The Insider's Guide - Tech - The Business of Health Care - Physicians - Subscribe
Breaking: Health Information Technology Sucks and it Costs too Much
By DAVE CHASE
“Established technology is being given a federally funded new lease on life,” athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush said. “Traditional health software now is on Medicare, being kept alive like grandma.” Bush dubs this program as the “cash for clunkers” program for health IT leaving no doubt what his opinion is regarding the legacy vendors’ solutions. I know of no industry where technology is as despised as it is in health care. It’s a statement that it took government money to incentivize healthcare providers to finally do what virtually every other industry has done — apply IT to streamline processes.
While one might dismiss Bush’s comments because they are coming from a company with a dog in the fight, the feeling is nearly universal amongst physicians who are the most important users (besides patients who are almost completely ignored). The best evidence of how abysmal legacy healthIT is, is that the market leader is having trouble getting medical practices to adopt their software even with huge subsidies from large health systems. Read more.
The Democratic National Convention, 1980 and 2012: Turning Points in American History
By MAGGIE MAHAR
Ted Kennedy’s speech at the 1980 Democratic convention still echoes in my mind. It remains the finest, most inspiring political oration that I have ever heard. Kennedy was speaking from a position of defeat. He had just lost the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter.
And yet this was a full-hearted, rousing speech delivered by a man who realized that in the battle ahead, the issues at stake were far, far more important than his own loss. Intuitively, he knew that the country had reached a turning point. Read more.
Pew Internet: Tell Us Your Stories
By SUSANNAH FOX
This is a request for help finding people who have had bad experiences with online health resources. Let me first say that the internet is often a positive force in people’s lives. My own organization’s research can paint a rather rosy picture: teens are mostly kind to each other online, technology users have more friends than those who stay offline, more people are online than ever before, etc. But there is another side to the story.
The internet can also transmit false or misleading information. A 2010 survey found that 3% of all U.S. adults said they or someone they know has been harmed by following medical advice or health information found online (1% minor, 1% moderate, and 1% serious harm). Thirty percent of adults reported being helped. Read more.
Economics and Health Systems
By CONOR GREEN & CHRIS HOFFMANN
Two of the largest healthcare systems in the Twin Cities have announced plans to merge – and if approved it will created the second largest hospital system in Minnesota in terms of revenue (Mayo Clinic is first).
For those non-Midwesterners – the geographical environs of the Twin Cities Metro area comprise a 50 mile circumference anchored by Minneapolis to the west and St. Paul to the east. At a high level, this move essentially links West (Park Nicollet) and East (HealthPartners) and according to news releases from both organizations, the combined health system will include more than 20,000 employees and 1,500 multispecialty physicians. However, there is a more compelling angle to this story. Read more.
Are Hospital Business Models on a Burning Platform? Not Yet, But It’s Inevitable.
By VINCE KURAITIS
From reading recent headlines, one might easily get the impression that hospitals are resistant — or at least ambivalent — in their pursuit and adoption of accountable care initiatives. Are Hospitals Dragging their Feet on Accountable Care?
Commonwealth Fund: “only 13 percent of hospital respondents reported participating in an ACO or planning to participate within a year”
KPMG Survey: “(only) 27 percent of [health system] respondents said current business models were either not very or not at all sustainable over the next five years”
Health Affairs: “Medicare’s New Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program Is Likely To Have Only A Small Impact On Hospital Payments." Read more.
North Carolina Medicaid’s Patient-Centered Medical Home: Lessons Learned By AL LEWIS The ongoing saga of savings estimates for the Community Care of North Carolina (CCNC) patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is finally over. The verdict: no savings. Because the scale and visibility of the CCNC experiment are unparalleled in the Medicaid sector today, it is important that the right policy and delivery system lessons be learned from this dispositive conclusion.
Lesson 1: Enhancements in access do not necessarily create cost reductions, at least in Medicaid. Lesson 2: Perhaps it is time to create an ER co-pay for Medicaid recipients that has more than one digit to the left of the decimal point. Read more.
Getting the Right Benchmarks For Stroke Care
By ASHISH JHA, MD
Late last week, thanks to Liz Kowalczyk (@globeLizK) of the Boston Globe, I discovered the statewide report on quality of stroke care in Massachusetts. It’s a plain document, mostly in black and white, much of what you might expect from a state government report. Yet, this 4-page document is a reminder of how we have come to accept mediocrity as the standard in our healthcare delivery system. Read more.
Good Business Models and Bad Business Models.
By J.D. KLEINKE
You may have received a refund check in the past few months from your health insurer. This is not your individual reward for staying healthy; it is your insurer's punishment for making too much money because you did.
