The Health Care Blog – Page 814 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

Learn from Your Competitors’ Mistakes

Jun 16, 2010• 1

By MERRILL GOOZNER

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported last week on a Food and Drug Administration-supported effort to encourage companies to share data about their failed Alzheimer's Disease drugs.

Comment: We need more of this unmarket-like behavior. Consumer advocates have long pushed for companies to reveal the data from clinical trials for drug candidates that failed. Their concern is safety. They hope that data from failed "me-too" drug experiments might provide early clues signaling an entire class of drugs may have rare but deadly side effects.

But industry would also profit by sharing knowledge about its failed experiments. Knowing where one company fails would allow other companies to avoid going down the same unfruitful path. As things now stand, secretive companies reproduce each other's errors, which only adds to the declining productivity of industry R&D. It's also more ethical, since enrolling patients in a clinical trial that is testing a hypothesis that has already failed (but the results were kept secret) subjects them to risks with no hope of benefit.

Of course, when it comes to Alzheimer's, failure is the norm. As usual, Ray Woosley of the Critical Path Institute, who was once touted as a possible leader for the FDA but is now encouraging industry-FDA collaboration, hit the nail on the head. "We really believe drugs are failing because we honestly don't understand the disease," he told the Journal.

What exactly is Healthymagination?

Jun 16, 2010• 5

By Matthew Holt

About a year ago GE started a campaign called Healthymagination. In the health care technology business GE had long been known for market leadership in big iron imaging like MRIs and CTs, as well as some diagnostics, and for a less prominent position in the growing market for health IT for doctors and hospitals (via some acquisitions, notably of IDX).

So then our TVs became flooded with adverts telling us this new buzzword. Some cynics scoffed, pointing out that GE’s advertising during the Olympics on NBC (its own property) was covering up for the global advertising shortfall. But Mike Barber the GE Vice President in charge of Healthymagination begs to differ!

He explained to me what Healthymagination is about and how it’s part of a real sea change in the health and health care strategy of one of the world’s biggest companies

Interview with Mike Barber, GE Healthymagination

EMR Ratings: How Relevant Is CCHIT Certification In the HITECH Era?

Jun 16, 2010• 18

By CHRIS THORMAN

For nearly four years, the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) has been the lone entity recognized by the federal government to certify electronic health record systems. Since being named a recognized certifying body by Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2006, CCHIT has awarded certifications to nearly 200 EHR software products based on CCHIT’s standards of functionality, interoperability, usability and security.

However, CCHIT’s role in the EHR market is changing. The Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC) and the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced in early March 2010 that they would name more than one organization to certify EHR software, countering previous claims that CCHIT would become the sole certifying body. The certification requirements are in accordance with 2009’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.

As this news swirled around, one doctor called Software Advice and asked: “Is CCHIT dead?”

Dead? No. But it appears that the organization’s influence is waning.

Diabetes Mine Design Challenge winners

Jun 15, 2010• 3

By Matthew Holt

Our friend Amy Tenderich does a wonderful job every year with her ever-growing Diabetes Mine Design challenge. We’re late to the party (it was announced last week) but here are the winners!

WIHI On Imaging Practices

Jun 15, 2010• 2

By PAUL LEVY

Here's a notice about an upcoming WIHI program.

The Image of Better (Radiation) Imaging Practices

Thursday, June 17, 2010, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Eastern Time

Guests:
James R. Duncan, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Radiology and Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.

Richard T. Griffey, MD, MPH, Associate Chief for Quality and Safety, Emergency Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.

Imagine an electronic card that has all your vital medical information on it. Not too farfetched. Now, imagine that this same “smart card” also contains your radiation exposure history. Who needs to know, you ask? Well, a growing number of global patient safety experts believe this is precisely the type of information patients and medical providers should be tracking to help prevent unnecessary CT scans and the like, especially as evidence mounts that all these tests begin to add up in ways that that can endanger people’s health. Cancer is being studied the most, which is of course ironic since powerful and advanced radiation imaging is what also helps diagnose cancerous tumors at their earliest and most treatable stages.

Health 2.0 DC Exhibit Hall Companies and Descriptions!

Jun 15, 2010

By Hillary McCowen

The Health 2.0 Goes to Washington conference in DC last Monday, June 7th was an exciting and successful event. Thank you to everyone who attended along with HHS and ONC, who helped us put on a great show!

We also couldn't have done it without the generous support of our sponsors and exhibitors…Everyday Health, dLife, ICYou, Gaming 4 Health, Enhanced Medical Decisions, Surveyor Health, Unity Medical, Vitality, Humetrix, Destination Rx, 5am Solutions, Terpsys, Aquilent, Sage, Kaiser Permenente, Cisco, RelayHealth, Practice Fusion, Vision Tree, Myca, Hello Health, Eliza and Alere.

