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Fatal Error

• 7

By Rob Lamberts, MD

Fatal Error

The janitor approached my office manager with a very worried expression.  “Uh, Brenda…” he said, hesitantly.

“Yes?” she replied, wondering what janitorial emergency was looming in her near future.

“Uh…well…I was cleaning Dr. Lamberts’ office yesterday and I noticed on his computer….”  He cleared his throat nervously, “Uh…his computer had something on it.”

“Something on his computer? You mean on top of the computer, or on the screen?” she asked, growing more curious.

“On the screen.  It said something about an ‘illegal operation.’  I was worried that he had done something illegal and thought you should know,” he finished rapidly, seeming grateful that this huge weight lifted.

Relieved, Brenda laughed out loud, reassuring him that this “illegal operation” was not the kind of thing that would warrant police intervention.

Unfortunately for me, these “illegal operation” errors weren’t without consequence.  It turned out that our system had something wrong at its core, eventually causing our entire computer network to crash, giving us no access to patient records for several days.

The reality of computer errors is that the deeper the error is — the closer it is to the core of the operating system — the wider the consequences when it causes trouble.  That’s when the “blue screen of death” or (on a mac) the “beach ball of death” show up on our screens.  That’s when the “illegal operation” progresses to a “fatal error.”

The Fatal Error in Health Care 

Yeah, this makes me nervous too.

We have such an error in our health care system.  It’s absolutely central to nearly all care that is given, at the very heart of the operating system.  It’s a problem that increased access to care won’t fix, that repealing the SGR, or forestalling ICD-10 won’t help.

It’s a problem with something that is starts at the very beginning of health care itself.

The health care system is not about health.

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Cracking the Code on Health Information Exchange. Is It Time to Wipe the Slate Clean and Start Anew?

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By Bill Crounse, MD

Three related columns in HealthcareITNews caught my attention recently.

The headlines pretty much say it all:

1. Satisfaction with HIE solutions drops.

2.  Vendors missing boat on HIE needs.

3.  CommonWell names 3 biggest HIE hurdles.

Over the years, I’ve written more than a few HealthBlog posts on the topic of health information exchange (HIE) and why I feel so strongly that most of the initiatives currently underway are missing their mark.

As I’ve stated before, during my worldwide travels I haven’t yet come across a country that has accomplished a truly national, interoperable, bi-directional, fully functional HIE.

Those few countries that come close are more like a large American city or small state in size, perhaps mirroring some of the moderately successful regional or state-wide exchanges currently operating in America. Over the years I’ve also watched implosions of national HIE attempts in several countries that have failed miserably despite billions of dollars being spent on the efforts.

Reading each of the articles referenced above, I once again reach the conclusion that what I have been evangelizing as a better model for HIEs still rings true.

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How Should Doctors Get Paid?

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By HANS DUVEFELT, MD

It’s a strange business we are in.

I can freeze a couple of warts in less than a minute and send a bill to a patient’s commercial insurance for much more money than for a fifteen minute visit to change their blood pressure medication.

I can see a Medicaid or Medicare patient for five minutes or forty-five, and up until now, because I work for a Federally Qualified Health Center, the payment we actually receive is the same.

I can chat briefly with a patient who comes in for a dressing change done by my nurse, quickly make sure the wound and the dressing look okay and charge for an office visit. But I cannot bill anything for spending a half hour on the phone with a distraught patient who just developed terrible side effects from his new medication and whose X-ray results suggest he needs more testing.

As a primary care physician I get dozens of reports every day, from specialists, emergency rooms, the local Veterans’ clinic and so on, and everybody expects me to go over all these reports with a fine-toothed comb.

A specialist will write “I recommend an angiogram”, and we have to call his office to make sure if that means he ordered it, or that he wants us to order it.

An emergency room doctor orders a CT scan to rule out a blood clot in someone’s lung and gets a verbal reading by the radiologist that there is no clot. But the final CT report, dictated after the emergency room doctor’s shift has ended, suggests a possible small lung cancer.

Did anyone at the ER deal with this, or is it up to me to contact the patient and arrange for followup testing? All of this takes time, but we cannot bill for it.

Most people are aware these days that procedures are reimbursed at a higher rate than “cognitive work”, but many patients are shocked to hear that doctors essentially cannot bill for any work that isn’t done face to face with a patient. This fact, not technophobia, is probably the biggest reason why doctors and patients aren’t emailing, for example.

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Are We Prepared For The Next Viral Disease Threat?

By Weaver, Gallo & Hrynkow

Robert GalloFred Shaw went to St. Martin and all he got was a painful virus called chikungunya.

On an island stop during his Caribbean cruise vacation, Mr. Shaw was infected with the mosquito-borne virus that causes a severe fever and an arthritis-like condition in people, similar to dengue fever.  After infection, the virus still may cause long periods of fatigue and incapacitating joint pain.

Writing on Facebook, Mr. Shaw said, “The fever, leg rash and swelling were bad enough, but then followed by months of headache, joint pain and malaise, I finally have gotten over it (I think).”

