October 2010 - The Health Care Blog

Teamwork Training in Healthcare: More Than Just Kumbaya

By BOB WACHTER One of the central tenets of the patient safety movement is that modern medicine is a team sport. Unfortunately, its players – particularly physicians – were trained and socialized to be free-spirited individualists. We need the Celtics...

Published Fri, Oct 22 2010 2:02 PM by The Health Care Blog

How Reform Law Funds Itself, Strengthens Medicare, and Cuts the Deficit: Part 1

By MAGGIE MAHAR The Mainstream Media Rarely Tries to Explain the Congressional Budget Office’s nearly unbelievable claims that the Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act can: 1) Pay for itself 2) Provide coverage for 32 million uninsured Americans 3...

Published Fri, Oct 22 2010 9:15 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Medicare, Policy/Politics, Maggie Mahar, health care reform

NCI's Abdul Shaikh on Challenge for Enabling Community Use of Data for Cancer Prevention and Control

Indu Subaiya, Director of the Health 2.0 Developer Challenge interviews Abdul Shaikh, Program Director for National Cancer Institute's Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at NIH about the National Cancer Institute's inspiration...

Published Thu, Oct 21 2010 11:37 AM by The Health Care Blog

How Health Services Researchers Can Harness Data : Discussion at Health Innovation Week, SF

By TED EYTAN, MD Last week’s Health Innovation Week in San Francisco started for me with a day entitled “From Data to Information, to Knowledge to Application: How Health Services Research Can Harness Data to Help Support a More Rapid... Read More...

Published Wed, Oct 20 2010 11:49 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Patients, Social Media, Research, Herbert Mathewson, Ed Eytan

The Politics of Health Reform

By JOHN GOODMAN There will be two national elections before the new health overhaul is substantially implemented (in 2014) and a third election the year it is supposed to be implemented. Question: Will the voters reward office holders who supported.....

Published Tue, Oct 19 2010 3:47 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Medicare, health care reform, John Goodman, Politics, ACA

Medicare Costs Rise, Health Outcomes Suffer When Seniors Are Over-Medicated

By NAOMI FREUNDLICH The problem of elderly people taking too many medications is not new, but continues to pose a serious risk to health as well as contribute significantly to rising Medicare costs. The fact is that nearly 20% of... Read More...

Published Tue, Oct 19 2010 12:51 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Medicare, Naomi Freundlich, Patient Safety, Health care costs

San Francisco 2010: Qpid.me Demonstration

By Bianca Grogan At the Health 2.0 Fall Conference, October 7-8, 2010, in San Francisco, Ca, during the much talked about Behavior Change, Health 2.0 & The Unmentionables session, Ramin Bastani, Founder of Qpid.me spoke about one of the most... Read...

Published Tue, Oct 19 2010 12:11 PM by The Health Care Blog

PBM Industry Reforms can Reduce Wasteful Health Care Spending, Protect Patient Choice of Pharmacy

By CSS American businessman Victor Kiam best described the small business owners’ mindset by declaring, “An entrepreneur assumes the risk and is dedicated and committed to the success of whatever he or she undertakes.” However, external forces can occasionally...

Published Tue, Oct 19 2010 10:30 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: PBMs, Patient Safety, Health care costs

Doctors, Hospitals and the Yankees

By ROB LAMBERTS Joe Boyd hated the Yankees. “Those damn Yankees. Why can’t we beat ‘em?” Then he got the opportunity to save his beloved Washington Senators by making a deal with the devil – giving up his soul in... Read More...

Published Tue, Oct 19 2010 7:45 AM by The Health Care Blog

San Francisco 2010: Launch of ShareCare

By Bianca Grogan Jeff Arnold launched ShareCare at Health 2.0 Fall Conference in San Francisco, Ca, on October 7-8, 2010. ShareCare recruits industry experts to answer health and wellness questions, so they can provide consumers with the necessary tools...

Published Mon, Oct 18 2010 12:33 PM by The Health Care Blog

HIE Guide for the Perplexed

By MARGALIT GUR-ARIE HIE stands for Health Information Exchange. Sometimes the term HIE is used to describe the act of exchanging health information, sometimes HIE is used to describe the infrastructure which enables the exchange to occur and sometimes...

Published Mon, Oct 18 2010 6:35 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Margalit Gur-Arie, HIEs

The Health Reform (Almost) Everyone Loves

By MICHAEL MILLENSON Come with me to the land of happy health reform. It is a place where Republicans and Democrats find common ground, a place where physicians, hospitals and health insurers sit together as partners, a place where criticism... Read More...

Published Mon, Oct 18 2010 4:38 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Michael Millenson, ACOs

San Francisco 2010: iWantGreatCare Demonstration

By Bianca Grogan Neil Bacon, Managing Director of iWantGreatCare, gave a brief demonstration at the Health 2.0 Fall Conference in San Francisco, CA on October 7-8, 2010. iWantGreatCare is an independent organization that allows patients to rate their...

Published Sun, Oct 17 2010 10:11 AM by The Health Care Blog

San Francisco 2010: Patients 2.0 Closing Remarks

By Bianca Grogan For the first time we held a meeting for patients by patients, called Patients 2.0. In this session the audience took over and had a facilated discussion. At the end a group of patients and advocates took... Read More...

Published Sat, Oct 16 2010 7:15 AM by The Health Care Blog

A Prescription For Doctors

By THOMAS GOETZ Enough about patients: What is a doctor to do? In the past few months, since The Decision Tree book came out, I’ve had the privilege to talk with many doctors about the opportunity and challenge of engaging... Read More...

Published Fri, Oct 15 2010 6:43 PM by The Health Care Blog