The Health Care Blog

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

A Growing Chorus on the RUC

By BRIAN KLEPPER Yesterday on Kaiser Health News, Barbara Levy MD, the Chair of the AMA’s Relative Value Scale Update Committee (or RUC), published a glowing defense of the RUC’s activities. Her article extols the work of the 29 physician...

Published Tue, Mar 29 2011 12:42 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB

Which Way Transparency Nirvana?

By MICHAEL PAINTER, MD First the good news—many are pushing the envelope on public reporting of health care information these days. For instance, last week the HHS/Health 2.0 Developer Challenge awarded honors to a new mobile app—using Hospital Compare...

Published Mon, Mar 28 2011 2:54 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Health 2.0, Transparency, AHRQ, Michael Painter

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the (EHR) Bomb

By MARGALIT GUR-ARIE Remember the fear mongering rhetoric about weapons of mass destruction and all sorts of other bogey men that sometimes led to war death and true destruction and other times to just animosity, hatred and counterproductive waste of...

Published Mon, Mar 28 2011 7:07 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HIT, EHR, THCB, Margalit Gur-Aire

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

By KIMBERLEY MANNING, MD On May 19, 1996, I graduated from medical school. And although I look and seem ridiculously youthful (I know, that’s what you were saying) it’s been–as my patients at Grady like to say–”a mi-nute”...

Published Sun, Mar 27 2011 10:37 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB

Primary Care Workforce Situation: Not Hopeless

By DAVID E. WILLIAMS I sometimes observe that the only sector of the economy as messed up as health care is higher education, where the US has some great institutions but where costs are incredibly high and have been rising relentlessly for long periods...

Published Sat, Mar 26 2011 3:49 PM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: Physicians, David Williams, Primary care physicians

The Neverending Story

By STEVE SANDERS We’re hearing a lot about the use of electronic medical records (EMR) in medicine. The government is all for it—providing financial incentives for those with EMRs and disincentives for those still relying on paper charts to make their...

Published Sat, Mar 26 2011 9:14 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Patients, Data, Design

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

The Cost of Apples

By SAMUEL YANG Up until last May, my experience of medical costs was limited to the $100 per month premium I contributed towards my employer-sponsored insurance and the nominal co-pays associated with well-child checkups and generic prescriptions. There...

Published Thu, Mar 24 2011 6:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Patients, Costs of Care, Healthcare costs, Samuel Yang, Endoscopy, Preexisting Condition

Is That Thorazine in the Baby’s Bottle?

By PSYCH GRIPE One of the most disturbing trends in mental health today is the increasing use of powerful antipsychotic medication to treat behavioral problems in children, even very young children. According to a 2009 report by the Food and Drug Administration...

Published Thu, Mar 24 2011 4:00 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Diagnosis, Antipsychotics, Neuroleptics

No One Cares About Your Health (or No One is Willing to Pay For It)!

By JOSEPH KVEDAR, MD Of course that is not true, but it seems like that sometimes, doesn’t it? If you are working to promulgate a solution that promotes health in the context of our current healthcare system, there is no end to the challenges you will...

Published Wed, Mar 23 2011 6:49 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB

Nurse Staffing, Patient Mortality, And a Lady Named Louise

By BOB WACHTER How many nurses does it take to care for a hospitalized patient? No, that’s not a bad version of a light bulb joke; it’s a serious question, with thousands of lives and billions of dollars resting on the answer. Several studies (such as...

Published Wed, Mar 23 2011 6:20 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Nursing, NEJM, Artificial intelligence, Mortality

The CMIO Should Be a Doctor

By MAGGIE MAHAR A hospital’s Chief Medical Information Office (CMIO) should be a physician, says Pam Brier, president and CEO of Maimonides Medical Center, “because nobody knows a doctor’s business like a doctor.” As a hospital’s information technology...

Published Tue, Mar 22 2011 7:56 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: HIT, THCB, Maggie Mahar, CIO, CMIO

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

Who Owns Patient Data?

By DAVID HARLOW Walgreens is being sued by customers who are not happy that their prescription information – even though it has been de-identified – is being sold by Walgreens to data-mining companies. The data privacy and security concerns surrounding...

Published Tue, Mar 22 2011 7:02 AM by The Health Care Blog

Filed under: THCB, Privacy, David Harlow, Patient data, Walgreens

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ACOs: Unicorn breeding rules emerging

A Growing Chorus on the RUC

Which Way Transparency Nirvana?

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the (EHR) Bomb

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Primary Care Workforce Situation: Not Hopeless

The Neverending Story

The Incredible and Wasteful Complexity of the US Healthcare System

The Cost of Apples

Is That Thorazine in the Baby’s Bottle?

No One Cares About Your Health (or No One is Willing to Pay For It)!

Nurse Staffing, Patient Mortality, And a Lady Named Louise

The CMIO Should Be a Doctor

Health Information Security and the Cloud

Who Owns Patient Data?