October 2009 - The Health Care Blog

Carrot or Stick? Should Patient Decision Aids Be Rewarded or Required?

By DON KEMPER Should we incent or require providers to prescribe patient decision aids? Should we incent or require consumers to use patient decision aids? Overtreatment is the most celebrated cause of runaway health care costs, but we shouldn’t blame...

Published Thu, Oct 01 2009 6:35 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Costs, Physicians, Patients

The ugly, the bad, the very good and the great at the Health 2.0 Conference

By Matthew Holt So the Fall Health 2.0 2009 conference in San Francisco at the Concourse Exhibition Center is over. The bunting is down, the cocktails are drunk, and everyone can get back to the sanctity of the WiFi enabled... Read More...

Published Sat, Oct 10 2009 1:46 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0, Matthew Holt

Smoking and mental illness

By Maggie Mahar At last weeks Health 2.0 Conference Maggie Mahar, author of HealthBeatBlog got more than a little feisty about Al Waxman's suggestion that we make people with bad health behaviors pay more. She said that 95% of smokers... Read More...

Published Sun, Oct 11 2009 2:26 PM by The Health Care Blog

Why is this the one thing?

By JOE FLOWER When the terrorist attacks of 9/11 hit the United States, and then suddenly we were plunged into war, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, I don’t remember anyone demanding that the wars be “deficit neutral.” No... Read More...

Published Wed, Oct 14 2009 7:31 AM by The Health Care Blog

Two east coast conferences worth a look

By Matthew Holt Two conferences I won’t be at (because I’ve been on enough aeroplanes this year already and have to do a bunch more traveling in November) are later this month. One is GelHealth in NYC which is the... Read More...

Published Thu, Oct 15 2009 6:36 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Matthew Holt

Good Intentions Aren't Enough with Health Care Reform

By SARAH PALIN Now that the Senate Finance Committee has approved its health care bill, it’s a good time to step back and take a look at the long term consequences should its provisions be enacted into law. The bill... Read More...

Published Sun, Oct 18 2009 6:16 PM by The Health Care Blog

Healthcare Fighting (Kung Fu Mix)

Commentology

Jeff Goldsmith writes: "As you may know if you've read my postings, I'm an outspoken advocate of tightening Medicare fraud and abuse laws. There will be a post on this in a day or two. It's actually the stuff that's... Read More....

Published Tue, Oct 27 2009 12:46 AM by The Health Care Blog

Saving Health Care, Saving America

By BRIAN KLEPPER, DAVID C. KIBBE, ROBERT LASZEWSKI and ALAIN ENTHOVEN So far, Congress' response to the health care crisis has been alarmingly disappointing in three ways. First, by willingly accepting enormous sums from health care special interests...

Published Fri, Oct 30 2009 6:08 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, Reform, Policy/Politics, Policy, Transparency, Current Affairs, Marketplace, primary care, Corruption, The Industry

Why Standards Matter 2: Health IT Enters a New Era of Regulatory Control

By DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER The recent history of electronic medical records in ambulatory care, or what we now call EHR (electronic health record) technology, can be divided roughly into three phases. Phase I, which lasted approximately 20.....

Published Thu, Oct 08 2009 8:27 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HIT, EHR, Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, HITECH, Technology

The Long Tail of the EMR

By Margalit Gur-Arie In the fall of 2008 I had the opportunity to do some research on the, then dormant, EMR marketplace. The results came as no surprise. Most physicians did not have an EMR and were not interested in... Read More...

Published Wed, Oct 07 2009 12:21 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HITECH, Electronic Medical Records

Health 2.0 a-Go-Go: A Revolution By Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet

By J.D. KLEINKE During the standard what’re-you-doing-this-week segment of a Sunday barbecue, I told a neighbor who works in the real world that I was “going to the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco,” a sort of random zeitgeist check... Read More...

Published Tue, Oct 06 2009 8:36 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0

Let’s Not Lose Sight of the Goals

By BILL KRAMER I love Daniel Schorr. I’ve never met him in person, but I love his voice and his insights about politics on NPR’s Weekend Edition. But this morning I was disappointed. After listening to his comments on the... Read More...

Published Sun, Oct 04 2009 10:24 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Reform, Policy/Politics, Obama

Two big deals in Health 2.0

By Matthew Holt John Halamka writes about the small but important meeting this week at Harvard Medical School hosted by Zak Kohane and Ken Mandl. Because of the impending arrival of about 1,000 of my best friends next week at... Read More...

Published Fri, Oct 02 2009 12:37 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Health 2.0

Health Internet - The New Consumer-Friendly NHIN

By Adrian Gropper Consumer directed HIE will become the most visible aspect of health IT stimulus and could lead a shift to consumer-directed health plans, increased interest in wellness programs and family-centered collaboration for the young, old and...

Published Fri, Oct 09 2009 10:40 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Information Therapy