The Health Care Blog

QUALITY/TECH: Better to have a bypass

INTERESTING TIMES for cardiologists, as new research this week in the NEJM suggests coronary bypass surgery may be a better treatment option than stents. For those paying attention, this is not exactly news. People have been making the argument for...

THCB: Comments on Mr HSA's comments

Greetings from Europe where I've been engaged in the mother of all consulting projects. Thanks to Mr JiB for keeping THCB going in my absence. Meanwhile I've been having some emails complaining about Ron Grenier using the comments as advertising...

POLICY: On Social Class and Health Care by the Industry Veteran

A WEEK AGO, the NY Times ran a front-page article presenting three case histories of people who sustained MRI’s. The article by Janny Scott, “Life at the top in America isn’t just better, it’s longer,” is part of an ongoing...

MORNING SCAN

AMAZING NEWS from India where the Congress-led government says it has reduced the number of new HIV-infections from 520,000 two years ago to 28,000 this year. Assuming they're counting properly, that's good. COULD this service offered by a Dallas Company...

A Little Guidance on Guidant by Jib

WALL STREET has basically blown off reports of a defect in a defibrillator made by Guidant. The company's stock has fallen only slightly since Tuesday, when the New York Times ran a front page story detailing problems with the Ventak...

A Mistrial in the Scrushy case?

Could the jury in the Scrushy case be on the verge of deadlock? It certainly sounds that way from this report in today's Wall Street Journal: "Jurors in the corporate-fraud trial of HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard M. Scrushy told the...

Policy: Another take on HSAs by Jib

The Los Angeles Times has an excellent piece on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) this week, which almost sounds as though whoever wrote it read some of the comments in the threads here! No surprises in the conclusions : employers kind...

Policy: Stem Cell Wars Afternoon Update

The House appears to be on its way to approving legislation which would relax federal rules on stem cell research. The debate on both sides has been emotional, as was to be expected. Ever popular House Majority Leader Tom DeLay...

Pharma: At last we talk about the issues! By Jib

For those of us who thought the government would never take health care seriously, there's finally evidence that people in Washington are starting to get serious. The latest thought-provoking issue is ... Medicaid viagra for sex offenders! Apparently up to...

Policy: Stem Cell Wars, Episode III

Last week's news that Korean scientists have been able to develop an efficient technique for harvesting stem cells is creating quite a stir. Over the weekend, President Bush made it clear that he would veto any legislation which leads towards...

TECHNOLGY: Too much of a good thing?

Walking the floor at the TEPR show this week brought home the wonders of electronic medical records. The show had a multitude of presentations on EMR use, but more than 35 years after the first EMRs were developed we're still...

POLICS: Galloway vs. The US Senate

Off-topic for health care but great fun nonetheless. A snooty Minnesotan Republican Senator (who would never have been elected unless Paul Wellstone hadn't very conveniently died in a plane crash just before the election in 2002) decided to take on...

INTERNATIONAL/QUALITY: The Brits are in court over "how much is enough?"

Well I was up late late last night working on some client stuff and am about to head back to that meat grinder, but for now consider this.... You may (unfortunately) remember the Terri Schiavo incident. The Brits are playing...

THE INDUSTRY: Down to the wire for Scrushy

Well the jury is out at the Scrushy Trial. Don't really want to spend a whole lot of thought about it, but I'm a little intrigued to see if the preaching at the black Churches and the sponsoring of the...

TECHNOLOGY: ePrescribing is about renewals

Edmund (Bill) Billings, another ex-Oceania MD & veteran now runs a consulting company called Phyxe helping docs get up and running with ePrescribing. The first key point is that vendors are not focusing on renewals...when he was judging the contest...

TECHNOLGY: TEPR and ePrescribing

I'm in the ePrescribing track with a couple of smart people telling us the ePrescribing will happen. Danny Sands of Zixcorp (and of Harvard) thinks that in the last year it's really picking up in Mass with 3,000 doctors on...

TECHNOLOGY: Rick Peters on why he's frustrated

Rick Peters, who founded Oceania and has been around the health care EMR scene for a while, keynotes at TEPR. He points out a few facts obvious to TCHB readers, costs are up--employers can't afford health benefits and so are...

TECHNOLOGY: On the (Wasatch) front lines at TEPR

Today THCB comes to you from the Salt Palace, just across town from the Mormon Temple. Yup, TEPR is in Salt Like City, Utah, and I chose this as a nice occasion to get to one of my favorite places...

TECHNOLOGY: San Jose Medical Group data loss was inside job

So the loss of patient data at San Jose Medical Group a month or so back was the by product of a dumb robbery by an inside manager who sold the stolen computers on eBay. Just another example of how...

POLICY: The (Very) Odd Couple

This week Hillary Clinton met with Newt Gingrich and together they declared unity and agreement on America's health care future -- at least as far as the role of information technology goes in it. The author of "The Great Right...

INDUSTRY: A little on the Advisory Borg

I have a lot to say about the Advisory Board, not all of it bad by the way. But before I do, go read HISTalk Blog on the subject here and then here (scroll down). Back tomorrow (am way crunched...

HEALTH PLANS: Promoting HSAs, by Ron Grenier

My commenter Ron deserves to have this post promoted from yesterday's open thread. I oppose HSAs (and for that matter employment-based health insurance) as a policy because they are diametrically opposite to being the overall solution to universal health insurance,...

BLOGS: Open thread

Now I feel like a real blogger. Between HSA maverick Ron, the Gadfly, Sue, TheoraJones, Abby, Graham et al, the comments in the last week have got bigger than the blog....and I've been real busy and unable to monitor. That's...

POLICY: Ignagni, AHIP, and the pesky fact checker that I am...

The NY Times never called so I guess they're never going to publish my letter about Karen Ignagni, the head of AHIP, in response to her letter the other day to the Times about Krugman's column. I referred to it...

HEALTH PLANS: Tiers'R'Us and the Blues in Minnesota

Brief today (as I'm on dial up!) but go take a look at this article called tiers may have unintended side effects. Interesting that the Blues in Minnesota are trying the tiered approach, which hasn't gone too great shakes in...

POLICY: Walmart and Ignagni show why we're so screwed

So for the final post on the theme of the uninsured and how messed up our health system is, I turn to the pages of the New York Times which shows that the taxpayer (or as Don Johnson calls us...

POLICY: The Industry Veteran on Don Johnson and the conservative interpretation of reality

Cover the uninsured week continues (mostly by chance here at THCB), as I don't hold much hope in changing anyone's mind in our current political impasse and imbecility. You might want to check out the huge number of comments to...

POLICY: Why covering the uninsured matters

So there's been lots of back and forth in both THCB and Don Johnson's BusinessWord about the uninsurance issue. Take a look at my comments alone to understand some of the issues involved. And randomly enough it's "Cover the Uninsured...

POLICY: C'mon Don; how we going to fix this safety net?

So yesterday I poked a little at Don Johnson from the Businessword in an article called What's wrong about Don Johnson? Like the sporting gent he is, Don has replied in kind. So please go over there and read it...

PHARMA: More smoking guns around Plan B's no approval, by Blunter

If any further proof of the politicalization of the Plan B marketing is needed (which there is none), this recent FDA Release on the oral hygiene product should show what should have happened to Plan B, absent any conservative religious...

POLICY: What's right about Krugman? What's wrong about Don Johnson?

Krugman's series on health care continues in the NY Times and no doubt Don Johnson (over at BusinessWord) will be fulminating over this too. Don got a little offended when I called his stance mean. Don is a sensible guy...