The Health Care Blog – Page 407 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

Did the Wellness Industry Just Admit Fraud?

Aug 14, 2015• 4

By AL LEWIS and VIK KHANNA

Hopefully at least a few of you have lamented –we’ll settle for “noticed” — our absence from The Health Care Blog for the last six months. There are two reasons for that. First, in the immortal words of the great philosopher Gerald Ford, “When a man is asked to make a speech, the first thing he has to do is decide what to say.” Likewise, we need something compelling to say, and at this point yet-another-vendor-making-up-outcomes is old news, and in any event there is now an entire website devoted to exposing lies in wellness. We, uh, take appellations and kick posteriors.

Also, our exposés were backfiring, having exactly the opposite of the intended effect. For example, our THCB essay pointed out that Health Fitness Corporation’s Nebraska program should have its C. Everett Koop Award revoked because HFC admitted lying about saving the lives of Nebraskan cancer victims who it turns out never had cancer in the first place. Instead of revoking the award, the chair of the awards committee, Ron Goetzel, has subsequently twice called the Nebraska program a “best practice.”Continue reading…

Is Your Marketing the Love Child of Warren Harding?

Aug 14, 2015

By Gordon Andrew

After nearly a century of fighting for the legitimacy of her “love child” daughter, the long-time mistress of President Warren G. Harding, was recently vindicated by new DNA testing.

The tenacity of Nan Britton and her family helped to prove that America’s 29th president fathered more than the Teapot Dome corruption scandal. Harding never met his out-of-wedlock daughter, Elizabeth Ann, but demonstrated presidential timber by providing financial support for her until he died in office at the age of 57.

For Chief Marketing Officers, the outcome of this juicy scandal might provide some hope that hard work and determination can help them to legitimize the often maligned marketing function, and perhaps increase their stature and length of tenure at the senior management table.

Unfortunately, there are no DNA tests to validate marketing as a legitimate member of the CXO family of business functions. But there are some unscientific ways to accomplish that goal within your company:

TRACTION: Contest Deadline TODAY

Aug 14, 2015

By Jennifer David Sponsored Content

Who will be the Startup Champion of Fall 2015? Traction is the perfect opportunity to hone your skills and impress these venture capitalists to invest in your startup!

Traction will be launching the Health 2.0 Annual Fall Conference on Monday, October 5, 2015 at 8 AM. This competition specifically recruits companies ready for Series A in the $2-12M range.

Enter your company TODAY and pitch your startup to venture capitalists, angel investors, government officials, and even healthcare industry experts. Increase media exposure while forming connections with leading investors, while gaining the opportunity to gain advice from over 30 mentors and experts to further refine your business model.

The application deadline is TODAY Friday, August 14th at 11:59 ET.

In early September, 10 teams will be selected as finalists for two different tracks: professional facing and consumer facing tools. Emerging live at the conference, the competition will grant these lucky finalists access to exceptional mentors and fight for the title of “Startup Champion.”

Apply today to be selected as one of the 10 finalists to pitch live at Health 2.0’s Annual Fall Conference!

And of course you can buy tickets to Traction as an add on to the Health 2.0 conference itself.

Jennifer David is a program manager at Health 2.0

What’s the Definition of Interoperability? A Conversation With EXTREME’s Adam Wright

Aug 13, 2015• 8

By LEONARD KISH

Adam Wright of Partners and colleague Dean Sittig asked themselves, with all the talk about information blocking and interoperability happening in congressional hearings this year, “How should we actually define interoperability?”

To answer their question, they did research on use cases and published a definition in a JAMIA article, “What makes an EHR “open” or interoperable?”

Leonard Kish, Principal at VivaPhi, sits down with Wright to talk about the EXTREME (EXtract, TRansmit, Exchange, Move, Embed) use-case based definition and more.

LK: So let’s just start from the beginning. Introduce yourself, how’d you get into interoperability and what are you working on.

AW: I’m an associate professor of medicine at Harvard and I work at one of the Harvard affiliated teaching hospitals – Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the general medicine division there although my background is in biomedical informatics…I have a PHD in biomedical informatics. Before that I studied math and computer science. I got into health IT and interoperability because it just seemed like a ripe and interesting place to be applying things that have worked in other industries and asking “How can we apply some of this thinking to problems in healthcare?” Continue reading…

Employee Health Codes Of Conduct: What Would They Look Like and Who Would Accept Them?

Aug 13, 2015• 7

By REBECCA S. ROBBINS, PhD

You start a new job, you sign a contract, and then the division hands you the employee code of conduct. Now, in addition to the “no wearing a speedo” to the office, dress code clause, there is a section on health. Imagine, just as important as your job description or dress code, is your health. From the first day you join the company, you are offered resources, motivation, and encouragement to also maintain health during the duration of your employment? This is the idea behind Health Codes of Conduct.

