The Health Care Blog

Health Care Reform: What Do Americans Want? (Or Think They Want?) by Maggie Mahar

On the surface, it seems that American voters have made their will clear. Poll after poll shows that they are calling for a major overhaul of our health care system. But when you look closer, their responses bristle with contradictions...

HEALTH 2.0 UPDATE Dyson, Kibbe join advisory board

We're pleased to announce that Esther Dyson of EDventure Holdings has agreed to serve on the Health 2.0 advisory board. Esther's tech background is well known and second to none. Esther has been watching, leading and guiding innovation in the...

INTL: Market invisible hand forces Canadian death rate numbers public!

In a valiant effort to stop Canadians storming the borders and leaving their home health care system bereft of their health care dollars, the Canadian government has yielded. It's made death rate numbers at Canadian hospitals public. The probably futile...

If Grady Fails By Brian Klepper

In an extraordinary move earlier this week, the politically-appointed Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, the governing body over Atlanta's Grady Health System, unanimously and voluntary stepped aside, to be replaced by a new non-profit corporation. Projecting a $55 million deficit this year,...

Physicians: Can Computerized Decision Support Get Docs to Toe the Line on Quality? by Robert Wachter

Robert Wachter is widely regarded as a leading figure in the modern patient safety movement. Together with Dr. Lee Goldman, he coined the term "hospitalist" in an influential 1996 essay in The New England Journal of Medicine. His most recent...

HEALTH PLANS: Tracing this all back to the vine....

Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, has an op-ed in the NY Times about how Burger King has basically singlehandedly scuppered a meager pay rise for some of the poorest immigrant workers in America. It’s searing stuff and he...

Genomics vs. Proteonomics: Accessorizing Your Genes By Scott Shreeve

I had the occasion this past weekend to be out with my wife doing some shopping. Apparently, I have been too busy of late to notice that my wardrobe had been in some decline. My wife therefore drug me out...

TECH: Tell us about your Health 2.0 company

We're collecting information about companies in the Health 2.0 space. And have been for some time. Unfortunately what that usually means is that really interesting companies email us, then email us again to ask why we didn't respond to the...

POLICY: Wrong, but wrongly influential

At the recent PRI meeting, one loony lambasted me for failing to agree with her that all the problems of the US health care system were due to all that care bing wasted on illegal immigrants. I asked her to...

POLICY: Me and the Republicans on NPR (no, not really)

So you can listen to my NPR appearance in Los Angeles on Air Talk hosted by Larry Mantle here (works better in Real Player). The other guest was veteran UCLA Professor Rick Brown, who was playing the lefty here--while I...

An EHR We Can All Agree On, by Eric Novack

I have written about this previously directly and tangentially, but given that this is ‘open enrollment ’ period (for those who still have more than one choice), it is worth repeating. I report this as a part owner of a...

TECH: Bosworth launches new Health 2.0 venture

After several months of sometimes crazed speculation in the blogosphere and tech press about his last project, former Google Health architect Adam Bosworth says he is launching a new Health 2.0 company. The new firm, which will be known as...

POLICY: Wealth, fame and public radio

Those of you in Southern Calfornia, or listening in online,will get to hear my dulcet tones on "AirTalk with Larry Mantle" on 89.3 KPCC-FM and 89.1 KUOR-FM at 11 am PST this very morning. I’m going to be talking about...

Physicians: Sermo allowing docs to discuss chart errors about them! by Matthew Holt

Sermo got some press this week about a thread that's of lots of interest to all of us--medical errors and inaccurate records: Several years ago, Botney visited a specialist to check out a bothersome lump in his cheek. He took...

Health 2.0 Second Life--maybe I can be convinced, by Matthew Holt

Despite all the hype, I’ve been very down on Second Life. I’ve downloaded the app, logged on, blundered around and never figured out how to make it work. I spent my first 4 goes trying and failing to get off...

HOSPITALS: Dennis Quaid's Kids - Are VIPs Safer? By Bob Wachter

Robert Wachter is widely regarded as a leading figure in the modern patient safety movement. Together with Dr. Robert Goldman, he coined the term "hospitalist" in an 1996 essay in The New England Journal of Medicine. His most recent book,...

