The Health Care Blog

PODCAST/TECHNOLOGY: Shiftwise Founder Jason Lander

Shiftwise wants to become the Travelocity or the Orbitz of the nurse staffing business by bringing web-based solutions to a field that has been dominated for years by agencies using outdated technology. By allowing HR managers to match available staff...

HEALTH PLANS: Mega Life and Health -- Time to call AHIP, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and BlackStone out

I spent a little time last year on the issue of Mega Life and Health. There's only one term for this company, and what's really frightening is that it's a major player in AHIP. If AHIP is ever going to...

TECH: PHR of cool

Here's first press release I've seen claiming a PHR that works on your iPhone (from MedeFile). Having said that, as Apple advertises the iPhone as delivering the Internet (not a scaled down version) then presumably any web-accessible PHR is accessible...

POLICY/INTERNATIONAL: John Cohn puts the boot in....nicely

I told John Cohn a while back that he was just too nice, and that he shouldn’t engage in the pointless argument with the free-marketeers about whether we treat cancer better or worse than the Europeans—especially as we do so...

HEALTH PLANS/HOSPITALS: Kaiser's tame blogger at it again

I think that most of the latest fines for Kaiser, which are only vaguely related to its original problems at the kidney transplant unit and are for poor performance of peer review and handling complaints at its hospitals are generally...

PHYSICIANS/POLICY: NY Times discovers that FFS is a bad idea

Healthcare 101 from Alex Berenson at the NY Times--Fee for service is a bad idea. Not exactly advanced stuff, but at least it's better than nothing.

PODCAST: Kelsey-Seybold tries to reinvent direct contracting

Kelsey-Seybold, the big multi-specialty group in Houston, TX, has plunged into direct contracting with employers in recent years. You wouldn't expect that type of activity in Texas from a physician group, so I talked to Dr Patrick Carter, the medical...

POLICY: Are they that stupid, really?

Apparently the Administration is going to follow up on their threat to go after Michael Moore for his Sicko stunt of taking patients to Cuba.. This should give Sicko, which did OK for a documentary but not exactly Farenheight 911...

POLICY: Great new site--Health08.org, and more on health IT in the election

Health08.org - Health care election news, analysis and events from KFF. And it’s the baby of someone THCBers know and love but we can't identify in public because the individual concerned used to have opinions, and KFF isn’t allowed to...

BLOGS: HealthNewsReview.org: a daily checkup on U.S. health news coverage by Gary Schwitzer

Gary Schwitzer is Publisher of HealthNewsReview.org. He’s a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota, a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists and, formerly, a 15-year television medical news reporter. There’s probably never been as much high-quality health...

QUALITY/INTERNATIONAL: A great check list and more about EBM

Humphrey Taylor from Harris mentioned to me earlier this year that one thing Americans don’t realize is how much other health care systems are changing—while ours seems stuck in 1987. One case in major point is the UK where serious...

PHARMA: Wall Street, Cancer, and the FDA: A Cautionary Tale by Maggie Mahar

Maggie Mahar writes on healthcare, economics and public policy. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Barrons, Institutional Investor and may other publications. A regular contributor for THCB, her most recent book is "Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason...

POLICY: Lies, half-truths and irrelevancies in defense of mean-spirited politics

My spies tell me that this WSJ article by Bush adviser Allan Hubbard is packed with more half-truths per inch than even stuff emanating from AHIP. But I've lost my WSJ access, as as I won't pay money to Mr...

OFF-TOPIC: Where's the photo?

Doctors begin surgery on Chinese man's 15kg tumor and yet they deny us a photo. We’ll have to start running Lindsey Lohan stories next….(Incidentally this afternoon the top 2 “most emailed” stories on the LA Times website were about her)

PHYSICIANS: Pou not indicted

Obvious but good news. A Louisiana grand jury refused to indict Anna Pou, the cancer surgeon accused of murdering four seriously ill patients after Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps Mr Foti will see the same fate as the DA in the Duke...

HEALTH2.0: Laura Locke interviews FaceBook CEO

My friend Laura Locke interviewed the FaceBook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. I think if I met anyone that successful that young I'd be forced to beat them up on principle. But Laura instead asked some sensible questions about The Future of...

