Blue Button Mash-Up & EHR Accessibility Module Challenge Winners. "Patient Engagement is the Blockbuster Drug of the Century" Mark @ Starbucks. Digital imaging breakthrough for Cholesterol testing #HIT #MHealth. S Mobile Tech Issue: Tracking Disease One Text at a Time. Accurate bookkeeping is on nobody’s list of heroic acts. But without it, some revolutions are impossible, including the overhaul of a nation’s health care infrastructure. And Uganda’s health care system needs quite an overhaul. There aren’t enough doctors, just 131 hospitals serve nearly 36 million people, and children are dying of treatable diseases, especially malaria, which accounts for up to 40% of medical visits and almost a quarter of deaths among kids under 5. The Ugandan Ministry of Health and various NGOs have tried to address the issue with smaller clinics and volunteer village health team workers, some of whom dispense drugs.
Malaria can be held at bay with artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs). (MORE: TIME’s Mobility Poll) While Uganda may not have enough hospitals, it’s well served by cellular carriers. (MORE: Three Myths About Cell Phones) Of course, the texts are useless if they’re not accurate. (MORE: TIME’s Special Report on How Phones Are Changing the World)
Top 10 Influencers in Healthcare on Twitter. See how Skype is changing health care. Sign up for the Follow us on: The video chatting service helps psychologists, other health care providers and veterinarians serve patients as never before. By Ann Tracy Mueller | Posted: July 16, 2012 Think Skype is just a cool way for Baby Boomers to coo at their grandkids through cyberspace? Its use is growing like crazy, too, with 40 million users online at April 2012. To learn more, see this infographic from OnlineEducation.net, “The Skype’s the Limit.” (View larger image) Popularity: This record has been viewed 8569 times. Pjmachado : #convergeconf Will Yu shar... Elithecomputerguy. Infographic:Mobile Technology in Healthcare | HIT Consultant. Hitsm. HeathCamp Thoughts by @ekivemark. Health Systems Ignore Patients at Their Own Peril.
“The most important member of the care team is the patient.” That has been a statement one has heard in healthcare for decades, yet it has never been more important. Why? It is next to impossible to succeed in the value and outcome-based healthcare reimbursement model every private and government payor is driving towards (with or without Obamacare). In my experience reviewing or implementing over 100 health IT systems, the core purpose of legacy healthIT systems is crystal clear — their job is to get as big a bill out as quickly as possible.
Why wouldn’t it? The much-criticized fee-for-service model that incentivizes activity over outcome has driven that outcome. While there is great ambiguity about the future of healthcare, there is one certainty: healthcare will be paid based on some blend of value/quality/outcome and a shifting away from the “do more, bill more” reimbursement model. Who is in control of decisions driving outcomes. Empowering Health Care Engagement - A.E.I.O.U a selection of images from my #HIMSS12 session. Last week I was at HIMSS 2012 in Las Vegas to present at the Leading from the future track. My topic was "Empowering Health Care Engagement. " I have already posted a draft version of my slides to slideshare. Check out my blog here to see the draft deck. During my presentation, and following it on Twitter a couple of things caught people's attention so I thought I would pick out some of those key slides and present them here: One of my consistent themes has been "Health May be Private, while exercise is often solitary but effective wellness should be both social and fun.
In my presentation I posed the question: Is there a recipe for Engagement? I put forward the proposition that there is and use a simple mnemonic as a guide: Actionable Easy Immediate Open Unobtrusive Citizen empowerment in their own health is an important step where we use sensors to gather data and have that utilized by our health support teams. This is where we must act to "Break the glass wall in Health Care" ScrimshireHIMSS.016. Mark @ Starbucks. HITsm. Ignagni to AHIP attendees: Change is coming, without or with ACA - HealthLeaders-InterStudy. Contributor: Jane DuBoseTopic:Supreme Court ruling, healthcare costs Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans arrived about 10 minutes late to the opening session of her organization’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City.
Even with that short delay, there was already mumbling that maybe her tardiness was related to a ruling by the Supreme Court on healthcare reform. The first words out of her mouth? “We don’t know.” And, of course, everyone knew exactly what she meant. But within five minutes, an aide slipped her a note – there wouldn’t be a court ruling today on the Affordable Care Act. Ignagni and every speaker afterwards spent part of their time stressing that the ruling – while a huge deal and quite possibly a major disruption to the market – is only one part of the disruption in the healthcare landscape. Jay Gellert, CEO and president of Health Net, says we’ve maybe gone back to the future a couple of times. My first #HITsm TweetChat! Empowering Health Care Engagement. Payers Take Another Stab at Engagement with Consumer-based Tools. It is now nail-biting time, as we here at Chilmark Research brace ourselves for the upcoming Supreme Court decision on the legitimacy of the Affordable Care Act.