Most workplace health programs achieve modest gains in health behavior. In a study with 147 employees we collected reactions to a novel approach to workplace wellness that suggests promising directions for future programs. Specifically, the idea is to engage and motivate employees to assume responsibility for their health through a Health Code of Conduct from the first day they are hired.

ACA Database: Private Alternatives to Medicare?

Aug 13, 2015• 2

By THCBist

Henry writes:

“What if someone approaching age 65 who lives in New Hampshire does not want to enroll in Medicare—what kind of health insurance alternatives might be available?”

Only the Information You Need – Physicians’ Desk Reference Gets Mobile Upgrade

Aug 12, 2015

By SALVATORE VOLPE, MD

Drug reference apps have become a go-to resource for healthcare professionals, with 46% of smartphone-using physicians accessing them at least once per week, and 26% daily. With so many choices, how do you know if the information you are referencing is accurate? The good news is the most trusted resource for drug information just received an upgrade this summer.

Redesigned with the healthcare professional in mind, the new mobilePDR provides quick, easy access to the drug information you need, especially “when you’re on the clock, oncall, or on vacation” says PDR Chief Medical Officer, Salvatore Volpe, MD.

Make Informed, Patient-Centric Decisions with Fast, One-Tap Access to Powerful Drug Look Up

Amongst the enhancements, the new mobilePDR provides fast, one-tap access to powerful drug reference tools where you can search by brand, generic, or pharmacological class name. Plus, you can personalize the experience by saving searches for frequently prescribed drugs or access recent searches with a single tap.

A Near Death from Voodoo Hexing

Aug 10, 2015• 14

By CLIFTON K MEADOR, MD

Screen Shot 2015-08-10 at 2.04.19 PM In the spring of 1938, Dr. Drayton Doherty admitted a sixty-year-old African –American man to the hospital. The small hospital was located at the edge of town in an old house that had been converted into a fifteen-bed hospital. Six of the beds were located upstairs at the rear of the house in what previously served as a sleeping porch. The patient was admitted to that porch.

Dr. Doherty went on to tell me that the patient, Vance Vanders, had been ill for many weeks and had lost over fifty pounds. He looked extremely wasted and near death. His eyes were sunken and resigned to death. The clinical suspicions in those days for anyone with a wasting disease were either tuberculosis or widespread cancer. Repeated tests and chest x-rays for both of these diseases were negative, as was the physical examination. Despite a nasogastric feeding tube, Vanders continued on a downhill course, refusing to eat and vomiting whatever was put down the tube. He said repeatedly he was going to die, and he soon reached a stage of near stupor. Coming in and out of consciousness, he was barely strong enough to talk.

Blood Clots Show Limits of Quality Care Penalties

Aug 6, 2015• 7

By ELLIOTT R. HAUT, MD

In the world of medicine, blood clots during hospitalization have become synonymous with imperfect care. As many as 600,000 patients per year experience a blood clot, and more than 100,000 die as a result, accounting for between 5 and 10 percent of hospital deaths. Regulatory agencies have taken clots as signals that safety and quality have been compromised, and have instituted significant financial penalties on physicians and hospitals for these “preventable events.”

In reality, clots aren’t always as preventable in real-world practice as they are in theory. Blood clots happen even under conditions of perfect, best-practice patient care, which should be seen as testimony to the limits of penalty schemes aiming to improve the quality of care. These penalties should be re-examined.

In a study recently published in JAMA Surgery of 128 blood clot or venous thromboembolism (VTE) cases, my team found that nearly 50 percent of the cases reviewed at The Johns Hopkins Hospital were not actually preventable. In fact, these patients received perfect care by all objective measures — all appropriate preventive measures were taken, including the prescription of the ideal medication and assuring that every dose of medicine was administered. Yet the blood clots still occurred, and the hospital was still financially penalized.

Does Prevention Save Money? Yes No

Aug 6, 2015• 17

By JOE FLOWER

Or…it’s complicated.

The New York Times today published a story titled, “No, Giving More People Health Insurance Doesn’t Save Money.” A piece of the argument is, as the author Margo Sanger-Katz puts it, “Almost all preventive health care costs more than it saves.”

What do you think? What’s the evidence? Leave aside, for the moment, the “big duh” fact that at least in the long term saving people’s lives in any way will cost more, because we are all going to die of something, and will use a lot of healthcare on the way. Leave aside as well the other “big duh” argument: It may cost money, but that money is worth it to save lives and relieve suffering. Leave that argument aside as well. The question here is: Does getting people more preventive care actually lower healthcare costs for whoever is paying them?

My thoughts? #1: No consultant worth his or her salt trying to help people who are actually running healthcare systems would take such a blanket, simple answer as a steering guide. Many people running healthcare systems across the country are seriously trying to drop real costs, and how you do that through preventive care is a live, complex and difficult conversation all across healthcare.