March 2011 - The Health Care Blog

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

Bias And How to Deal With It

By DERICK LOWE, PHD The coverage of the Japanese reactor situation reminds me of the coverage of many other technical issues when they overlap with serious breaking news stories. I wrote a little on this subject a few years ago, talking about the Merck...

Published Thu, Mar 17 2011 12:15 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Bias, Japanese reactor, Media, Derick Lowe

THCB Live: Alcatel-Lucent’s Jim White

Alcatatel from Health 2.0 on Vimeo. Alcatatel from Health 2.0 on Vimeo. Tweet this Share on Facebook Read More...

Published Fri, Mar 18 2011 10:44 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Tech, Alcatel-Lucent

A Doctor is Not a Bank

By KEITH W. BOONE All too often I’ve heard the comparison between the financial industry and its efforts to make transactions electronic, and the healthcare industry. But health is not something that I can make deposits on and withdraw later. We...

Published Mon, Mar 14 2011 2:12 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HIT, THCB, Keith Boone, ATMs

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

Remember: Technology is but a Tool

By JOHN MOORE Yesterday, Chilmark Research participated in the CRG conference, Driving Change Through Managed Care IT from Provider Payments to Quality, which was held in New York City. Despite having a title that no one will be able to remember, the...

Published Wed, Mar 30 2011 8:04 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: EHR, THCB, John Moore, Workflow, Process, Payers

Health 2.0 Spring Fling–preview interviews

By Emily Ebert At Health 2.0 we are getting very excited for the Spring Fling this March 20-21, and in preparation, we’re doing a series of interviews with some of the speakers and panelists. Below is a list of all the interviews we’re already...

Published Thu, Mar 03 2011 3:06 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0, Front Page, Health 2.0 Live

The Incredible and Wasteful Complexity of the US Healthcare System

By HUMPHREY TAYLOR and IAN MORRISON During the health care reform debate, we wrote that most people’s attitudes to it were “confused, conflicted, clueless and cranky.” A major reason was that the American health care “system” is fiendishly complicated...

Published Thu, Mar 24 2011 7:03 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Regulation, Harris Poll, Complexity, US Healthcare system, Doughnut Hole

Medicaid and (supposed) Welfare Dependence

By HAROLD POLLACK Jonathan Cohn has a piece on Medicaid yesterday with which I agree. I want to amplify one related point. National Review and Forbes writer Avik Roy believes that Medicaid is a “humanitarian catastrophe” which is actually...

Published Sun, Mar 13 2011 5:38 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Medicaid, Welfare, Harold Polllack, Avik Roy

Death Panels Everyone Can Live With

By DAVID E. WILLIAMS Chief among Sarah Palin’s assaults on truth and reason is her contention that providing reimbursement for end-of-life planning sessions with a health care provider is tantamount to a “death panel” where a “bureaucrat can decide based...

Published Tue, Mar 22 2011 6:30 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, David Williams, Death panels, Palliative Care, End-of-Life

Health Information Security and the Cloud

By DAN ORENSTEIN Back in 2005, Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Gulf Coast community of Waveland, Mississippi. Among the many losses were the community’s medical files. The storm instantly wiped out more than 10,000 of Waveland Medical Center’s patient...

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

Filed under: THCB, Natural disasters, Cloud-based EHR, Security, Dan Orenstein

HIT Trends Summary for February 2011

By MICHAEL LAKE This is a summary of the HIT Trends Report for February 2011. You can get the current issue or subscribe here. Innovations in provider and patient solutions. DrFirst announced that it acquired AdherenceRx to integrate e-prescribing and...

Published Sun, Mar 06 2011 3:46 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HIT, THCB, Michael Lake

Does My Doctor Trust Me (and Does It Matter)?

By JESSIE GRUMAN Members of the American public are frequently surveyed about their trust in various professionals. Doctors and nurses usually wind up near the top of the list, especially when compared to lawyers, hairdressers and politicians. Trust in...

Published Wed, Mar 30 2011 9:58 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Jessie Gruman, Doctors and Patients

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

Shaken, Flooded, Stressed by Power Outages, Fukushima Daiichi Moves into Second Place

By ROD ADAMS Two weeks ago, I wrote an article titled Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries that attempted to provide a realistic prediction of the worst case consequences of the one-two punch from a very large earthquake and tsunami...

Published Thu, Mar 31 2011 6:06 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Rod Adams, Radiation, Fukushima Daiichi, Nuclear energy