Troy & Fodeman: Slow Down on Health IT Tevi Troy and Dr. Jason D. Fodeman The Washington Times, 8/20/10
With federal checks for electronic health records only months away, our nation's health care system is on the brink of an unprecedented digital makeover. The stage was set for this technological revolution when $20 billion in government money for health information technology found its way into the $787 billion stimulus bill. The stimulus package contains bonus payments to doctors and hospitals designed to encourage adoption of electronic health records starting in 2011. These payments are to be phased out gradually and replaced by penalties beginning in 2015. The stimulus legislation also created the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and directed it to establish standards to attain interoperability and define key terms. Read more...
Where Did All the Vaccines Go? Grace-Marie Turner The Orange County Register, 8/12/10
The California Department of Health recently categorized a local outbreak of whooping cough as an epidemic. Seven newborns have already died from the disease. And the total number of California whooping-cough cases is six times what it was last year, with more than 2,000 illnesses confirmed thus far in 2010. Authorities are urging Californians of all ages to get vaccinated. America is hardly safe from the threat of epidemics. Each week, hundreds of vaccine-preventable illnesses are reported to the Centers for Disease Control. Decades of poor policymaking have radically reduced our country's ability to make and develop vaccines. We all have good reason to worry about future outbreaks. Read more...
Surge in MinuteClinic Visits Could Signal Shift in Consumer Preferences Sandra Yin Fierce Healthcare, 8/1/10
With MinuteClinic visits up 36 percent in the second quarter, according to Drugstore News, consumers seem to be shifting their demand away from expensive physician offices with limited hours to affordable, convenient retail clinics. Americans may be cutting back on doctors appointments and hospital visits, but that doesn’t mean they're necessarily consuming less healthcare as the Wall Street Journal suggests, notes Mark Perry in his blog on Daily Markets.
Read more...
The Do-It-Yourself House Call Avery Johnson Wall Street Journal, 07/26/10
Technology that aims to keep congestive heart failure patients out of the hospital is gaining traction.
The idea is for heart patients to take readings like their weight, blood pressure and other key metrics using wireless and other technologies; the data are then transmitted to a case manager or medical care giver. That way health care givers can catch, and address, warning signs before the patient lands in the ER with shortness of breath or a heart attack. In the past, patients have found such technology difficult to use. But a number of managed-care companies are experimenting with electronic devices meant to make the process easier. Read more...
Where Are the Innovators in Health Care Delivery? John Goodman Kaiser Health News, 07/26/10
Almost everyone believes there is an enormous amount of waste and inefficiency in health care, but why is that? In a normal market, wherever there is waste, entrepreneurs are likely to be in hot pursuit — figuring out ways to profit from its elimination by cost-reducing, quality-enhancing innovations. Why isn’t this happening in health care? As it turns out, there is a lot of innovation here. But all too often, it’s the wrong kind. Read more...
Insurers tout disease management programs, but critics are wary N. C. Aizenman Washington Post, 07/20/10
...These phone-based programs have sparked debate, with critics claiming there is little evidence that they actually work, and proponents -- including many insurance companies -- lauding them as precisely the sort of prevention-oriented approach needed to fix the health-care system. Read more...
America's Growing Innovation Gap John C. Lechleiter Wall Street Journal, 07/09/10
...Unfortunately, America's economy is in danger of losing what has always been our greatest competitive advantage: our genius for innovation. A recent study ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness, but 40th out of 40 in "the rate of change in innovation capacity" over the past decade. The ranking, published last year by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, measured what countries are doing—in higher education, investment in research and development, corporate tax rates, and more—to become more innovative in the future. The U.S. ranked dead last. In other words, we're at serious risk of falling behind. Read more...
Can Medical Technology Solve the Health Care Problem? Uwe E. Reinhardt New York Times, 07/02/10
Last week I had the privilege of attending two fascinating conferences in London, each focused on basically one question: Can enterprises engaged in the development of new medical technology invent new technology that is affordable in the so-called “emerging markets” of the world –- countries like China and India, and Brazil, for example. The first conference, the Pacific Health Summit 2010, was organized by the United States-based National Bureau of Asian Research. The second, the Forum for Sustainable Health, was organized and sponsored by the Center for Sustainable Health of the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. Participants in the two conferences included government officials, health care providers, biomedical researchers and policy analysts and industry executives from different parts of the world. Government officials and policy analysts set forth what was required. The researchers and industry executives responded with what seemed feasible. What seems feasible is encouraging. Read more...
Health Reform Presents I.T. Challenges Big and Small Joseph Goedert Health Data Management Magazine, 07/2010
You can't say the first 18 months of the Obama administration have been boring for the health I.T. industry.
The administration kicked things off with the HITECH Act and its health records, health information exchange and privacy/security provisions. I.T. executives' plates were pushed to overflowing with implementation of the HIPAA 5010 transaction sets and ICD-10 code sets, and the annual modifications to Medicare and Medicaid policies and payments. Read more...