The DC Exhibit Hall was specially curated and different from any other event. We designated each company under a certain category and organized the hall to be a self-guided tour. To see a full list and descriptions of each company that was displayed at the event – CLICK HERE!

We know your all waiting for Matthew to publish his conference summary and survey…both will be coming soon!

AHRQ’s Outstanding Achievement in Healthcare Research Award

Jun 15, 2010

Calling all published and graduate student researchers who have used
Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) data!

Nominations and applications accepted through July 16.

To
celebrate its 20th year of HCUP data, AHRQ will be honoring researchers
who have addressed healthcare research and policy issues using HCUP
data, software or tools.

AHRQ encourages published researchers
to apply in two areas: Scientific Contributions and Policy Impact. Graduate students can only apply for the scientific contribution
award.

Award recipients will be honored at the AHRQ Annual
Meeting (September 27-29, in Bethesda, Maryland). They will have the
opportunity to present their research at a session during the
meeting. Transportation and accommodations will be provided.

Apply
and get more information here: http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/hsra.jsp.

How Can We Encourage Medical Students to Choose Primary Care?

Jun 14, 2010• 39

By ED PULLEN, MD

A Radical Suggestion – Pay Specialists Less

Since 1997 the number of US medical students choosing to go into primary care has decreased by more than 50%. It seems that sources as diverse as the Obama Administration and the Wall Street Journal think that we should find a way to encourage medical students to choose primary care specialties in order to allow Americans to have the best and most cost effective care. This is very problematic when primary care specialists earn considerably less, often 50-70% less than physicians in specialties where most of the revenue is produced by doing procedures. For years when asked about the disparity in physician salaries I’ve said, “I think primary care physicians are fairly compensated. I just think a lot of other physicians are overpaid.”

If you look at the 2009 AMGA survey of physician income it is clear that the pay you can expect as a physician has little to do with how hard you work, how long you train, or how stressful or difficult your work is, and everything to do with whether you perform procedures that are highly compensated. It is hard to think of specialties less demanding in terms of afterhours call, emergent life-threatening care, and overall lifestyle than dermatology ($350,627), diagnostic non-interventional radiology ($438,115) and Radiation Therapy ($413,518) (median salary in parentheses). Compare these to what I’d consider some of the most difficult, intellectually challenging, and demanding specialties: Pediatric Oncology ($205,999), Infectious Disease ($222,094) and Adult Neurology ($236,500). Family Medicine is one of the very few specialties where the first number in the median salary is a 1.

Plug Into Meaningful Use, Don’t Try to Build It

Jun 14, 2010• 8

By JONATHAN BUSH

Earlier this month I read in The New York Times (okay, someone read it to me), that hospitals and docs are saying “meaningful use” is just too much, too fast. I have to say, I would sympathize . . . if I didn’t know about the Internet!

If someone told me that the federal government was going to make (or at least ‘encourage’) everyone commute via hot-air balloon by 2011, I’d start to feel edgy right about now. How do you make or buy one? Who sells them? What if the wind blows the wrong way?

This would be my panic—unless I knew about a little-known hot-air balloon service that DEALS with all of it. Like a taxi service. You tell it where you want to go and when and then boom! a balloon shows up piloted, prepped and ready.

Such a quandary exists in the EMR market today. Everyone thinks the government rules mean that meaningfully using electronic health information actually means meaningfully using information you BUILD YOURSELF! They think you have to buy EMRs and servers and program them to meet government rules and then re-program them to meet rule changes. This would give me hives, even if I were a giant health system. Even systems with big budgets don’t have a comparative advantage in programming software!Continue reading…

Pitfalls of PPACA – Accountable Care Organizations

Jun 14, 2010• 12

By ROGER COLLIER

In addition to Medicare Advantage payment cuts and potential reductions in fee-for-service payment updates, PPACA includes various provisions intended to facilitate ongoing Medicare cost containment, notably creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. In addition to CMI’s broad scope, PPACA requires specific pilot projects, including (in Section 3022) demonstration of accountable care organizations (ACOs).

What does PPACA mean by an ACO? Dr. Elliott Fisher of Dartmouth Medical School, a primary originator of the concept, defined it as “a provider-led organization whose mission is to manage the full continuum of care and be accountable for the overall costs and quality of care for a defined population” and listed several provider groupings that could form ACOs. PPACA provides additional criteria, including having a formal legal structure and administrative systems, meeting CMS requirements for quality assurance and reporting, and serving at least 5000 Medicare beneficiaries. PPACA also specifies a deadline for the ACO pilot: “Not later than January 1, 2012, the Secretary shall establish…a program…”

The goal of an ACO is to reduce costs and improve quality of care through cooperation and coordination among providers, similar to that achieved by integrated delivery systems like Geisinger, HealthPartners, and Intermountain Health Care, but within what may be essentially a virtual organization superimposed on a loose network of providers and covering only a subset of patients.