JOB POST: Corp Manager EMR Product Design at Partners

Under broad direction from the Product Director, LMR, and the Director of CIRD, the LMR Product Design Manager serves to provide leadership for product design to the development and implementation of a key clinical information system at Partners Healthcare System...

CONSUMERS/POLICY: This will be a red rag to a bull

Consumerism And Controversy: A Conversation With Regina Herzlinger Will read and comment later….

QUALITY: So I switch to diet 7-Up and Splenda, and what do I get?

No difference in my on-rushing likelihood of heart disease--according to the latest iteration of the Framingham study—the long running study of 9,000 patients in Massachusetts. Might as well go back to the chocolate malts….

OFF-TOPIC: The most pretentious NY Times article ever?

Some of the successful CEOs I’ve ever met can barely talk, let alone read! And we all know many overly-academic types who are well read but haven’t got two farthings to rub together. But apparently it’s the deep academic nature...

The Week in Review

New York attorney general Andrew M. Cuomo sent a letter to UnitedHealthCare demanding that the insurer cancel the launch of an online service that would rate doctors by the quality of care they provide and the cost of their services....

HEALTH PLANS/QUALITY: Klepper on the transparency conundrum

Over at The Doctor Weighs In Brian Klepper talks about the transparency conundrum. Should We Have Health Care Performance Transparency? By Whom? And How?. Should transparency be left in the hands of untrustworthy health plans with their own proprietary techniques?...

Don't Blame The VA

I never wrote too much about Walter Reed at the time of the scandal. But this week’s resignation of the VA Secretary, reported by the AP as being connected to Walter Reed, is now being used by some on the...

INDUSTRY: Medical Bankruptcy Rate Disputedby Eric Novack

For those who remember the endless headlines of "50% of All Bankruptcies Due to Medical Debt", and particularly for those who have based many calls for national, single-payer health care, on that paper by Single-payer zealot David Himmelstein, here is...

JOB POST: Great candidates for a VP Finance at Healthline.com?

We are looking for someone with media experience, but who is also savvy in the ways of start ups. Great comp and even better working environment. We are located in SOMA area of SF, just off Embarcadero and almost under...

Health 2.0: Live from Healthcare Unbound

Today I'm at the HealthCare Unbound conference in San Francisco, where I'm on a panel on PHRs at the end of the day. Tomorrow morning I'm presenting at the Silverlink/HealthWise session on Information Therapy in Boston. You do the math...

TECH: Problems for Employer-backed PHR

The Dossia Project, the sweeping personal health record (PHR) initiative backed by Wal Mart, Cardinal Health, Pitney Bowes, Intel, BP and other major employers, looks as though it is running into serious problems. The consortium is suing JD Kleinke's Omnimedix...

HEALTH2.0/TECH: Big day for Healthline

It’s a big day for Healthline Networks. The health “search and much more service” (if I call them “search only”, President Dean Stephens gets grumpy with me!) has raised another $21m in venture funding and announced deals with several customers—including...

POLICY: Moore makes CNN look pretty foolish

Even in their point by point defense of Sanjay Gupta's shoot from the hip attack on Sicko, CNN looks pretty dreadful. They should have asked me for a much more sensible reply to Moore.

THCB Reader Mail

SeekCEO wonders whether there are any ex-WebMD/ex-Healtheon folks who would like to lead a new Healthcare Web 2.0 startup in Southern California? If you're qualified email for details. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Susan Promislo writes in with this to...

POLICY: Debating SICKO's Impact by John Irvine

Since opening a week ago, Michael Moore's latest documentary has focused unprecedented attention on the U.S. healthcare system. The film has brought angry protests outside movie theaters. Standing ovations from audiences. And provoked angry debate in the nation's editorial pages....

OFF-TOPIC: Best article ever in NY Times

The World's Best Candy Bars? English, of Course. But I think they miss one vital difference. British milk is not homogenized-just pasteurized, and I’m sure that’s part of the difference.

POLICY: Finally, the review-- It's A Sicko World

I know you've all been dying for this. It's my review of Sicko, up over at Spot-On. There's so much wrong with Michael Moore's Sicko that it's embarrassing, especially for a health care pundit, to reveal the emotional punch it...

