who has been hired by public relations professionals to work with authors on op-eds that have run in respected publications, I disagree.