We as a nation are indeed living in very interesting times and I am again reminded why I find healthcare markets endlessly fascinating (and perplexing). (Editor’s note: This post was written by senior analyst Cora Sharma and highlights some of her latest research that looks at payer strategies for patient/member engagement.) Of interest is just how many of the ~30 million uninsured US citizens will land on insurers’ doorsteps in 2014. Even if the Individual Mandate is upheld, it is still uncertain just how many of these uninsured individuals will opt to pay penalties rather than purchase health insurance. For my patient engagement research, I have spent the past several months speaking with executives at large payers about their consumer-focused strategies. EHR vs. Traditional Paper Records | HIT Consultant. AHA declares War on Patient Access to their data. a 30 day delay is NOT meaningful use #EHR #EMR #HIT. MsWZ: #HITTMIT Movie premiere! :... HIT Policy Committee questions Stage 2 measures.
As members of the HIT Policy Committee debated the proposed Stage 2 meaningful use regulations on Wednesday, many expressed concerns that the rules would require eligible providers to collect data for too many measures. That burden poses problems from the start, said some committee members, noting that the cost of $10,000 per measure for physician practices to have their certified electronic health record systems updated makes the 120 proposed new measures unreasonable.
[See also: CMS releases Stage 2 rules.] There was also concern that the measures are being collected, but won’t be used by the federal government for some time, if at all, to improve public health. National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and Committee Chair Farzad Mostashari, MD, agreed. Collecting data that’s not going to be used seems pointless, he said. The federal government needs to connect data collection with the elimination of disparities to show providers “why we’re doing it,” he said. HIMSS’12 Take-away: Follow the Money. Last week we attended the big healthcare IT confab HIMSS in that grand city of sin, Las Vegas. While many spoke of how HIMSS hit an all time record of over 37K attendees (an impressive number), HIMSS is still dwarfed by what is arguably the largest US-based healthcare trade show, RSNA, which had a 2011 attendance of just over 57K, (roughly 54% greater than HIMSS). Why such a radical difference you ask? As one colleague put it: RSNA is where providers come to make money and HIMSS is where they go to lose money.
While that may be the case today, it is unlikely to be so in the future. Nearly every vendor we met with at HIMSS had a story to tell about how they had the solution the market was seeking for ACO enablement. This raises what our research team found to be the most significant learning from HIMSS’12. Our Thesis: The MU requirements have become little more than a “spec-sheet” for vendors, consultants and IT shops and departments. And speaking of risks… Amit Gupta and the social media search for a cure. 6 December 2011Last updated at 02:47 By Kate Dailey and Matt Danzico BBC News Magazine The BBC visits the Punjabi Professional Happy Hour in New York City to find out how potential donors are registering to help Mr Gupta's campaign Does social media amplify our sense of responsibility to one another?
Amit Gupta, a cancer patient and tech entrepreneur, tests the strength of the web. When Amit Gupta was diagnosed with acute leukaemia, the 32-year old technology entrepreneur did what most people in that position do: turned to his friends and family to find a bone marrow donation. But Mr Gupta, who founded the photo site Photojojo, has a few more friends to draw from than the average cancer patient: 17,700 on Twitter, 13,000 on Facebook (plus 422 subscribers) plus a strong web presence on Tumblr, Flickr and other social media platforms. He would need all the help he could get. Reluctance to register So Mr Gupta and his friends decided to use their fluency with social media to compensate. Health IT Saves a Life in Memphis. A new study has found that a medical-information exchange system that is considered a model for health-care reform efforts saved significant amounts of money and led to better care for patients—including a woman who probably would have died without the system.
The woman was bleeding from her uterus when she came to the emergency room of Saint Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2009. If her medical records had been unavailable, doctors probably would have ordered an ultrasound, incurring some delay in treatment. But because of the city’s digital information-sharing program—a rarity among U.S. hospitals with different owners—the doctors learned that an ultrasound done days earlier at another facility had detected that the woman had an ectopic pregnancy, in which the embryo becomes implanted outside the uterus. (It’s not clear whether the first institution had failed to follow up or whether the patient refused treatment there.) Mp Oregon | Empowering Health Care Engagement in Oregon and the Northwest. #COEHITR - Panel Discussion about #HIT strategic Roadmap in MD. U of MD #HIT Research - Fall IT Summit. Mark Scrimshire: "#COEHITR @drjoshs #HIT St. Fight Disassociated Patient Syndrome. Mark Scrimshire: "#health2dev #HIT Call to V.
Mark Scrimshire: "RT @2healthguru: RT @jonme. The latest mashup: Health care social media and HIPAA compliance. NEWTON, Mass. -- Healthblawg author David Harlow is so convinced of the power and ubiquity of health care social When you register you’ll also receive targeted emails from my team of award-winning editorial writers. Our goal is to bring you the best healthcare IT information from top industry sources. media that he feels it's only a matter of time before using it will be required as part of accountable care organizations' patient engagement rules -- if it's not already.