Chikungunya virus was first described during an outbreak in Tanzania in 1952 and was subsequently discovered in other parts of Africa and Asia. The name ‘chikungunya’ is derived from a local phrase that means ‘that which bends up’ and describes the stooped appearance of sufferers with joint pain.

In late 2013, chikungunya was found for the first time in modern history on islands in the Caribbean. Based on our research and the evidence we have observed, it is likely that the virus is on its way to the U.S.

Vector-borne viruses—which are transmitted to people by an animal or insect—threaten half the world’s population and are responsible for millions of human infections annually. Various mosquitoes and ticks transmit a subgroup of these viruses that are called arboviruses.

There are over 100 known arboviruses that infect humans and can cause neuroinvasive diseases like encephalitis, febrile illnesses and hemorrhagic fevers.  Except for yellow fever, tick-born encephalitis and Japanese encephalitis, there are no commercially available vaccines for most arboviral disease.

As the world becomes flatter and the globe opens to new opportunities for international trade and travel, viruses that used to be confined to “over there” are increasingly coming “over here,” and they are arriving sooner rather than later.

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Obamacare Premiums Are Going To “Skyrocket”? Forget About It.

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By JOE FLOWER

Being against Obamacare has been the keystone, the capstone, the mighty sledgehammer, the massive metaphor of your choice for the right for five years now. They couldn’t stop it from being passed. They couldn’t stop it at the Supreme Court.

They weren’t able to choke it off by “defunding” it. They rejoiced at the rubber-meets-the-sky rollout of Healthcare.gov, but then the kinks got worked out of that.They railed at the administration using discretionary powers built into the law to help it work better. Every horror story of Obamacare ruining people’s lives they came up with turned out to be false.

Almost all of the people cynically cancelled by the insurance companies as a way to sell them more expensive insurance got insured again fairly quickly. Then 7 million people signed up on the exchanges, and altogether some 10 million formerly uninsured people now have medical coverage.

But the right still needs to call it a “train wreck.” The magic mantra has to work for them. Just this morning, here’s a Republican Congressman saying that we have to cut Food Stamps because: Obamacare. Say that again slowly?

It’s getting harder and harder on the right to come up with new ways to say it isn’t working when it actually seems to be working. I have to hand it to them, though: Those spin factories are filled with hard-working creative people. Get to work early, stay late, trash Obamacare. Hey, it’s a living.

So what’s the latest? This fall, Obamacare premiums are going to “skyrocket”!

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The Problem of Pain: When Best Medical Advice Doesn’t Equal Patient Satisfaction

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By Karen S. Sibert, MD


The problem of pain, from the viewpoint of British novelist and theologian C. S. Lewis, is how to reconcile the reality of suffering with belief in a just and benevolent God.

The American physician’s problem with pain is less cosmic and more concrete. For physicians today in nearly every specialty, the problem of pain is how to treat it responsibly, stay on the good side of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and still score high marks in patient satisfaction surveys.

If a physician recommends conservative treatment measures for pain–such as ibuprofen and physical therapy–the patient may be unhappy with the treatment plan. If the physician prescribes controlled drugs too readily, he or she may come under fire for irresponsible prescription practices that addict patients to powerful pain medications such as Vicodin and OxyContin.

Consider this recent article in The New Republic: ”Drug Dealers Aren’t to Blame for the Heroin Boom. Doctors Are.” The writer, Graeme Wood, faults his dentist for prescribing hydrocodone to relieve pain after his wisdom tooth extraction.

As further evidence of her misdeeds, he says, first she “knocked me out with propofol–the same drug that killed Michael Jackson.” Wood uses his experience–which sounds as though it went smoothly, controlled his pain, and fixed his problem–to bolster his argument that doctors indiscriminately hand out pain medications and are entirely to blame for patient addiction.

But what happens to doctors who try not to prescribe narcotics for every complaint of pain, or antibiotics for every viral upper respiratory infection? They’re likely to run afoul of patient satisfaction surveys. Many hospitals and clinics now send a satisfaction questionnaire to every patient who sees a doctor, visits an emergency room, or is admitted to a hospital.

The results are often referred to as Press Ganey scores, named for the company that is the leading purveyor of patient satisfaction surveys. Today these scores wield alarming power over physician incentive pay, promotion, and contract renewal.

Now hospital payments are at risk too.

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Healthcare.gov and the History of Failed IT Projects

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By Niam Yaraghi

Many years before the creation of Healthcare.gov, President Obama embraced  data analytics during his early years in the Senate.

In 2006, he and senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) successfully sponsored the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which resulted in creation of  usaspending .gov, “a significant tool that makes it much easier to hold elected officials accountable for the way taxpayer money is spent“.

A History of Failed Federal IT Projects

A considerable amount of taxpayer money is spent on federal IT projects, but in contrast to the aspirations of Obama in his early years in the Senate, it is not spent responsibly.

According to the Standish Group report, from 2003 to 2012 only 6% of the federal IT projects with over 10 million dollars of labor cost were successful.

52% of them were either delayed, went over budget or did not meet user expectations. The remaining 41% of the IT projects were abandoned or started from scratch. Perhaps most troubling is that healthcare.gov is just a one example among many.

