March 2011 - The Health Care Blog

Which Way Transparency Nirvana?

By MICHAEL PAINTER, MD First the good news—many are pushing the envelope on public reporting of health care information these days. For instance, last week the HHS/Health 2.0 Developer Challenge awarded honors to a new mobile app—using Hospital Compare...

Published Mon, Mar 28 2011 2:54 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0, Transparency, AHRQ, Michael Painter

Xerox Blog Talk Radio: Personal Health Information

Check out Xerox Blog Talk Radio to learn about protecting personal health information. This morning, Mark Tripodi, chief innovation officer, government healthcare solutions group for ACS, A Xerox Company, explained why data can easily be put at risk and...

Published Fri, Mar 04 2011 7:20 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Front Page

Who Owns Patient Data?

By DAVID HARLOW Walgreens is being sued by customers who are not happy that their prescription information – even though it has been de-identified – is being sold by Walgreens to data-mining companies. The data privacy and security concerns surrounding...

Published Tue, Mar 22 2011 7:02 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Privacy, David Harlow, Patient data, Walgreens

Perspective

By KIMBERLY MANNING, MD “I can’t sleep, doc.” “Really?” “Yeah. And it ain’t like I ain’t sleepy, either. I just be sitting there. Just up and bored.” “Tell me about your evenings.” “I...

Published Thu, Mar 10 2011 6:32 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Hospitals, Internal Medicine, Grady Medical Center, cardiology

The Value a Life

By BENJAMIN GEISLER A recent NYTimes article on how to value a life drew almost two-hundred heavy-handed comments. It discussed how different governmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA...

Published Thu, Mar 03 2011 11:41 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Front Page

ACOs: Unicorn breeding rules emerging

Mark Smith, the President of the California Health Care Foundation, jokes that ACOs are like unicorns–mythical beasts that no one has yet seen. Well today Politico reports that–just like the Kennel club certifying a new breed of dog–CMS...

Published Wed, Mar 30 2011 7:12 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: micro

Are Patients and Interoperability Finally Coming to the Fore of Health IT?

By ADRIAN GROPPER, MD In recent weeks, I’ve witnessed a huge change among my practicing colleagues. For the first time, the true cost of vendor-proprietary records is seen as an existential issue for practices that may need to join an Accountable...

Published Thu, Mar 17 2011 12:16 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HIT, EHR, THCB, Adrian Gropper, ACOs

AEI defends Health 2.0 vs the “old guard”

Not often a lefty like me promotes AEI, but Jon Entine has written a great piece attacking the behavior of the FDA. For the last 3 years the establishment has been attacking the DTC genomics companies for basically allowing people to access their own...

Published Wed, Mar 16 2011 12:46 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: micro

Fixing America’s Health Care Reimbursement System

By BRIAN KLEPPER, PHD A tempest is brewing in physician circles over how doctors are paid. But calming it will require more than just the action of physicians. It will demand the attention and influence of businesses and patient advocates who, outside...

Published Thu, Mar 03 2011 3:49 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Brian Klepper, CMS, Front Page, RUC, Healthcare costs, reimbursements

Why Apple iPad will Dominate in the Enterprise

By JOHN MOORE Ok, before I even begin, let me put it right out there: I’ve been using Apple products since I first got my hands on one of those cute little Mac SEs in the late 80′s having given up my spanking, brand new Compaq 386 with 64kb of RAM and...

Published Thu, Mar 10 2011 9:47 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HIT, THCB, John Moore, iPad, Healthcare

Visualizing the Threat Posed by Antibiotic Resistance

By JOHN LUMPKIN and RAMANAN LAXMINARAYAN How reimagining data – and reframing a problem – can help avert a looming public health crisis For the first time, researchers and policymakers can visually track the rise in “superbug” infections over time and...

Published Wed, Mar 02 2011 3:14 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Ramanan Laxminarayan, Front Page, ResistanceMap, Superbug infections, Geography, John Lumpkin

Tele-what?

By NEIL VERSEL As a journalist who for the last decade has covered the use of information technology in health care, I’m rather disgusted at some of my brethren in the mass media. I’m none too happy with the medical establishment, either. Both seem hopelessly...

Published Wed, Mar 16 2011 11:09 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Neil Versel, Telemedicine, Telemonitoring, Yale, Wireless

The Inspector General Observes

By PAUL LEVY A recent report by the Massachusetts Inspector General raises a thoughtful concern about the implementation of global payments in the state. In the effort to contain health care costs, much discourse has centered on moving from a predominantly...

Published Thu, Mar 17 2011 10:41 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Paul Levy, Massachusetts, ACOs, Global payments, AQC

The 6th Thing to Watch in the Medicare ACO Regulations

By VINCE KURATIS Health care lobbyists and advocates are bracing for six pages of the health care reform law to explode into more than 1,000 pages of federal regulations when the Department of Health and Human Services releases its long-delayed accountable...

Published Wed, Mar 30 2011 4:17 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, ACOs

A Growing Chorus on the RUC

By BRIAN KLEPPER Yesterday on Kaiser Health News, Barbara Levy MD, the Chair of the AMA’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (or RUC), published a glowing defense of the RUC’s activities. Her article extols the work of the 29 physician...

Published Tue, Mar 29 2011 12:42 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB