March 2011 - The Health Care Blog

Not So Fast – Why It Pays to Wait Until FY 2012 on Meaningful Use

By PROTIMA ADVANI The registration process and reporting period for the meaningful use incentive program officially commenced on Jan. 3. More than 21,000 health care providers have registered to date and many more are ramping up efforts to meet meaningful...

Published Tue, Mar 15 2011 12:36 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Meaningful Use, Potima Advani

Tough Talk

By PAUL LEVY Some people at the University of Washington and colleagues from around the country run a wonderful website called Tough Talk: Helping Doctors Approach Difficult Conversations. They call it a “toolbox for medical educators” who...

Published Tue, Mar 15 2011 7:18 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Paul Levy, academic medical centers, Teaching

Maine Waiver Expected to Increase Insurer Pressures on States

By ROGER COLLIER HHS’s bellwether decision of last week to grant the State of Maine a three-year waiver from the medical loss ratio provision of the ACA may lead to new efforts by insurers across the country to persuade states to demand similar waivers...

Published Mon, Mar 14 2011 3:52 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Roger Collier, Affordable Care Act, Waivers, The States

A Speed Bump on the Road to Meaningful Use

By MARGALIT GUR-ARIE Meaningful Use has hit a speed bump. It’s of the low, wide and gentle type, not the old raggedy, narrow and mean bump you find in older parking lots. Now that a tentative proposal for Meaningful Use Stage 2 has been published by ONC...

Published Mon, Mar 14 2011 2:29 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Meaningful Use, ONC, Stages, Margalit Gur-Aire, NIST

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

From Jeopardy! To Your Physician’s Black Bag: Could a Supercomputer Really Assist With Health Care?

By DAN PELINO IBM’s Jeopardy-champion computer, Watson, has huge potential for helping physicians and other clinicians work with patients. The leap from TV game show to physicians’ offices will probably take at least two years. But Watson’s understanding...

Published Mon, Mar 14 2011 8:12 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Physicians, Watson, IBM, Medicine

Catching Babies? JD Kleinke talks (well, IMs)

By Matthew Holt JD Kleinke has been one of my favorite people in health care for at least a decade (or probably more!) notwithstanding his barrages at all and sundry (sometimes including me) on this very blog. He’s been a little quiet of late, but...

Published Mon, Mar 14 2011 1:37 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Matthew Holt

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

Amazing Health 2.0 panel at SXSW

By Matthew Holt My wonderful colleague (and Health 2.0’s Co-Chairman & CEO) Indu Subaiya has literally just come off stage in Austin, Texas where the annual South by SouthWest Conference has for the first time had a health track. Indu moderated...

Published Sun, Mar 13 2011 1:35 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Tech

Why Berwick Matters

By ROBERT WACHTER Two cover stories in this week’s Time magazine debate a provocative question: Is America in decline? Both the yes and no arguments are made persuasively, and I found myself on the fence after reading them, perhaps leaning ever-so-slightly...

Published Sat, Mar 12 2011 5:07 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, CMS, PPACA, Berwick, IHI

Quality or value? A Measure for the 21st Century

By MARYA ZILBERBERG, MD Fascinating, how in the same week two giants of evidence-based medicine have given such divergent views on the future of quality improvement. Here (free subscription required), Donald Berwick, the CMS administrator and founder...

Published Fri, Mar 11 2011 12:03 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Quality, Marya Zilberberg, Value, Evidence Based Medicine

Why Medical Ethics Should Matter to Patients

By MICHAEL KIRSCH, MD Medical ethics has properly gained a foothold in the public square. There is a national conversation about euthanasia, stem cell research, fertilization and embryo implantation techniques, end-of-life care, prenatal diagnosis of...

Published Fri, Mar 11 2011 9:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB

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

Government Failure

By JOHN GOODMAN I can’t even count the number of articles and blog posts I’ve seen asserting that markets can’t work in health care. Or that they work very imperfectly. Or that they suffer from serious “market failure.” In every case, the writer just...

Published Thu, Mar 10 2011 9:20 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB

Observations About the Israeli Health Care System

By PAUL LEVY As I share this view from my room in Tel Aviv after leaving the conference in Haifa, it is a good chance to consider the features of the Israeli health care system and draw some comparisons with that of the US. You can find a full description...

Published Thu, Mar 10 2011 8:53 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Paul Levy, HMO, Israeli health care system, Israel