The Health Care Blog – Page 353 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

Interview with Aptus Health at HIMSS

Aug 7, 2016

By PRIYA KUMAR

One in a series of interviews that should have been posted months ago, but Matthew Holt is just getting to now.

Previously known as Physicians Interactive, Aptus Health rebranded itself after acquiring several companies including MedHelp, Quantia & Univadis, and now focuses on both physicians and consumers globally and domestically. At HIMSS back in February, Matthew met with Teri Condon, VP of Strategy and Development at Aptus Health, previously with IMS Health and PharMetrics, and Michael Bodenstab, Vice President of Healthcare Solutions at MedHelp, to talk about where the company stands today and what their platform offers.

Priya Kumar is an Intern at Health 2.0, and a student at George Washington University

Seymour Papert & the Power of (Patient) Engagement

Aug 6, 2016• 4

By LYGEIA RICCIARDI

Image source: Alchetron.com

The best healing takes place when the patient or consumer is engaged…

Last Sunday Dr. Seymour Papert passed away at the age of 88. The world lost a great thinker, teacher, and mathematician, but his spirit lives on in many former colleagues and students, including (with gratitude), me. Seymour cut an eccentric figure, with a bushy grey beard, a rumpled tweed jacket, and a thick South African accent. However charmingly quirky, he was the real deal: a visionary, a trailblazer in the world of technology and its application. He spoke softly, but his words quickly cut to the heart of the matter. His ideas about technology and engagement are as critical today as ever.

Seymour was an inventor of the LOGO programming language, a founding faculty member of the MIT Media Lab, and a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence (AI). His ideas continue to shape mainstream culture, from the movie Inside Out (based on a theory developed by Seymour and his close collaborator, Marvin Minsky) to LEGO bricks. Seymour advised the LEGO company for decades, particularly on their technology-based toys such as Mindstorms.

Fighting Zika With Network Medicine

Aug 5, 2016• 11

By BRIAN ANDERSON, MD

Screen Shot 2016-08-05 at 11.47.44 AM

On Monday, the medical establishment and the general public were put on alert by an emergency notification from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Florida’s Miami-Dade County had 14 confirmed cases of the Zika virus, the infectious disease which causes birth defects, and was at risk of continued active transmission. In the following days, the CDC has advised pregnant women and their partners to avoid Wynwood, a small community north of downtown Miami–the first time it has ever issued a travel alert in the United States for an infectious disease. It has also issued specific Zika guidelines for the Wynwood region for patients who have traveled to the area on or after June 15th.

Moments like these test our healthcare system and reveal its weaknesses. We’ve spoken often on this blog about healthcare’s connectivity problem: islands of information and data siloes that don’t talk to one another, sometimes to lethal effect. Public health crises demand that health information flow freely and that healthcare providers have the latest clinical guidelines at their fingertips.
Continue reading…

Are CMS’s “Medical Homes” Underfunded or Unfocused?

Aug 3, 2016• 11

By KIP SULLIVAN

flying cadeucii “[We are supposed to gather information from patients] prior to the physician going into the room. It doesn’t happen. I’m going to be honest – the reality … is … we also are responsible for telephone triage, walk-in emergencies, diabetic meter teaching, I mean, the list goes on and on.”

That is a quote from an interview with a “care coordinator” for a “medical home” in Minnesota. Minnesota is one of the eight states that participated in the Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Practice (MAPCP) Demonstration, which is one of three experiments CMS has conducted testing the “patient-centered medical home” (PCMH) concept. The quote appears in a report published by the University of Minnesota in February 2016. (p. 75)

In this three-part series, I am addressing the question, What can we learn from the latest report from CMS about the MAPCP demo? The report in question is the second-year evaluation of the demo which CMS released with zero publicity on May 11, 2016. That evaluation reported that PCMHs have had virtually no effect on the cost or quality of medical care given to Medicare beneficiaries (with the possible exception of Vermont, where PCMHs lowered costs not counting CMS subsidies to PCMHs, but had little effect on quality. [1] Evaluations of the other two CMS “medical home” experiments have reached the same conclusion (see Table 2 of this Kaiser Family Foundation report and my comment here.

