January 2019 - The Health Care Blog

Watch This Space: 3 Phenomena That Will Drive Health Care Innovation in 2019

By REBECCA FOGG Back at their desks after the holidays, health care payers, providers and policymakers across the country are staring down their list of 2019 priorities, wondering which they can actually accomplish. Innovation to improve care quality...

Published Thu, Jan 31 2019 7:34 AM by THCB

Filed under: ACA, Obamacare, value-based care, health innovation, Rebecca Fogg, value-based payments

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 67 | uBiome, Planned Parenthood and Lively

On Episode 67 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is appalled at the CDC’s salmonella warning for hedgehogs. But in other news, Jess asks me about uBiome, which has raised over $100 million, laying off over 50 people; Planned Parenthood’s new chatbot that helps...

Published Wed, Jan 30 2019 8:26 AM by THCB

Filed under: Matthew Holt, Telehealth, Health Tech, Health in 2 Point 00, Jessica DaMassa, Sexual Health, hearing aids, chatbot, Planned Parenthood

Overprescribing Is a Key Component of the Opioid Crisis — Here’s How to Stop It

By DAVE CHASE Today’s opioid crisis is one of the most dire side effects driven by our dysfunctional U.S. healthcare system. A recent JAMA Surgery report found that many surgeons prescribe four times more opioids than their patients use. This opens the...

Published Tue, Jan 29 2019 8:27 AM by THCB

Filed under: Patients, value-based care, Dave Chase, Opioid epidemic

Radiology Firing Line | Meet the Patients

By SAURABH JHA Should Radiologists talk with Patients? In this episode of Radiology Firing Line Podcast, Ian Amber MD, assistant professor of radiology at Georgetown University advocates for patient interaction. Listen to our conversation here. Saurabh...

Published Mon, Jan 28 2019 7:58 AM by THCB

Filed under: Patients, Saurabh Jha, Radiology Firing Line Podcasts, Radiology Firing Line Podcast, Ian Amber, patient interaction

AHA’s FutureScan Publication Available Now

Out this week is the AHA (or more precisely their SHSMD division’s) Futurescan publication. This year it’s edited by futurist Ian Morrison @seccurve and it features a bevvy of forecasting articles including one called “Flipping the Stack...

Published Fri, Jan 25 2019 9:20 AM by THCB

Filed under: Matthew Holt, Tech, Health Care Books, AHA

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 66 | Ciitizen, Limelight Health, The Pill Club, and ADURO

On Episode 66 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I talk about money, money and more money. For one, Ciitizen, a health records company focusing on cancer patients, just closed a $17 million round. Limelight Health, which helps employers put together quotes...

Published Fri, Jan 25 2019 7:22 AM by THCB

Filed under: Matthew Holt, Limelight Health, Health Tech, Health in 2 Point 00, Jessica DaMassa, Medical Records, employee wellness, employee benefits, ADURO, The Pill Club, Ciitizen, health startups

The Future of the Affordable Care Act: Unscathed by Attacks from the Right, Overtaken on its Left?

By ETIENNE DEFFARGES Having survived years of attacks from Republicans at the federal level, will the surviving ACA be rendered obsolete by Democrats’ local and state efforts towards universal health care? This could be an ironic twist of fate for Obamacare...

Published Thu, Jan 24 2019 7:57 AM by THCB

Filed under: Politics, Obamacare, Affordable Care Act, Health policy, Etienne Deffarges

The Perfect Storm: When Parkinson’s Patients Enter the Hospital

By HOOMAN AZMI MD, FAANS When a patient enters a hospital either in an elective or more urgent manner, the main focus of the care team is to address the chief complaint. Other diagnoses, while important, may not receive as much attention. While this may...

Published Wed, Jan 23 2019 6:31 AM by THCB

Filed under: Patients, Hospitals, Parkinson's Disease, Hooman Azmi, neurology, Hospital-related complications

Has U.S. Health Care Spending Finally Stabilized? An Outlook for 2019

By ETIENNE DEFFARGES The official 2017 statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) are out, and there are some good news: The annual growth rate of health care spending is slowing down, and is the lowest since 2013 at 3.9%...

Published Tue, Jan 22 2019 8:16 AM by THCB

Filed under: Medicare, Medicaid, Health insurance, Healthcare costs, Healthcare spending, Finance, Etienne Deffarges

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 65 | Microsoft-Walgreens, Google, and HIMSS

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is braving the oncoming blizzard in Boston for MassChallenge. In this episode, Jess asks me about some crazy things happening in health tech, from the recently announced Microsoft-Walgreens partnership to compete with...

Published Mon, Jan 21 2019 7:40 AM by THCB

Filed under: Matthew Holt, HIMSS 2011, Amazon, Apple, Google, Health in 2 Point 00, Jessica DaMassa, MassChallenge, Fossil, Microsoft-Walgreens

A Bizarre Claim of Right to Try

By ARTHUR CAPLAN, KELLY MCBRIDE FOLKERS, and ANDREW MCFADYEN A patient with glioblastoma recently received an experimental cancer vaccine at the University of California, Irvine. Notably, this is being hailed as the first case of someone utilizing the...

Published Fri, Jan 18 2019 8:20 AM by THCB

Filed under: Patients, pharmaceuticals, FDA, Politics, Health policy, Donald Trump, Trump's Health, Right to Try Act, Arthur Caplan, ANDREW MCFADYEN, KELLY McBRIDE FOLKERS

Venture Capitalism & Radiology

By SAURABH JHA MD Can radiologists make their way to Silicon Valley? In this episode of Radiology Firing Line, Ajay Kohli MD, a physician entrepreneur, explains what it takes to make a medical app. Listen to our conversation here. Saurabh Jha is a contributing...

Published Thu, Jan 17 2019 6:56 AM by THCB

Filed under: Saurabh Jha, Radiology Firing Line Podcasts, Radiology Firing Line Podcast, Start-Ups, medical apps, physician entrepreneur

The Perfect Office Note? SOAP, APSO or aSOAP?

By HANS DUVEFELT MD I’ve been toying with this dilemma for a while: SOAP notes (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) are too long; APSO just jumbles the order, but the core items are still too far apart, with too much fluff in between. We need something...

Published Wed, Jan 16 2019 6:12 AM by THCB

Filed under: Physicians, EMR, Hans Duvefelt, Patient Notes

The Growing Problem of Military Suicides

By MSW@USC STAFF U.S. veterans are dying by suicide at an alarming pace. The national veteran suicide rate was almost 30 per 100,000 people in 2015, or about 20 deaths every day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The age-adjusted rate of...

Published Tue, Jan 15 2019 7:36 AM by THCB

Filed under: Patients, veterans, veteran suicide, MSW@USC Staff, suicide rates

Despite Youth On Farm, Abbott Ventures Chief Avoids Spreading Manure

By MICHAEL MILLENSON Abbott Ventures chief Evan Norton may have spent part of his youth on a farm, but there’s no manure in his manner when speaking of the medical device and diagnostics market landscape. The key, he says, is to avoid being blindsided...

Published Mon, Jan 14 2019 7:19 AM by THCB

Filed under: Michael Millenson, Tech, Data, The Business of Health Care, Health Tech, Medical Devices, Health Data, Evan Norton, Abbott Ventures, OM Signal