November 2015 - The Health Care Blog

Yes, People Shop for Health care. But are they Good at it?

By JEANNE PINDER We used to hear “no one shops for health care.” But we know that not to be true;here’s a blog post I wrote about how people are doing just that. So, now that we know they do shop, do they do it well? That’s a good question too. A recent...

Published Thu, Nov 19 2015 8:53 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Jeanne Pinder

Bringing a Complex Health care system Into Alignment

By BRETT DAVIS Ask the chief medical officer of a major health system about the issues that keep them up at night and he or she will talk about the need to understand outcomes in complex populations, the need to engage in new business models, novel collaborations...

Published Wed, Nov 18 2015 9:00 PM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Deloitte, value-based care, ConvergeHealth, Brett Davis

When it Comes to Healthcare IT Success Stories, Don’t Count out the Little Guy

By TOM GIANNULLI, MD Today’s healthcare information technology headlines are littered with how large delivery networks are scaling up and successfully building and using IT infrastructure. But the real success story is hiding in the shadows of these...

Published Wed, Nov 18 2015 11:46 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Kareo, Small Practice, Tom Giannulli

“Winning” by Defeating the Triple Aim

By JOE FLOWER You follow movies? That is, not just watching them but thinking about how they are built, looking at the structure? In classic movie structure there is a moment near the end of the first act. We’ve established the situation, met our hero...

Published Mon, Nov 16 2015 4:34 PM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Joe Flower

First, we Devalued Doctors; Now, Technology Struggles to Replace Them

By DAVID SHAYWITZ, MD The key to driving behavior change, a seasoned marketing executive turned digital health investor told a panel on patient engagement that I moderated this week, is to get beyond the demographics of customers, and to understand the...

Published Mon, Nov 16 2015 2:43 PM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, David Shaywitz

Why Doctors Still Don’t Text or E-mail their Patients

According to the Nielsen survey earlier this month by the Council of Accountable Physician Practices and the Bipartisan Policy Center, the majority of medical providers in the United States still do not use emails or text messages to communicate with...

Published Sun, Nov 15 2015 1:45 PM by THCB

Filed under: Physicians, E-mail, Uncategorized, Text

Potential Bias in U.S. News Patient Safety Scores

By PETER PRONOVOST, MD Hospitals can get overwhelmed by the array of ratings, rankings and scorecards that gauge the quality of care that they provide. Yet when those reports come out, we still scrutinize them, seeking to understand how to improve. This...

Published Fri, Nov 13 2015 9:59 AM by THCB

Filed under: Patient Safety, Bias, Uncategorized, US News and World Report, Johns Hopkins, Peter Pronovost

Listen to People you don’t Like!

By PAUL LEVY The Aga Khan delivered the Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture at Harvard University yesterday. He has been a strong proponent of pluralism in the world and has devoted billions of dollars in resources from the Aka Khan Development Network...

Published Fri, Nov 13 2015 9:08 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Paul Levy

Middle Age Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

By STEVE FINDLAY Despite the many flaws in our healthcare system, we could always point to data showing that over the last few decades we were living longer and healthier lives—even if not quite as long and healthy as our contemporaries in many European...

Published Thu, Nov 12 2015 10:12 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Steven Findlay

Physician Disrupt Thyself

By MARC-DAVID MUNK, MD (Stepping away from health policy and business this week, a quick post on alternative careers in medicine). Wrapping up a great week spent with emergency medicine friends attending this year’s American College of Emergency Physicians...

Published Thu, Nov 12 2015 8:50 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Marc-David Munk

Can Community Organizing and The “third place” Improve Public Health?

By ANDY ORAM The majority of health problems in modern developed countries are self-inflicted, the results of lifestyle choices. These problems don’t respond to a pill–or even to bariatric surgery. Moreover, the medical profession hasn’t...

Published Thu, Nov 12 2015 8:38 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Andy Oram

What Doctors should Know when Joining a Startup – Five Key Books

By DAVIS LIU, MD What should doctors know before joining a startup? I don’t know if these were questions medical school graduates in the Bay Area asked themselves as they opted to join a startup rather than completing their medical training in residency...

Published Thu, Nov 12 2015 8:35 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Davis Liu

Interoperability: Accelerating Faster than we Think – An Interview with Ed Park

By LEONARD KISH Leonard Kish, Principal at VivaPhi, sat down with Ed Park, COO of athenaHealth, to discuss how interoperability is defined, and how it might be accelerating faster than we think. LK: Ed, how do you define interoperability? EP: Interoperability...

Published Tue, Nov 10 2015 9:36 PM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, athenahealth, Interoperability, Leonard Kish, HL7, Ed Park

What Does it Mean When We Say a Treatment “Works?”

By ROBERT McNUTT, MD Making a decision requires you to compare tests/treatments that have been contrasted in researh studies to see if one over another results in improved chances of good outcomes. In a sense, medical decision making is a competition...

Published Tue, Nov 10 2015 11:26 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Robert McNutt

The End Game–Live in Finland!

By Matthew Holt Today I am in Finland at the Vertical digital health accelerator, part of a really impressive network of accelerators and incubators in Helsinki. Tomorrow is the huge SLUSH festival at which I (plus Steven Krein of Startup Health) will...

Published Tue, Nov 10 2015 2:41 AM by THCB

Filed under: THCB, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Startups, Team Finland, Vertical