November 2010 - The Health Care Blog

S.M.A.R.T. Objectives: An Essential Step in Strategy Formulation

By MATT MODLESKI We are often asked to weigh in on organizational strategy when the proverbial “house is on fire” and a client’s business is experiencing challenges. Our first question to the CEO and his/her staff once we begin our... Read More...

Published Wed, Nov 17 2010 4:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: ACOs, Matt Modleski

Rating the Raters: Physician Compare

By NAOMI FREUNDLICH Let’s say you’ve enrolled in a new health insurance plan and need to find an internist who participates. How do you decide which doctor to choose? My (long deceased) grandmother made her choices by using the following... Read More...

Published Thu, Nov 18 2010 4:04 AM by The Health Care Blog

Have We Found the Magic Acronym?

By JD Kleinke Sometimes, reality just delivers - this morning in the form of some funny Google search results. Aghast at the fluidity of my acronymic spew in an email exchange with a colleague (“ACOs can be MSOs instead of... Read More...

Published Fri, Nov 19 2010 7:12 AM by The Health Care Blog

The Congressional Shift and Health IT

By JUSTIN BARNES Following the shift to a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, the pre- and post-election focus of GOP leaders on repealing all or parts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) have led... Read More...

Published Mon, Nov 22 2010 5:40 AM by The Health Care Blog

The MLR Rules - About as Valuable as Taking Your Shoes Off at the Airport

By ROBERT LASZEWSKI This whole medical loss ratio (MLR) provision in the new health care law is a fool’s errand. When it comes to controlling health care costs it is about as productive as taking your shoes off at the... Read More...

Published Tue, Nov 23 2010 9:12 AM by The Health Care Blog

Engage with Grace at Thanksgiving

Since 2008 THCB has featured Engage with Grace at Thanksgving. We invite everyone to post this to their blog or Facebook page, and to link here with their status update. You can download a "blog ready" html version of this... Read More...

Published Thu, Nov 25 2010 3:47 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Matthew Holt

The Bond Markets and Health Care Financing

By ROBERT LASZEWSKI When will the Congress and the White House finally make the hard decisions in order come to grips with the federal deficit problem? When will we finally deal with real health care reform and get the entitlements,... Read More...

Published Sun, Nov 28 2010 11:00 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Robert Laszewski, Policy/Politics, Health care costs

The preview of the Health 2.0 Accelerator Apps Network is now available on video

At the Fall 2010 Health 2.0 Conference seven companies demonstrate composite applications to connect and support patients, caregivers and providers. San Francisco, November 10, 2010 - The preview of the Health 2.0 Accelerator Apps Network is now available...

Published Tue, Nov 30 2010 10:40 AM by The Health Care Blog

Steve Krein talks OrganizedWisdom

By Matthew Holt And in the "stuff I should have posted a few weeks back" file, here's my interview with Steven Krein, CEO of OrganizedWisdom. Steve (with Unity Stoakes) runs one of the more interesting companies in the online health... Read...

Published Mon, Nov 01 2010 9:45 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Health 2.0, Consumers, User Generated Content

Mike Barber, GE Healthymagination

Last week thanks to the munificence of the RWJ Pioneer Fund (thanks Steve, Paul & team!), I spent a few days at the TEDMED conference in the Hotel Del Coronado near San Diego (famous for its role pretending to be... Read More...

Published Tue, Nov 02 2010 1:34 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Technology, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, EHR/EMR

Laying on of the Hands

By Herbert Mathewson It appears that except for physical therapists, masseuses, and priests no one lays on the hands anymore. Certainly contemporarily trained physicians do not. Recently I went to my local ER because a 2-day old pain in my... Read More...

Published Wed, Nov 03 2010 7:05 AM by The Health Care Blog

The EMR Cage Match Results

By JONATHAN BUSH It turns out, there was no cage at the experimental debate earlier in October between me and Girish Kumar Navani of eClinicalWorks. And Girish was wearing a shirt…and no mask. These, plus other anticlimaxes, sent our PR... Read More....

Published Thu, Nov 04 2010 9:31 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: EHR/EMR, Jonathan Bush

The Road to Repeal?

By RICHARD REECE, MD Emboldened by their victory in the Midterms, many Republicans are calling for repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). How likely is it that we'll see changes any time soon? Probably not very.... Read...

Published Sat, Nov 13 2010 6:10 PM by The Health Care Blog

Twas' the Night Before Residency

By VIPAN NIKORE Patients from all around the world travel to the Cleveland Clinic for their medical care. Often it is the last stop in a chain of hospitals that patients have been admitted to in order to solve a... Read More...

Published Mon, Nov 15 2010 10:40 AM by The Health Care Blog

Hub's List

By HERBERT MATHEWSON, MD CELL PHONES DON’T CAUSE CANCER- (1) Despite ample scientific evidence to the contrary much buzz continues about cell phone usage causing brain cancer. Why is that ? A recent review in Scientific American magazine points out.....

Published Tue, Nov 16 2010 3:00 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: evidenced-based medicine, Herbert Mathewson