CMS Launches CPC + Multipayer Regions: Applications Process Opens to Practices

Aug 3, 2016• 2

By GREG FULTON

Amid growing consensus that MACRA may delay from its 2017 performance year start, CMS is moving ahead with next year’s launch of the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program.

Fourteen multi-payer regions and all participating payers were announced August 1, (listed below) and practices can now begin applying through September 15. CMS has launched an application portal for practices.

CPC+ is part of MACRA, as one of six Advanced Alternative Payment Models, but certainly can be undertaken on its own. CMS has a deadline of November 1 to produce a MACRA final rule, but can announce MACRA’s fate anytime prior.

Also newsworthy within CPC+ is CMS’ recent announcement that primary care practices can participate in a CMS MSSP ACO and the CPC+ program at the same time.

Matthew Holt Interviews Health Catalyst CEO, Dan Burton

Aug 3, 2016

By PRIYA KUMAR

One in a series of interviews that should have been posted months ago, but Matthew Holt is just getting to now.

Health Catalyst has emerged to be a dominant player in data warehousing and analytics to support quality (and business) enhancement for huge providers like Kaiser, Partners and Allina, and many more. They’ve also raised over $220m from a stack of noted VCs. Back in February Matthew Holt caught up with CEO, Dan Burton at HIMSS to see what the latest plans for the company were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_78SHpdNTY

Priya Kumar is an Intern at Health 2.0, and a student at George Washington University

When the American Medical Association Cheered Hillary

Aug 3, 2016• 3

By MICHAEL MILLENSON

Screen Shot 2016-08-03 at 5.09.46 AM As Hillary Clinton’s motorcade sped toward the Chicago hotel hosting the American Medical Association’s annual meeting in June 1993, the clergyman giving the invocation made a jarring request of God: that the audience not boo the speaker.

Those weren’t his exact words, of course, but the prayer pointedly included reminders about the obligation to be polite to guests, particularly when a national TV audience was watching. An AMA official made a similar plea without involving the Deity.

Matthew Holt Interviews Noah Lang at Health 2.0

Aug 3, 2016

By PRIYA KUMAR

One in a series of interviews that should have been posted months ago, but Matthew Holt is just getting to now.

Following time on the founding team at Reputation.com (where Grand Rounds’ founder Owen Tripp was CEO), Noah Lang started Stride Health. His passion to help freelancers understand and incorporate the right health insurance and dental plan led him to start Stride Health, where he is CEO.

Stride Health’s goal is to offer guidance for the independent working American (think Uber drivers in the gig economy) to help individuals understand the benefits of health care plans. They have raised $15.4M and are currently backed by companies such as Venrock, NEA, and F-Prime Capital. Back in March, Noah visited the Health 2.0 office where he talked with Matthew Holt about Stride Health and where they are headed. Check out the interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaasNXDGiTw

Priya Kumar is an Intern at Health 2.0, and a student at George Washington University

How EHRs Can Help Win the War on Prescription Drug Abuse

Aug 2, 2016• 2

By JOSHUA ELDER and GAIL D’ONOFRIO

The United States is facing an alarming rate of opioid and heroin overdoses. The recent death of Prince highlighted yet again a tragic event that is occurring 78 times everyday in the United States according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). With more deaths from overdoses occurring annually than motor vehicle collisions, President Obama’s administration recently asked Congress for more than $1 billion to fight the opioid epidemic. Fortunately for Obama the issue has garnered strong bipartisan support and what remains is how to responsibly allocate this funding toward a variety of strategies aimed at prevention, treatment and harm reduction.

Podcast: Why Should Doctors Think Like Engineers?

Aug 2, 2016

By HOSPITAL TALK

In this Carelogistics podcast, THCB editor Sanchayeeta Mitra talks about how thinking like an engineer can eliminate breakdowns in care delivery, the eternal quest to make a trip to the doctor’s office more like the experience of using Amazon.com and why doctors and engineers (and nurses and the IT department) should all love each other. Really.

If you have a story to tell about something innovative you’re doing or a hack you’re using to change medicine or improve care delivery at your hospital or practice – drop us an email to considered for an interview.