January 2011 - The Health Care Blog

PCAST HIT Report Becomes a Political Piñata

By VINCE KURATIS The PCAST Report on Health IT has become a political piñata. Early Feedback on PCAST Like many of my colleagues, I was taken aback by the release of the Report in early December 2010 — I didn’t... Read More...

Published Sun, Jan 23 2011 6:16 PM by The Health Care Blog

Obtaining Meaningful Use Stimulus Payments

By JOHN HALAMKA, MD Many clinicians and hospitals have asked me about the exact steps to obtain stimulus payments. On January 3, 2011, CMS began registering clinicians for participation in meaningful use programs. Every region of the United States has...

Published Sun, Jan 23 2011 5:30 PM by The Health Care Blog

ACOs and Community Hub of Wellness & Health

By KENT BOTTLES, MD Hospitals are going to change. What worked in the past will not work in the future. The passage of the federal health care reform law and the inevitable transition from fee for service to global payments... Read More...

Published Sun, Jan 23 2011 9:50 AM by The Health Care Blog

The Laboratories of Democracy

By MERRILL GOOZNER If “Obamacare” was a federal takeover of health care, states failed to get the memo. The House Republicans and three Democrats who voted to “repeal and replace” it with something that provides “lower health care premiums through......

Published Sun, Jan 23 2011 9:30 AM by The Health Care Blog

Why We Avoid Telling Patients the Truth

By STLANEY WINOKUR, MD When I started practicing oncology, I was frequently asked by my patients, “What’s my prognosis, what can I expect?” At first, I was reluctant to tell the patient very much, especially when I knew the prognosis... Read More...

Published Sat, Jan 22 2011 5:26 PM by The Health Care Blog

A Family Physician's EMR Experience

By SULTAN RAHAMAN, MD I have always looked at technology for opportunities to improve the quality of care and the efficiency of my family practice. For instance, nearly 20 years ago I started using speech recognition software to dictate all... Read More...

Published Sat, Jan 22 2011 4:00 PM by The Health Care Blog

Massachusetts, Utah, or Nothing: How States Should Address Exchanges

By JOHN GRAHAM PPACA prescribes states’ “flexibility” in structuring exchanges. Libertarian and conservative policy analysts have criticized Massachusetts’ bloated and intrusive Commonwealth Connector, the country’s first pre-Obamacare exchange. Some...

Published Sat, Jan 22 2011 9:56 AM by The Health Care Blog

Is the Culture Finally Shifting?

By DAVE deBronkhart Thanks to friend Kavita Patel for pointing out this sign of shifting winds, in this week’s Time online: Googling Symptoms Helps Patients and Doctors. It’s a watershed moment, because the last physician column I saw on this... Read...

Published Sat, Jan 22 2011 9:55 AM by The Health Care Blog

For ‘Liberating the NHS’ read ‘Dismantling the NHS’

By CLIVE PEEDELL The NHS white paper is the government’s roadmap for a market based healthcare system, which is designed to encourage increasing roles for the private and third sectors, whilst diminishing the role of the public sector in the... Read More...

Published Sat, Jan 22 2011 7:48 AM by The Health Care Blog

Geomancy, Haruspex and Contextual Discovery

By ALEX EPSTEIN What if your internet interface knew what you wanted – before you even knew you wanted anything? Would it help or hurt? Would you wind up doing things you didn’t want to, simply because of suggestion? Would... Read More...

Published Fri, Jan 21 2011 10:33 PM by The Health Care Blog

Dicker With Your Doc? Not So Fast…

By JESSIE GRUMAN, PhD “How to Haggle With Your Doctor” was the title of a recent Business section column in The New York Times. This is one of many similar directives to the public in magazines, TV and Websites urging... Read More...

Published Fri, Jan 21 2011 2:04 PM by The Health Care Blog

Health Bill Sets Out Details of Cameron Plan to Reform NHS

By MIKE BROAD The controversial Health and Social Care Bill has been published, paving the way for GPs to control 80% of the NHS budget from 2013. Unions warn the plans are the first step towards privatising the health service,... Read More...

Published Fri, Jan 21 2011 6:34 AM by The Health Care Blog

Comment on the PCAST Report

By MARGALIT GUR-ARIE This comment is not in response to the specific questions posed by ONC, which seem to presume a certain validity of the PCAST report. This comment is respectfully raising several basic questions, which in my opinion, the... Read More...

Published Fri, Jan 21 2011 4:02 AM by The Health Care Blog

The ACC’s Cardiac Stress Testing Appropriate Use Criteria Answer the Wrong Question

By ADAM ROTHSCHILD, MD, MA Dr. William Follansbee is the chairman of the American College of Cardiology/American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ACC/ASNC) task force on non-invasive cardiac imaging and the director of nuclear cardiology at the University...

Published Thu, Jan 20 2011 1:24 PM by The Health Care Blog

EMR and the Falling Patient

By STEVE SANDERS, DO Is Mom at risk of falling? Electronic medical records (EMR) efficiently capture physician’s keystrokes—yes or no—to this question and tuck it along side other data about our so–called medical lives.The physician’s judgment has to...

Published Thu, Jan 20 2011 1:20 PM by The Health Care Blog