TECH: An appeal for help on visualization software

An old colleague writes to me from the land of multiple project coordination hell. We're managing about 60 concurrent projects in just one of our teams, and dozens of other concurrent projects with other teams. We're rapidly becoming victims of...

POLICY: The Times' editorial leaves me baffled

I for one remained baffled about what's happening within the gizzards of the Grey Lady. On Sunday the NY Times published presented a long editorial about American health care and its high costs. After the dog sore licking episodes of...

PHARMA: Shocking revelations

Says here (“here” being a long mea culpa article by a psychiatrist and former agent of Wyeth in the NY Times) that some doctors get paid by drug companies to give talks to other doctors about drugs, and that not...

POLICY: The liberal media maliciously tells the truth about Rudy, again

There's more Giuliani bashing going on in the liberal media. First in the NY Times Frank Rich goes after him via the seedy route of the forthcoming tell-all lawsuit from Bernie Kerik's ex-girlfriend. (It's good stuff--I'd recommend a full read)....

And the Health 2.0 Design Award Goes to ... by Indu Subaiya

I'd like to dedicate my Thanksgiving post to the people who are working on, have worked on and most importantly, ought to be working on issues of design and usability in healthcare. I seem to be joined by Sohrab Vossoughi,...

HEALTH 2.0: In mourning, meanwhile over at Health 2.0 Blog

Like every proud American I’m spending the day paralyzed by the effect of way too much excellent food and wine yesterday. And like every other Englishman (ex-pat or Blighty-based) I’m also mourning the national team’s appalling performance in losing at...

POLICY: Someone else beats up on Herzlinger

Here's Maggie's takedown of Herzlinger's WSJ column, with a heavy dose of Uwe included. And as far as I can see the most important thing about any regulated individual insurance system is consistency of benefits across plans—which means the plans...

The Massachusetts Plan: What did they know, and when did they know it? by Eric Novack

Dateline, Boston… According to an article in the Sunday,November 18th, 2007, Boston Globe, “(Massachusetts) the state could face a funding gap as large as $147 million by the end of the fiscal year, according to a state projection.” 2009 looks...

When the Patient is a pain the doctor blames Google, by Matthew Holt

This article in Time written by an New York-based orthopedic surgeon is called When the Patient Is a Googler. But the problem is not Google, or online health information searching. Most doctors like a better informed patient. The problem is...

POLICY: Low prices ain't cheap enough

Mercer says that the number of small businesses offering health insurance to workers went down last year despite the greater and easier availability of high-deductible and HSA plans. Fewer small employers offered health insurance this year, despite the widespread availability...

POLICY: The NY Times Remembers the War on Drugs, but has learned none of its lessons

No one bothers to care much about the war on (some) drugs these days. Sure it’s an $80 billion a year boondoggle for law enforcement and criminals, paid for by the taxpayer at an untold cost in lost civil liberties....

HEALTH2.0: Personal Genome Management--The Next Big Thing?

There are 160m Americans looking for health information online and somewhere in the realm of 10–30% of those are viewing and creating their own content. But that has made moderate impact on the mainstream press (with Laura Landro being an...

When is a Medical Error a Crime? by Bob Wachter

Bob Wachter is one of the nation's leading experts on medical safety and one of the pioneers of the hospitalist movement. And now he's descending into the mire of blogging! So we're pleased to cross post one of the more...

Think Again: Payments to doctors By Eric Novack

I am frankly a bit surprised at the lack of comment at THCB on the recent orthopedic device manufacturers’ settlement with the government for concerns about illegal payments to physicians. I would have expected Matthew or Maggie, at least, to...

TECH: Yes there are other conferences...

Apparently Health IT is feeling left out and needs a CEO forum-type conference. The people at CCS are trying to create it at a flash hotel in Bel-Air no less. For a pretty humorous run down take a look at...

Health 2.0 at the CCR Workshop in San Diego and thoughts about Google's Subauth, by Indu Subaiya

Yesterday we attended David Kibbe’s CCR workshop in San Diego and learned lots about XML and the utility of the continuity of care record in many different settings. For more info about the CCR, read David’s posts on the topic...

What the Blogs are saying ...