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How to Avert a Doctor Shortage

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By MICHAEL D. RICH

Anticipating a growing, aging population and the anticipated demands of those newly insured under the Affordable Care Act, the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the United States will face a shortage of 130,000 physicians just over a decade from now.

This projected shortage, which also has been recognized by the federal government and some academics, could mean limited access to care for many Americans, plus longer wait times and shorter office visits for those who do find a doctor.

But like treating an illness, heading off the doctor shortage could hinge on early detection and intervention. And as research at RAND and elsewhere has shown, the treatment options should go beyond the standard prescriptions of training more doctors or reducing care for patients.

A RAND analysis issued last fall concluded that increased use of new models of medical care could avert the forecasted doctor shortage. These models would expand the roles of nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other non-doctors.

One option is “medical homes,” which are primary care practices in which a personal physician leads a team of others — advanced practice nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, nutritionists — in overseeing the delivery of individuals’ health care needs, roughly comparable to a dentist overseeing hygienists. By drawing on a broader mix of health care providers, this team approach lessens reliance on the physicians themselves.

Medical homes currently account for about 15 percent of primary care nationally. Research on their efficacy is continuing. A RAND report released in February found mixed results for a major pilot effort of the new model and offered suggestions for improvement. Still, if medical homes continue to gain traction and grow to nearly half of primary care, the nation’s projected physician shortage could shrink by 25 percent.

Another approach is nurse-managed health centers, which are clinics managed and operated by nurses who provide primary care and some specialty services. They are typically affiliated with academic health centers, but operate without physicians. If nurse-managed health centers were to account for 5 percent of primary care, up from just 0.5 percent today, the anticipated doctor shortage could, again, fall by 25 percent.

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Open Call: The NY Digital Health Accelerator

Interview with NYeC Exec. Director, Dave Whitlinger

Health 2.0 sat down with the NY Digital Health Accelerator’s Dave Whitlinger to learn about the work the organization is doing with digital health startups in New York.  If you’re interested in applying for the program, please visit http://digitalhealthaccelerator.com/

1. Why have you decided to launch another Digital Health Accelerator class?

The first Accelerator program surpassed our expectations and was tremendously successful.  Having seen the impact the program had we felt that continuing the Accelerator could have a positive impact on New York State’s Health IT ecosystem by helping to foster digital health innovation in the state.  The eight members of the Inaugural Class, who graduated in May, 2013, launched 17 pilots with their provider mentors, created over 120 new high tech jobs in New York, and raised over $12 MM from sources outside of the program.  In addition, two of the companies have been acquired.  We are very proud of the accomplishments of the first Accelerator Class members and we are excited to the launch the 2014 program.

2. How did the alliance with the Partnership Fund for New York City come about?

The New York eHealth Collaborative was formed in 2006 to advance health care information technology) in New York State and to develop the Statewide Health Information Network of New York, or SHIN-NY, a technology platform will connect electronic health records across New York State.  The Partnership Fund for New York City was formed as a private fund with a civic mission to create jobs in New York City.  The collaboration between our two organizations is logical:  the Partnership Fund is committed to company and job growth and the New York eHealth Collaborative wants to accelerate health It innovation using top talent. The timing of the Accelerator is perfect: New York has one of the most vibrant digital health markets and is increasingly becoming a center of entrepreneurial growth.

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The ACA– As Much As We Could Have Hoped For, Despite Sensible Old Men

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By MATTHEW HOLT

The Administration has snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and enrolled 7 million people (give or take a million who may not have paid their premiums) into health plans under the ACA, and more into Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) isn’t as big a change as some of us would have liked, But in this moment of modest celebration let’s remember what some of the sensible old men said all along.

Sensible old men said reform couldn’t pass without bring in the Republicans. Sen. Baucus tried hard to do that, and it’s beyond clear that no Republican would have ever supported it–even a moderate like Snowe who was quitting. It passed anyway.

They said that we’d see massive rate shock. Instead plans tightened networks and rates were in general lower than they had been before.

They said that the web site debacle meant no-one would sign up and we’d go into an insurance death spiral. The web site launch was a cock up, but Medicaid expansion (where allowed) has more or less been OK, and the exchange web site(s) now more or less work(s)–outside Oregon & Maryland. By the way this backs my argument for having one Federal exchange, which you may remember was in the House bill before we ended up being forced to take the Senate version due to Ted Kennedy’s death.

One wise old man (Robert Laszewski) was still saying that the exchanges would be financial disaster for insurers the very week Wellpoint raised earnings expectations because they had more enrollees than expected.

Let’s also remember that because of the politics of the nation, the ACA is a ridiculous hodge-podge of a law requiring–you’ll recall:

a) an opt-in to what’s basically a social insurance program (hey, let’s opt-in to fire protection while we’re at it!)

b) arbitrary tax (and now subsidy) distinctions between those who get insurance via an employer and those who don’t, and

c) arbitrary access to insurance (well, Medicaid) for the poor depending on their income and which side of a randomly drawn line they live.

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