The Health Care Blog

The Health Internet vs. the NHIN -- A Matter of Control, Cost, and Timing

By DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER There is growing tension within the Obama administration's health team over who will control health data exchange: everyone (including consumers and their doctors), or just large provider organizations. The public debate will be...
November 19, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, HITECH, NHIN, RHIOs, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (36)

Back to Basics: Toward a Core Set of Relevant and Portable Personal Health Information

By DAVID C. KIBBE In the cacophony of health IT issues, products, and goals that compete every day for our attention, it is easy to lose sight of the profound value that could come from the universal availability of a...
November 3, 2009 in David Kibbe, EHR, HIT, Meaningful Use | Permalink | Comments (21)

Time to put aside the intellectual disputes for now

By Matthew Holt It’s always fun to see my friends beating each other up in public....and if you read down in the comments on the post published yesterday you’ll see a significant dispute between Maggie Mahar and the Klepper/Kibbe/Lazsweski/Enthoven team...
October 31, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, Maggie Mahar, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics, Public Option, Robert Laszewski | Permalink | Comments (79)

Saving Health Care, Saving America

By BRIAN KLEPPER, DAVID C. KIBBE, ROBERT LASZEWSKI and ALAIN ENTHOVEN So far, Congress' response to the health care crisis has been alarmingly disappointing in three ways. First, by willingly accepting enormous sums from health care special interests, our representatives...
October 30, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Corruption, Current Affairs, David Kibbe, Marketplace, Policy, Policy/Politics, primary care, Reform, The Industry, Transparency | Permalink | Comments (46)

A Message to America's Physicians: Purchasing EHR Technology A Shaky State of Affairs

By DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER Much of the conversation and debate about physician EHR adoption has centered on the single issue of the (high) cost of purchase. However, we'd like to suggest that the situation is much more...
October 28, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, EHR, HITECH | Permalink | Comments (29)

Why Standards Matter 2: Health IT Enters a New Era of Regulatory Control

By DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER The recent history of electronic medical records in ambulatory care, or what we now call EHR (electronic health record) technology, can be divided roughly into three phases. Phase I, which lasted approximately 20...
October 14, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, EHR, HIT, HITECH, Technology | Permalink | Comments (10)

Will Republicans Be Spoilers Or Problem Solvers on Health Care Reform?

By BRIAN KLEPPER and DAVID C. KIBBE In theory Congress' return from recess next week could offer a new beginning to the health care reform process, giving everyone a chance to take a deep breath and recalibrate the components of...
September 2, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Congress, David Kibbe, Reform | Permalink | Comments (12)

Advice For State REC Planners

By DAVID C. KIBBE & BRIAN KLEPPER On August 20th, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and ONC head David Blumenthal announced $598 million in grants to set up about 70 "regional extension centers" (RECs) that will help physicians select and implement...
August 31, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, EHR, HIT, HITECH, REC, Reform | Permalink | Comments (4)

Health Care Reform's Deeper Problems

By BRIAN KLEPPER and DAVID C. KIBBE Congress' health care reform debate has highlighted how American governance is broken and the difficulty of addressing our national problems. Take, for example, whether health care is in crisis at all. Conservative commentators...
August 27, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Congress, David Kibbe, Democratic Party, Reform | Permalink | Comments (56)

Why Standards Matter (1): The True Meaning of Interoperability

By DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER Americans are generally skeptical of words that otherwise intelligent and articulate people can't pronounce. "Interoperability," like nu-cu-lar, is one of these. After a while, these words can take on a mystique all their...
August 22, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, e-patients, EHR, Electronic Medical Records, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, A Reasonable Plan for Certification of EHR Technologies

By DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER A caution to readers: This post is about methods for certifying Electronic Health Record (EHR) technologies used by physicians, medical practices, and hospitals who hope to qualify for federal incentive payments under the...
August 4, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, HHS, Marketplace, Meaningful Use, Policy, Policy/Politics, Reform, Technology, The Industry, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (28)

Return to McAllen: A Father-Son Interview

By IAN ROBERTSON KIBBE By now, Dr. Atul Gawande's article on McAllen's high cost of health care has been widely read. The article spawned a number of responses and catalyzed a national discussion on cost controls and the business of...
July 26, 2009 in Costs, David Kibbe, McAllen, Physicians | Permalink | Comments (31)

A Dream of Reason

By BRIAN KLEPPER and DAVID KIBBE The dream of reason did not take power into account...Modern medicine is one of those extraordinary works of reason...But medicine is also a world of power. -Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine,...
June 22, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Consumers, David Kibbe, e-patients, Electronic Medical Records, Policy, Policy/Politics, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (8)

