February 2015 - The Health Care Blog

My Doctor Just Gave Me His Cell Phone Number …

By JASON GRAIS That’s right…it really happened. At the conclusion of a recent doctor visit, he gave me his cell phone number saying, “Call me anytime if you need anything or have questions.” In disbelief, I wondered if this was a generational thing –...

Published Tue, Feb 17 2015 12:59 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, mHealth, Cell phone, Remote visit, Provider acccess

HIT Newser: The Not-So-Big Meaningful Use Stick

By MICHELLE RONAN NOTEBOOM This Year’s Meaningful Use “Sticks”: Not that Big CMS reports that the majority of physicians who will be penalized this year for not having met MU requirements will lose less than $1,000 of their Medicare reimbursement; 34...

Published Tue, Feb 17 2015 8:03 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Meaningful Use, CMS, ICD-10, HIT Newser, Allcripts, Deloitte, DOD

Weight Loss Fines Are Discriminatory and Counterproductive

By LEWIS, KHANNA and ROBINSON One year ago in these pages, Harvard Medical School’s Stephen Soumerai wrote a scathing essay arguing that employer fines on overweight employees were ineffective. We’re here to tell you that Professor Soumerai is a cockeyed...

Published Mon, Feb 23 2015 10:35 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB

Health IT: Glass Half Empty? Half Full? Shattered?

By JACK COCHRAN, MD and CHARLES KENNEY Technology occupies an unusual place in health care. Some people say that electronic health records are clumsy barriers between patients and their doctors. Others suggest that technology is a kind of secret sauce...

Published Wed, Feb 04 2015 5:31 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Jack Cochran, Charles Kenney

Health 2.0 Asia: Japan Conference Partnership

By SOPHIE PARK Tokyo, Japan – Health 2.0 announces the Health 2.0 Asia partnership with MedPeer, Inc. to showcase the Health 2.0 Asia conference Japan on November 4-5, 2015. The conference will be the first of a series of events expanding the global...

Published Fri, Feb 27 2015 10:05 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0

KLAS Announces 2014 Best in KLAS Winners

By MICHELLE RONAN NOTEBOOM Epic regains its top spot in the 2014 Best in KLAS awards, winning in the Overall Physician Practice Vendor and Overall Software Suite categories. Impact Advisors was named the Overall IT Services Firm. Last year athenahealth...

Published Mon, Feb 02 2015 4:58 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Epic, Cerner, Klas, athenahealth

Please Choose One

By PHILIP ALLEN GREEN Please choose one: The three words blink in front of me on the computer screen. Please choose one: Patient is- ☐Male ☐Female I click FEMALE. I watch as the auto-template feature fills in the paragraph for me based on my choices....

Published Sun, Feb 15 2015 10:24 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, EMR, Fiction

NIH Discovers Data Scientists. Private Sector.

By DAVID SHAYWITZ, MD Late last month, President Obama unveiled a $215 million Precision Medicine initiative, which has won early bipartisan support. The centerpiece of this proposal is an ambitious effort to integrate disparate clinical datasets to advance...

Published Tue, Feb 17 2015 9:26 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, NIH, Data Scientists, Precision Medicine Initiative

Will Getting More Granular Help Doctors Make Better Decisions?

By MARC-DAVID MUNK I’ve been thinking a lot about “big data” and how it is going to affect the practice of medicine. It’s not really my area of expertise– but here are a few thoughts on the tricky intersection of data mining and medicine. First, some...

Published Sat, Feb 07 2015 12:13 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

By KAREN SIBERT, MD American anesthesiology reached a significant milestone last year, though many of us probably missed it at the time. In February, 2014, the number of nurse anesthetists in the United States for the first time exceeded the number of...

Published Wed, Feb 25 2015 9:30 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Physicians, Anesthesiologists, Anethestiologist assistants, Nurse Anesthetists

False Positives and Real Dollars: Why $88 won’t effectively screen for lung cancer

By Matt Hawkins, MD Let me be clear. I think lung cancer screening is a good thing. The National Lung Cancer Screening Trial (NLST) had air-tight design and was impeccably performed. Those who have paid attention know that the NLST demonstrated a 20%...

Published Mon, Feb 09 2015 6:30 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, NLST, Histo-belt, CT screen, Lung nodules

The Therapeutic Paradox: What’s Right for the Population May Not Be Right for the Patient

By SCOTT ABEREGG, MD An article in this week’s New York Times called Will This Treatment Help Me? There’s a Statistic for that highlights the disconnect between the risks (and risk reductions) that epidemiologists, researchers, guideline writers...

Published Mon, Feb 02 2015 1:09 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, ARR, NNT, The Therapeutic Paradox

Random Evil Policy Cancellations

By THCBist Suspicious in Michigan writes: I am really upset. Our ACA coverage was cancelled without my knowledge or permission. When I contacted the help line I was informed that I had cancelled the policy myself, which is ridiculous! During a conference...

Published Thu, Feb 05 2015 12:36 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, ACA Database, Cancellation

CPOE For Management

By PETER ELIAS, MD At a recent clinical staff meeting, a physician complained that the new requirement that clinicians enter all orders manually into the electronic record (CPOE) is slowing us down and causing errors. The IT and administrative staff were...

Published Mon, Feb 02 2015 7:53 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Errand Management Resource