February 2011 - The Health Care Blog

A Multi-Layered Defense for Web Applications

By JOHN HALAMKA The internet can be a swamp of hackers, crackers, and hucksters attacking your systems for fun, profit and fraud. Defending your data and applications against this onslaught is a cold war, requiring constant escalation of new techniques...

Published Tue, Feb 08 2011 5:46 AM by The Health Care Blog

Robert Reich Connects the Dots

By JANE SARASOHN-KAHN “I’m not a class warrior. I’m a class worrier,” Robert Reich told a standing-room only crowd of thousands of health IT geeks as he delivered the first keynote address of the annual meeting of HIMSS, the Healthcare Information Management...

Published Tue, Feb 22 2011 9:37 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Medicare, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, Front Page, Economy, Robert Reich, HIMSS

Why Consumer-Driven Health Care Will Fail

By DAVIS LIU, MD The creation of consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs), health insurance policies with high deductibles linked to a savings option and with more financial responsibility shouldered by patients and employees and less by employers, was completely...

Published Wed, Feb 23 2011 9:27 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Employers, Davis Liu, Front Page, High deductibles, CDHP, Consumer-driven health plans

Earl Jones @ HIMSS11

Matthew spoke wih GE Healthcare IT’s SVP and General Manager of eHealth Earl Jones about the health IT giant’s hopes and dreams in 2011. Tweet this Share on Facebook Read More...

Published Thu, Feb 24 2011 10:31 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Tech, HIMSS, Video, Earl Jones, GE Healthcare

The Obamacare Shift

By PAUL LEVY A colleague pointed this out to me recently, and I think he has it right: While more people will have health insurance as a result of the federal health care reform act, a side effect will be to reduce the number of people insured through...

Published Fri, Feb 25 2011 6:17 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Front Page

The Other Scarlet Letter

By J.D. KLEINKE Do you hate abortion? Me too. Every form of the procedure sickens me, and has since the first one I ever heard about, when I was 10 years old. My mother had come home early, distraught and bathed in tears, from her job as a teacher in...

Published Sat, Feb 26 2011 11:54 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Abortion, Front Page, Pro-life, J.D. Kleinke

The Power of a Network: Health Information Exchanges

By JACK BUXBAUM The idea behind a network is that it grows stronger as more participants join it. A basic example is a cell phone provider that allows its members to make free calls to other members – the policy becomes more valuable as more people join...

Published Thu, Feb 24 2011 9:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: EHR, Jack Buxbaum, HIMSS 2011, HIE

Radiologist: Commoditize Thyself

By DAVID E. WILLIAMS There is little in the health care world as amusing as watching radiologists work themselves into a froth over some real or perceived threat to their profession. Usually the villain is non-radiologists daring to encroach on... Read...

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 7:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

NJ ACO: A Sheep in PHYCORE Clothing

By SCOTT SHREEVE, MD I am on an email list of Bill DeMarco’s, a reputable industry insider who has written and consulted extensively in the physician group and medical management space. He recently sent me a note about several physician... Read More....

Published Wed, Feb 02 2011 3:54 PM by The Health Care Blog

Why Aren’t The Uninsured Protesting In The Streets Like The Egyptians?

By MICHAEL MILLENSON Maybe the uninsured could learn something from Egyptians and the Arab street. At a time when landmark health reform granting most of the uninsured access to medical care for the first time in their lives is being... Read More...

Published Thu, Feb 03 2011 1:20 AM by The Health Care Blog

A Patient is Not a Shunt

By EVAN FALCHUK Some people may tell you that health care IT will solve many of the quality and cost problems in health care. I don’t believe them. I know a 70-year old man named Carlos (not his real name)... Read More...

Published Sat, Feb 05 2011 11:29 AM by The Health Care Blog

The Greater Fool

By PAUL LEVY In the last four decades, we have witnessed a series of investment "bubbles" that have all collapsed. It seems that there is no end to the number of people with cash who will be intoxicated by a... Read More...

Published Mon, Feb 07 2011 7:13 AM by The Health Care Blog

mHealth – Potentially Valuable, But Not Ready For Primetime

By TED DRISCOLL, PHD mHealth – otherwise known as mobile healthcare – sounds like just what the doctor ordered to help make healthcare delivery cheaper and more effective. And since the Internet today essentially resides in everybody’s pocket, it would...

Published Thu, Feb 17 2011 1:02 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Tech, Ted Driscoll, mHealth, Mobile healthcare

Getting an Estimate

By MONTE JAFFE A couple of years ago my primary care physician suggested that I have a colonoscopy at the age of 47. My father died from Hodgkin’s disease at 34 and my mom survived *** cancer in her 40’s. I suffer from irritable bowel syndrome so she...

Published Fri, Feb 18 2011 9:54 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Front Page, Costs of medical tests, Monte Jaffe, Costs of Care

The Individual Mandate: Another Look at the Penalty Trade-Off

By ROGER COLLIER Most of the recent attention on the 2010 health care reform legislation has focused on the individual mandate. After two federal court rulings upholding the mandate, a third federal judge—in Virginia—ruled that the Constitution does not...

Published Fri, Feb 18 2011 12:00 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health Plans, Roger Collier, Penalties, Individual mandate