The tricky part for health care providers will be combining technology and written policies in such a way as to enable HIPAA compliance while opening up contact between patients and the caregivers who treat them, the Harlow Group principal said in a presentation at the New England Regional Annual Conference for the Health Care Compliance Association . "I'm here to tell you: You can use social media and remain on the right side of the law -- the question is, how?
" said Harlow, who also is an attorney. Animated Short: The Amazing Health Care Arms Race | News In Brief. National Health IT Week. Save the date for the 9th Annual National Health IT Week: September 15-19, 2014. The 8th Annual National Health IT Week took place September 16-20, 2013. More than 375 organizations participated (a 42 percent increase over 2012!)
, which was recognized by the U.S. Senate, which passed a Resolution declaring National Health IT Week. Policy Leaders Honored for Support of Health IT during 8th Annual National Health IT Week HIMSS recognizes four Health Information Technology Leadership Award winners Eighth Annual National Health IT Week Kicked Off September 16 From September 16-20, 2013, healthcare industry and policy stakeholders will convene for the Eighth Annual National Health IT Week, a collaborative forum for public and private healthcare constituents to discuss the value of health information technology (IT) for the U.S. healthcare system. There is no better time for the health IT community to come together under one umbrella to raise national awareness! Why Businesses Must Adopt a Multi-Channel Messaging Strategy. George Schlossnagle is president and chief executive officer of Message Systems and a recognized expert on messaging and the PHP language.
He’s published numerous technical articles and is the author of Advanced PHP Programming. Follow George on Twitter at @g_schlossnagle or through @MessageSystems. Social media and smartphones are disrupting the established patterns and practices for B2C interactions. To be successful, businesses have to engage with customers through their preferred channels, whether that be mobile, IM or social networks. The link between technology and consumers is, however, a two-way street. The initial attraction of social networks like Facebook and other pioneers in the space was bringing groups of people of shared interest together on the web.
This kind of messaging lets businesses participate in, inform, and add value to the social interaction (wall post/sharing) without ever forcing users back to the site. Going Beyond Basic Transactional Messaging. The ‘CSI Effect’ Hits Medicine. By EVAN FALCHUK I’m in Israel, home to some of the most innovative care in the world. Doctors here wanted to know if the high-tech tests that are an increasing part of their work help. A couple of weeks ago, they published their results. It turns out that in about 90% of cases, it didn’t matter. A physical exam, the patient’s history, and the basic set of tests that doctors have done for decades was almost always all that was needed to get a diagnosis. As one of the doctors in the study put it, “basic clinical skills remain a powerful tool, sufficient for achieving an accurate diagnosis in most cases.” The conventional wisdom is that doctors – at least in the U.S. – order extra tests to protect themselves from getting sued.
Instead, the answer is revealed in a comment from a Canadian doctor who wasn’t involved in the study. There is something more fundamental happening – and it’s happening around the world. To understand it, look to something that is happening in courtrooms across the U.S. Economists Caution: ACOs May Not End Wasteful Health Spending. Expensive technologies like proton beam therapy and hot chemo baths are among the reasons America’s health care spending is rising at an unsustainable clip and making the federal deficit so hard to tame. But two of the nation’s top health care economists are expressing doubts that accountable care organizations — one of Obama administration’s most-hyped mechanisms to save money — will be able to overcome the medical system’s lust for the new new thing.
Established through last year’s health law, ACOs are networks of doctors and hospitals that would collaborate to provide quality care at lower cost, with the motivation of keeping a share of the savings they deliver to Medicare and private insurers. Medicare has been working for months to get the program running by next year. They write: [W]e do not know how well ACOs will sidestep cost-ineffective technologies, particularly if the latest shiny innovation increases market share. Morgenthaler Ventures Announces Finalists of DC to VC Startup Showcase. Hitsm Tweets | Mark Scrimshire Twitter. Using Evernote to Manage your Social Side | iamreedsmith. #HITsm hashtag - Healthcare Social Media Transcript and Analytics. A View from the CLOUD: Building a Virtual Geography of Healthcare for the 21st Century.
Meaningful Use: Portals, Portals everywhere but not a way to share (#MeaningfulUse #hcdc #healthapps #dchealth) HealthCamp. Should Health Care Move to the Cloud - Absolutely (but carefully)! #EHR #HIT. Pre-Conference Sessions highlighting Doctors, Patients, Employers & Lawyers | Health 2. Project HealthDesign Blog:Who’s Seen My Health Care Information? Final MDDS Rule Signals FDA Shift to Enforcement | Medical Connectivity. Robert Reich Connects the Dots. Email: a metaphor for what’s wrong with health information. Wal-Mart Plans to Market System for Digital Health Records.