Adam Bosworth, describing life post-Google: "Well, as some seem to know, I’ve left Google. And now that I’ve left, that old entrepreneurial fever has struck me again and I’m off working on a startup. Google is a wonderful company and...

BLOGS: Health Beat Hosts Health Wonk Review

Prolific author and THCB favorite Maggie Mahar is doing the honors this week as Health Beat Hosts Health Wonk Review.

POLICY: Taking Out The Trash-Talk

I’m up at Spot-on talking about a particularly crappy study that snuck into a WSJ editorial. I made some snarky remarks about the math skills of economists at the Manhattan Institute in the process. Of course after the editing process...

Health 2.0 Research & Editorial Internship

Become a part of the Health 2.0 revolution! The Health 2.0 Conference team is looking for a few smart, motivated students to fill unpaid Health 2.0 internships. The interns will work with co-founders Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya on all...

JOB POST: Director, US Sales

Wellness Layers Inc. has an immediate opening for a Director of Sales to lead our US Sales. Wellness Layers helps the world’s leading fitness, nutrition, health and pharmaceutical companies create private label customer portals, which are tightly integrated with their...

A Patient in my own hospital by Paul Levy

Paul Levy is CEO at Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Paul was one of the first CEOs to embrace blogging and continues to use his popular online column as a forum to express his views on the business of...

CONSUMERS: icyou goes to the Consumer Congress

Our friends at icyou (who by the way are doing a fabulous job with the forthcoming Health 2.0 DVD) are at the 3rd Annual Consumer-Centric Healthcare Congress this week. They have a raft of interviews with some of the smartest...

POLICY: Innovation in French health care, yes really...

John Cohn’s most excellent article about why Michael Kinsley would still receive the treatments that allow him to continue to add not always intelligent contributiions to the health care debate is up at TNR. Go read—Creative Destruction.

TECH: What health care consumers want, according to Bill Crounse

Consumers want; * On-line appointment scheduling * Web messaging with physician and support staff * Access to lab and radiology reports * On-line prescription refills * Reminders and "information therapy" * Access to personal medical records * Outcomes and disease...

Health 2.0 on Location in NYC by Indu Subaiya

The Health 2.0 team converged in NYC this week for a day of meetings with the New York Times, Digitas Health and a host of our favorite Health 2.0 companies based in the Big Apple. First it was lunch with...

SCHIP: Care Enough to Smoke? by Eric Novack

Given Matthew’s crazy schedule as he builds his Health 2.0 empire, a brief note on the resounding defeat of the Oregon initiative with tobacco tax money. What this means for the debate in Washington is uncertain. Pundits on the left...

This Week on THCB ...

Phew! What a week on THCB. This week's posts included: The Grand Opening of the Health 2.0 Blog, The VA - Cerner Deal, The Sparse Information Model, Humana's Change Now 4 Health Campaign, Why Aren't More Students Applying to Medical...

HEALTH2.0: Is Google jumping the shark?

Veteran IT insider Robert X. Cringley seems to think so, and worse he compares its behavior in dealings with smaller competitors to you know who in this article, The Next Microsoft. Cringley’s other concern is, though, much more serious about...

Health 2.0, Computable Data Exchange, and The Sparse Information Model, by David C. Kibbe, MD MBA

One of the processes that Health 2.0 will certainly come to depend upon for its growth and utility is that of computable data exchange. What I mean is this: how do we help our customers/users get their basic health information;...

HEALTH PLANS: Lisa Girion puts boot in again!

Will someone please stop that nasty Lisa Girion beating up sweet innocent health plans. Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid...

TECH: Charlie Baker is concerned about Bill Gates....

So on Weds night I met longtime THCB commenter (and old world pension fund manager) Barry Carrol. He told me that he also reads the Harvard Pilgrim blog. I didn’t even know they had one. Thursday morning, Tom Donald at...

BLOGS/HEALTH 2.0: The Health 2.0 Blog

Today, with Indu Subaiya my partner in the Health 2.0 Conferences, I am very happy to announce the logical continuation of the increased focus on Health 2.0: The Health 2.0 Blog. This is a new group blog to which anyone...

QUALITY: ADA is making some diabetes patients mad

Including our favorite Amy Tenderich. Read her piece called ADA's Richard Kahn Drops a Bomb.