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POLICY/POLITICS: Susan Blumenthal review of the Presidential Candidates' health care policy

Susan Blumenthal, M.D. has created a side-By-side Comparison of all the Presidential candidates' health care proposals. What does it tell you? None of the Republicans have a real proposal--Rudy Guliani has made some big statements about turning the system over...

POLICY: Carmona rips White House

Richard H. Carmona, Surgeon General (and new Healthline Board Member BTW) rips the Bush Administration which made him Surgeon General. He says it’s happened for a while, but apparently according to Koop, Satcher and other Surgeon Generals, it’s worse under...

HOSPITALS/QUALITY: Virginia Mason--living in the future before it gets here.

More proof that the Michael Porter-type solution is living in the future before it gets here. Another study, this one from HSC shows that Virginia Mason has improved its processes, is saving money for its customers, and is paying the...

INTERNATIONAL: Ian Morrison vacationing at the taxpayer's expense

My old boss Ian Morrison has been in Australia studying the health care system. I'm sure this was a work visit for him with neither a bar nor a golf course in sight. He did though come back with a...

TECH: Granger on the UK's NPfIT

On his way out the door Richard Granger is interviewed in CIO Magazine about the NPfIT in the UK’s NHS. A quick summary: 1) The budget scope went up because there was no PACS in the original program. The original...

INTERNATIONAL/QUALITY: Reggie will be having a fit

I’ve always been amused that the most cited example of the “focused factory” that Reggie Herzlinger perceives to be the answer to medical cost and quality problems is the Shouldice Institute in Canada. That’s right the country where it takes...

HEALTH2.0: Brief update and lots going on

So the Health2.0 Conference is really heating up. We will be announcing a raft of new sponsors and some interesting media tie-ins next week. There are already well over 100 attendees including lots of people from across the worlds of...

POLICY/QUALITY: Klepper on cabbages and Kings (or Congress)

Brian Klepper, who's traitorously now pimping himself out on other blogs, extends the post I wrote the other day on the CBO at Pat Salber's blog The Doctor Weighs In. It's called Mr. Orszag's Surprise and it's a very good...

HEALTH2.0/TECH: Sharp on Health2.0

John Sharp, who’s deep in the Web2.0 in health care world for HIMSS on behalf of Cleveland Clinic and writes the eHealth blog, has a pretty comprehensive overview about Health2.0 out that he gave to his local HIMSS group. (It...

POLICY: Sicko and Healthcare Reform by Maggie Mahar with UPDATE

Michael Moore’s “Sicko” does two things very well. First, the film makes it clear that in the U.S., even if you have health insurance, this does not mean that you are “covered.” Everyone knows that many Americans are uninsured. But...

TECH: This sounds like deliberate trouble..

I was sent an email about a Global Competition Seeks Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care. Some of you like this kind of thing. The rest may be a touch cynical & I’m not sure $5,000 is going to...

JOB POST: Medical Director

A.D.A.M. (Nasdaq: ADAM) is a leading provider of online consumer health information solutions to healthcare organizations, employers, consumers, and educational institutions. A.D.A.M.'s goal is to empower consumers to get smart about their health and wellness, while reducing the costs of...

JOB POST: National Guidelines Project Manager

Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute (CMI) is a unique, pioneering institution with a mandate to drive, fund, and catalyze care management activities throughout our non-profit HMO. CMI strives "to make the right thing easier to do. The Center for Health...

TECH/HEALTH2.0: Vince Kuratis Connecting the Dots...on Google Health

Vince Kuratis, who knows rather more than he should about DM and eHealth, and maybe knows rather too much to be as optimistic as he is—given all that he knows—has a long and excellent article on Connecting the Dots...Google Health...

POLICY: Tom Tomorrow disses the conservative straw men

The best political cartoonist in America is at it again--This Modern World

PHYSICIANS: Medicare and the AMA--here we go again

Physician fees would be cut by 9.9 percent in the coming year under a payment plan proposed Monday by Medicare Congress has stepped in to prevent similar cuts in the past, and doctors' groups are urging lawmakers to intervene...