The Health Industry's Achilles Heel

By BRIAN KLEPPER and DAVID C. KIBBE "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff Timing matters. The health industry has demonstrated steadfast resistance to reforms, but its recently diminished...
June 10, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, Health Plans, Obama administration, Policy, Policy/Politics, Quality, The Industry, Transparency | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack

Bringing Patients into the Health IT Conversation About "Meaningful Use"

By DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER The Obama health team at HHS and ONC are gradually establishing the rules that will determine how approximately $34 billion in ARRA/HITECH funds are spent on health IT over the next several years....
May 21, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Consumers, David Kibbe, Electronic Medical Records, Google, Health 2.0, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, Marketplace, Policy, Policy/Politics, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (35)

An Open Letter to the New National Coordinator for Health IT: Part 3 -- Certification As The Elephant in Health IT's Living Room

By DAVID C. KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER In the first and second parts of this series we talked about how and why there is no universal definition for the term "EHR." Instead there is a legitimate, growing debate about the...
May 8, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, e-patients, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Obama administration, Online Communities, Policy, Policy/Politics, Quality, Technology, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (20)

An Open Letter to the New National Coordinator for Health IT - Untying HITECH's Gordian Knot: Part 1

By DAVID C. KIBBE & BRIAN KLEPPER Congratulations to David Blumenthal on being named National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT). Dr. Blumenthal will be the person most responsible for the rules and distribution of the American Recovery and Reinvestment...
April 26, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, Electronic Medical Records, Policy, Policy/Politics, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (19)

An Open Letter to the New National Coordinator for Health IT: Part 2 - Opening the Aperture of Innovation

By DAVID C. KIBBE & BRIAN KLEPPER One of the important decisions before Dr. Blumenthal and his colleagues at ONC and HHS is whether the national health information network will be one of closed appliances that bundle together proprietary hardware,...
April 22, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, Electronic Medical Records, Policy, Policy/Politics, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (21)

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Continuity of Care Record Gains Ground As A Standard

By BRIAN KLEPPER We live in a time of such great progress in so many arenas that, too often and without a second thought, we take significant advances for granted. But, now and then, we should catalog the steps forward,...
April 10, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Consumers, David Kibbe, Electronic Medical Records, Google, Health 2.0, Personalized Medicine, Policy, Policy/Politics, Technology, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (21)

A Research Agenda for Participatory Medicine and the Connected Medical Home

By DAVID C. KIBBE AND JOSEPH KVEDAR 

Recently, in a blog post published December 22, 2008 in The Health Care Blog entitled "The Connected Medical Home,” we described the synergy between the efforts of proponents of Participatory Medicine and the...
March 25, 2009 in David Kibbe | Permalink | Comments (15)

Is the Healthcare Economy Rightsizing?

By Brian Klepper and David C. Kibbe More than at any time in recent memory, powerful forces are buffeting the health care sector. We are in the midst of profound upheaval, driven by market and policy responses to the industry's...
March 12, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Current Affairs, David Kibbe, Economics, Health Plans, Marketplace, Medical Devices, Policy, Policy/Politics, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (33)

Five Recommendations for an ONC Head Who Understands Health IT Innovation

By David C. Kibbe, Brian Klepper and John Moore. Now that the legislative language of the HITECH Act -- the $20 billion health IT allocation within the economic stimulus package -- has been set, it's time to identify a National...
March 6, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Current Affairs, David Kibbe, Electronic Medical Records, evidenced-based medicine, Health 2.0, Physicians, Policy, Policy/Politics, primary care, public health, Quality, Technology, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (14)

Five "Shovel-Ready" Health Care Reforms

By Brian Klepper & David C. Kibbe Microsoft Health Vault's leader Peter Neupert has a wonderful blog post that makes two important points really well. One message is that health care reform is about the outcomes, not the technology. We...
January 21, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, evidenced-based medicine, Health Plans, Marketplace, Obama administration, Physicians, Policy, Policy/Politics, primary care, Quality, Technology, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (18)

Let's Reboot America's Health IT Conversation Part 2: Beyond EHRs

By DAVID KIBBE and BRIAN KLEPPER Yesterday we tried to put EHRs into perspective. They're important, and we can't effectively move health care forward without them. But they're only one of many important health IT functions. EHRs and health IT...
January 6, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, Health 2.0, Technology, The Industry, Transparency, User Generated Content, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (9)

Let's Reboot America's HIT Conversation Part 1: Putting EHRs in Context

By DAVID C. KIBBE & BRIAN KLEPPER Kibbe & Klepper are back with an update to their pre-Christmas piece on EHRs and the forthcoming Obama Administration's investment policy towards them. Lest you think that this is just a small group...
January 5, 2009 in Brian Klepper, David Kibbe, Health 2.0, Obama administration, Policy, Policy/Politics, The Industry, Transparency, User Generated Content, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (7)