November 2010 - The Health Care Blog

Suzanne Delbanco on the new Catalyst for Payment Reform

By Matthew Holt Catalyst for Payment Reform is a new organization set up by several huge employers. Its goal is to pay for health care differently, and make sure that those employers run ahead of any Medicare payment reform coming... Read More...

Published Fri, Nov 12 2010 1:02 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Policy, Employers

The Decade-Long Journey To NEJM Case 34-2010

By BOB WACHTER The most popular article in last week’s New England Journal of Medicine did not tout the discovery of a novel gene, nor describe a cardiology clinical trial with a clever acronym as its title. Rather, it was... Read More...

Published Mon, Nov 22 2010 9:32 AM by The Health Care Blog

The Doctor will Sync You Now

By MARKUS POHL Takeaway: mHealth developers expect the importance of app stores to diminish. mHealth apps will predominantly be distributed through traditional healthcare channels by 2015. Our firm, Berlin-based research2guidance, conducted a global mHealth...

Published Wed, Nov 24 2010 8:30 AM by The Health Care Blog

Thanks Giving

By ROB LAMBERTS Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. Christmas is great, but the commercialization of it has largely spoiled it. Thanksgiving seems to be the one holiday that has remained as it was when I was young: a time... Read More...

Published Fri, Nov 26 2010 5:08 AM by The Health Care Blog

Is This Normal?

By PAUL LEVY This is a story about consumer choice using publicly available information. Unfortunately, it is also about the power of suggestion as used by an incumbent provider organization. The friend who sent me this note is a research... Read More...

Published Mon, Nov 29 2010 7:39 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Patients, Health Plans, Paul Levy

Friends, with Benefits

By JONATHAN BUSH What if one doctor could “friend” or “link in” with another for the purpose of patient exchange? Today when we hear people talk about clinical integration, they’re talking about financial integration…literally owning every stage of the...

Published Tue, Nov 30 2010 4:12 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Physicians, Jonathan Bush, HIEs

PPACA Premium Subsidies: The Government Is Here to Help You!

By ROGER COLLIER If anyone ever doubted the extent to which Congressional committees could turn good intentions into a bureaucratic nightmare, they need only to look at PPACA’s premium subsidy provisions and their potential impact on insurance exchanges...

Published Mon, Nov 01 2010 2:30 AM by The Health Care Blog

Contemplating Safety While Lying Down

by JESSIE GRUMAN I write about what it takes for us — whether we are sick or well — to find and make good use of health care today. At the end of September I was hospitalized for surgery to... Read More...

Published Mon, Nov 01 2010 8:59 PM by The Health Care Blog

Can we get physicians to use modular apps?

By Matthew Holt Health 2.0 is best known for (and started with) consumers using online tools, search, communities and other services. But over the last year or two we've seen more and more SaaS-based and modular tools developed aimed at... Read More...

Published Wed, Nov 03 2010 12:41 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Physicians

What Does “Meaningful Use” Mean for Doctors?

By JONATHAN BUSH Join the latest athenahealth discussion on Sermo! As part of our ongoing partnership with Sermo, the world’s largest online physician community, we periodically team up for surveys and other interactive projects. Our second in a series...

Published Thu, Nov 04 2010 7:39 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Meaningful Use, Jonathan Bush

From Progressive to Zombie Legislation after Midterms?

By RICHARD REECE, MD This is a guess as to what the midterms, a political setback for supporters of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), might mean for health reform. Exit polls indicate 58% of voters opposed the ACA, and cracks... Read More...

Published Thu, Nov 04 2010 2:41 PM by The Health Care Blog

Does This ACO Thing Really Mean We Need to be ‘Accountable’?

By VINCE KURATIS Last month The American College of Physicians (ACP) released a well-reasoned and thorough position paper, The Patient-Centered Medical Home Neighbor: The Interface of the Patient-Centered Medical Home with Specialty/Subspecialty Practices...

Published Fri, Nov 12 2010 5:18 PM by The Health Care Blog

The HIT Parade

By LISA SUENNEN The Cleveland Clinic recently published an annual Top 10 list of what their leadership believes to be the most significant advances in medicine in each of the last five years. In 2007-2008 all of the items on... Read More...

Published Mon, Nov 15 2010 4:06 AM by The Health Care Blog

EHRs in Surgical Practices

By JOHN HALAMKA I was recently asked to offer advice about implementing EHRs in surgical practices. Here are the lessons learned from our Massachusetts EHR rollout experts. 1) . Surgical practices are challenging in general because they frequently use...

Published Tue, Nov 16 2010 4:21 AM by The Health Care Blog

Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria in Hospitals: A Time for Action

By ARJUN SRINIVASAN and RAMANAN LAXMINARAYAN Every few years there are reports of antibiotic resistant microbes that prompt a series of predictions about “the end of antibiotics.” It happened in the 90s with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and then...

Published Wed, Nov 17 2010 6:36 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Announcements