Mobile. HIT. HealthBlawg: Paul Grundy, MD, Patient-Centered Medical Home champion, speaks with David Harlow about the model and the challenges and opportunities ahead. Dr.
Paul Grundy is on a mission -- a mission to promote the patient-centered medical home model that he has been instrumental in developing and rolling out, in his dual role as Director of Healthcare, Technology and Strategic initiatives for IBM Global Wellbeing Services and Health Benefits, and President of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative. I had the opportunity to speak with him earlier this week, at the end of a day he spent in Washington, D.C., hard at work on this continuing mission.
The audio file of my interview with Paul Grundy (about 30 minutes long) is available for download/podcast. A full transcript is at the end of this post (and in the linked Paul Grundy interview transcript). I use the word mission because Paul frames the need for dissemination of the medical home model in terms of a transformational change in the nature of the covenant between doctor and patient -- not simply a reformation. Technology is an important part of these efforts and savings.
Picturing Meaningful Use. H.R.3200: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. OpenCongress Summary This is the original health care bill that was marked up by three House Committees in the summer of 2009.
The final version that was passed by the House is H.R. 3962. The Senate's health care bill can be read here: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act This bill it seeks to expand health care coverage to the approximately 40 million Americans who are currently uninsured by lowering the cost of health care and making the system more efficient.
To that end, it includes a new government-run insurance plan (a.k.a. a public option) to compete with the private companies, a requirement that all Americans have health insurance, a prohibition on denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and, to pay for it all, a surtax on households with an income above $350,000. OpenCongress bill summaries are written by OpenCongress editors and are entirely independent of Congress and the federal government. Gt; Opinion > LETTER: Looking out for others<br />is part of reform effort. SUSAN HUMPHREYS, Oakland The health care/insurance debate is curious. One gent’s comment sums up the debate from those that are against reform, “First of all, it is not the role of the government to take care of any of us!”
The opening paragraph of the U.S. Constitution. “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,…” Sounds as though the government is charged with looking out for those less fortunate not just for the needs of the rich and powerful. Another lady commented “Jesus told us that we will always have the poor with us.” The “Golden Rule” appeared in the philosophy of those ancient pagan Greeks long before it appeared in the Bible and is common to all the world’s religions. We all pay in higher fees and taxes when the uninsured use hospital emergency rooms for primary care.