The Health Care Blog – Page 893 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

A Declaration of Health Data Rights

Jun 22, 2009• 17

By MATTHEW HOLT

THCB & Health 2.0 are happy to be a small part of a very important declaration, made today by a mix of patients, physicians, technologists and concerned citizens. It’s a Declaration of Health Data Rights, and it’s extremely important because access to usable data is a very pressing problem in the health care system, and one that we have the opportunity to solve if we bake the concept into regulation and practice now, as electronic health data becomes more pervasive. Here’s the declaration:

In an era when technology allows personal health information to be more easily stored, updated, accessed and exchanged, the following rights should be self-evident and inalienable. We the people:

Have the right to our own health data
Have the right to know the source of each health data element
Have the right to take possession of a complete copy of our individual health data, without delay, at minimal or no cost; If data exist in computable form, they must be made available in that form
Have the right to share our health data with others as we see fit

These principles express basic human rights as well as essential elements of health care that is participatory, appropriate and in the interests of each patient. No law or policy should abridge these rights.

More information about how you can support this declaration, how it was created, a FAQ and what you can do to get involved is all at www.healthdatarights.org

A Dream of Reason

Jun 22, 2009• 9

By BRIAN KLEPPER and DAVID KIBBE

ALP_H_BK_0010

The dream of reason did not take power into account…Modern medicine is one of those extraordinary works of reason…But medicine is also a world of power.

-Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine, 1984

Today’s unveiling of a Declaration of Health Data Rights is an important action, long overdue, that represents a collaborative effort by a group of health care professionals – activists, entrepreneurs, technologists and clinicians – all colleagues we hold in high esteem.

The Declaration’s several points arise from a single, simple premise: that patients own their own data, and that that ownership cannot be pre-empted by a professional or an institution. And there lies its power, especially in the context of early 21st Century health care. It is a transformative ideal that currently is not the norm. But we join our colleagues in declaring that it should be.Continue reading…

“Meaningful Use” – If You Have to Define It, Is It?

Jun 22, 2009• 4

By BRIAN BAUM

I have a good friend at Duke University
– Dr. Ed Hammond. (Ed has been involved in advancing electronic
health information for quite some time – probably longer than he'd like
to remember.) Ed once told me that to get a perspective on how
long we – (our nation) has been assessing the potential of automating
health information you'd have to go back to the introduction of Medicare
in 1965 when President Johnson signed the legislation and officially
enrolled Harry Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary.

Time to Revisit Wyden-Bennett?

Jun 22, 2009• 8

By ROGER COLLIER

With the Washington insiders at politico.com
reporting this weekend that health care reform appears to be in “real
jeopardy,” and the Senate Finance Committee so uneasy that they have
decided to delay reform bill markup until after the July Fourth recess,
it’s increasingly clear that an approach of layering more and more
fixes onto the present system isn’t going to work.

Opening Physicians’ Notes to Patients

Jun 21, 2009• 22

By STEVE DOWNS

Steve Downs Today’s Boston Globe ran a story (page one, no less!) announcing our grant to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to run a three-site demonstration of opening up physicians’ notes to patients. That’s not just making labs, drugs, allergies, etc. available to patients – it’s giving them access to the actual notes that the physician records about a visit. Now these notes are technically available now – under HIPAA each of us has a right to our full medical records (of which physician notes are a part), but the process for obtaining them is often slow, cumbersome and even expensive in some cases. Under this project, called Open Notes, patients will receive a secure email after the note has been completed and they can see it right away. They’ll also be prompted to review the note prior to their next visit. So instead of limiting access to the very determined, access will be easy for anyone who’s mildly interested.

Why would we fund this? Several reasons, really. First, is that at the Pioneer Portfolio, we’re very interested in patient-centered innovation. Let’s face it: virtually every trend suggests that people are going to have to become much more engaged in their care and in taking care of themselves. And, as the pioneers of shared decision-making, patient centeredness, patient activation, online support groups and the health 2.0 community have shown us, real benefits come from this engagement. So much of the energy and excitement in health care today is coming from the patient/consumer side of the equation. So it’s a space where we believe we will find many innovations that can ultimately transform health.Continue reading…

Your AHIP Quiz Question of the Day

Jun 21, 2009• 20

By Matthew Holt

This is something that’s been puzzling me for a few weeks. We all know that insurers are very good at making sure that they insure healthier risks than average. In the individual market they do this openly, by underwriting against poorer risks. Those “risks” (who are most of the people with the really tragic stories) end up uninsured or in massively over-stretched state major risk pools.

Eight Signs that Wellness and Prevention have become Health Reform Priorities

Jun 20, 2009• 9

By DAVID R. WILLIAMS

Health care reform alone won’t make
America healthier. We’ve seen this basic message as recently as yesterday,
in Ezra Klein’s piece for the American Prospect, “Wealth-Care Reform.” At the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America, we’ve been studying prevention, wellness,
and the broader factors that influence good health for nearly two years.
And as the health care reform debate has heated up over the last few
weeks, we’ve seen eight signs that health reformers and leaders from
all sectors are starting to get the message that there’s more to health
than health care.

How Relevant is the American Medical Association?

Jun 20, 2009• 23

By RAHUL PARIKH, MD

Like most doctors, I was busy seeing a full schedule of patients when President Obama addressed members of the American Medical Association at their annual meeting in Chicago. The speech was billed as a crucial confrontation over health reform, and anticipation had been building for quite some time. So I was too busy to learn anything about his remarks and the response until I got home.

Then again, I’m not a member of the AMA. I never have been. Neither are very many of my physician friends and colleagues. In fact, the odds are that your doctor isn’t a member of the AMA, because at best, only between 25-30% of the approximately 800,000 doctors in country belong to it. And a good percentage (up to half of members according to one report) of those include residents and medical students, who get big discounts on membership and a free subscription to a journal when they join.Continue reading…

The Dumbest Thing I Have Ever Seen An Insurance Company Do

Jun 20, 2009• 28

By ROBERT LASZEWSKI

And, I’ve been in the business for 37 years.First, let me
stipulate we really need a system of universal care where everyone gets
to have insurance. But we don’t yet so certain rules are unavoidable
until we do.

The State of Meaningful Use

Jun 19, 2009• 2

By MICHAEL PAINTER

Is it possible that the State Department is technologically bolder than the HIT Policy Committee? On Tuesday, that committee convened by the Office of the National Coordinator as required by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act released some initial recommendations on the definition of meaningful use of HIT. Then yesterday the New York Times in an above the front page fold article reported that the State Department recognized an internet blogging service could change history–right now.

Compare that report about the State Department to the HIT Policy Committee’s recommended vision for the role of patients and families. The committee envisions that someone would eventually “provide access for all patients” to populated personal health records and some self-management tools by 2015–about six years from now. It’s not that this vision is bad; it’s just so underwhelming. Let’s see–the State Department thinks that the Iranian people might be using Twitter today to regain control of their nation–and in our multi-billion dollar ultimate vision for the patient’s role with health information technology we’re still talking about “providing” a couple of interesting tools to patients by 2015. Is it me, or are we possibly missing a powerful health reform player here–the consumer?

So, as you can see, I listened to this meeting on “meaningful use” and came away with some distinctly mixed impressions.Continue reading…