Obamacare includes what the health care technocracy calls the "MLR rule" - minimum requirements for medical-loss ratios - or the percentage of premiums collected by health insurers that must be spent on medical care or refunded. The inverse of the MLR is the percentage spent on administration and marketing, and earned as profit. Obamacare sets minimum MLRs of 80 percent for individual and small group plans, and 85 percent for large groups.
Aside from its obvious populist appeal, this profit regulation mechanism signifies a belief, now enshrined in legislation, that health insurance markets do not work. Without such a rule, the architects of Obamacare believe, insurers can name their prices, however inflated, and we all just pay. Read more.
THCB Marketplace: Reach a focused audience of thousands of health care professionals. Post a classified in the THCB marketplace. Email ad_sales@thehealthcareblog.com.
NEW RELEASES
The Health Care Handbook The American health care system is vast, complex and confusing. Books about it shouldn’t be. The Health Care Handbook is your one-stop guide to the people, organizations and industries that make up the U.S. health care system, and the major issues the system faces today.
How to Live Forever *Results May Vary. Nominee Palm Springs International Film Festival. Nominee Hamptons International Film Festival. How to Live Forever Director Mark Wexler embarks on a worldwide trek to investigate just what it means to grow old and what it could mean to really live forever. But whose advice should he take? Does 94-year-old exercise guru Jack LaLanne have all the answers, or does Buster, a 101-year-old chain-smoking, beer-drinking marathoner?
Why Nobody Believes the Numbers Ever wonder if those wellness, disease management, medical home and other programs imposed on your medical practices really work? Answer that question for yourself by reading Why Nobody Believes the Numbers, the first population health outcomes measurement book not infused with THC.
The Great Experiment is about much more than a single state experiment, or the immediate questions the presidential primary may raise regarding Mr. Romney’s term as governor of Massachusetts. Rather, Pioneer assembled some of the best thinkers to outline the options before state and federal officials. The Great Experiment aims to lay out a market-oriented blueprint for the next decade. Download free chapters, including an introduction by Dr. Jeffrey Flier, Dean of Harvard Medical School, or purchase a copy at greatexperiment.org.
CONFERENCES
AARP Health Innovation@50+ LivePitch
Sept. 21, New Orleans Convention Center
Please join us for AARP Health Innovation@50+ LivePitch, Friday, September 21 at the New Orleans Convention Center. Health Innovation@50+ is the premier showcase featuring the most exciting companies in the “50 and over” health technology and innovation sector. The pitch event offers the venture capital and angel investor community as well as the media, the opportunity to connect with outstanding startups in the field of health technology and innovation.
Health Innovation@50+ takes place at the annual Life@50+ AARP National Event & Expo, which is attended by 20,000+ members and guests from across the U.S. and the globe. This is the best opportunity of the year for entrepreneurs and investors to capitalize on the world’s largest and fastest-growing consumer market. Register now at http://Health50.org
Health 2.0 San Francisco
October 7-10, Hilton San Francisco
The groundbreaking conference series returns to San Francisco. Keynotes by Joe Flower and Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini. Speakers from Qualcomm, AT&T, Mayo Clinic, National Cancer Institute, ZocDoc, OptumHealth and RedBrick Health, along with presentations from top health care startups changing the field and many more.
The First Annual Open Source EHR Summit and Workshop
October 17-18, Gaylord National, National Harbor, MD
It is projected that more than 200 hospitals and 1000 clinics, within the federal sector alone, will be managing and maintaining their EHRs using open source codes within the next few years. An increasing number of state agencies are deploying open source solutions as well. In recent months, many private sector health care communities facing the unsustainable high costs of health IT have started calling for alternate approaches to maintain and manage traditional proprietary electronic health records. These open source activities create a huge market opportunity for both private and public sectors.
REAL ESTATE 61,000 Square-Foot Building Available For Lease Near Boston
Ideal for Medical Offices, Back Office Uses
A 61,000 SF building that can be easily converted to medical use is available for lease just 17 miles from downtown Boston. Located in Hingham Technology Park 3 on a 9-acre parcel in Hingham, Mass., and there is close proximity to numerous hotels and conference centers, and easy access to Rtes. 3, 93, 128 and 95. The site is a quick drive to Plymouth and Cape Cod.
For more information, contact Richard McKinnon at 617-472-2000, or email richmck@grossmanco.com. To learn more about the additional development potential of this site, visit www.HT3park.com.
THE FINE PRINT
Reach a focused audience of thousands of health care professionals. Post a classified in the THCB marketplace. Email ad_sales@thehealthcareblog.com 
No comments:
Post a Comment