The Health Care Blog

The other Michael Jackson mega-mix

By Matthew Holt Never ones to be shy with an interesting view into celebrity pharmacology (and truth be told responding to a little tickle from me) the inventive folks at PharmaSurveyor have added Michael Jackson to their celebrity drug cocktail...
July 6, 2009 in Health 2.0, Pharma, pharmaceuticals | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Declaration of Health Data Rights

By Matthew Holt THCB & Health 2.0 are happy to be a small part of a very important declaration, made today by a mix of patients, physicians, technologists and concerned citizens. It's a Declaration of Health Data Rights, and it's...
June 22, 2009 in Consumers, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (16)

Meaningful meaning? (with UPDATE)

By Matthew Holt The first draft of “meaningful use” came out early yesterday, and I was struck by two things. First, probably influenced by the NCVHS recommendations and the Consumer Partnership for e-Health (See Update), the work-group included a lot...
June 18, 2009 in Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments (5)

The Journal of Participatory Medicine

By Matthew Holt ePatientDave and Giles Frydman have been working on the Society of Participatory Medicine for a while and Alan Greene MD will be the first President. Now there’s a editorial board for the Journal of Participatory Medicine. The...
June 17, 2009 in Annals of Journalism, Consumers, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

Matthew went to Redmond, 2--Bert van Hoof, HealthVault & devices

By Matthew Holt Continuing my tour around Microsoft’s HealthVault team I met with Bert van Hoof. Bert is the devices guy who showed me lots of ways to get data into HealthVault. If you’re interested in how a power user...
June 10, 2009 in Health 2.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

Matthew went to Redmond, part 1-- Bill Reid, Healthvault

By Matthew Holt Last week I went to a search summit in Seattle where Microsoft told us all about Bing, their latest attempt to do something about Google’s Windows-like market share in search. After a quick chat with Health search...
June 10, 2009 in Health 2.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

American Well gets busy with guidelines, Optum

By Matthew Holt Our friends over at American Well have two announcements today. First, they’re releasing what they call Online Care Insight, which is essentially the integration of care guidelines into their online care system. We saw a glimpse into...
June 3, 2009 in Health 2.0, Health Plans, Technology | Permalink | Comments (3)

Launch! Healogica--Clinical Trials Recrutiment service

By Matthew Holt Healogica was one of the companies that presented at Launch! at the Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference in Boston in April. I felt that the quality of the Launch! companies as so strong that they all deserved...
June 2, 2009 in Health 2.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

Death to Innovators – The Tragedy of Healthcare Innovation

By SCOTT SHREEVE Tragedy A disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life A tragic aspect or element. A drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially...
May 31, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (13)

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, reform, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (35)

More on HITECH , Microsoft mea culpas, Google, et al

By Matthew Holt I draw your attention to a troika of articles, all of which show how things can be slightly misinterpreted. First, who knew that Blackford Middleton was either the most influential health policy wonk out there, or single-handedly...
May 19, 2009 in Google, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (2)

Vaccine refusal, or Jenny McCarthy, better with fewer clothes on

By Matthew Holt Kaiser Permanente has released a study from its EMR database looking at use of vaccines in its Colorado region. KP in Colorado has data on about 480,000 members dating back to the mid-1990s from when they started...
May 13, 2009 in Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Health Plans | Permalink | Comments (3)

Me & Mr Jones, (Jr.)

By Matthew Holt I met Leroy Jones at Health 2.0 Meets Ix in Boston. He runs the Technical Jones web site, and is a veteran of both sides of DC politics (inside and outside of Capitol Hill and the White...
May 12, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 (19)

Project HealthDesign and Health 2.0 Accelerator

By AARON APODACA and JULIE MURCHINSON Round 2 of Project HealthDesign, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, builds on a key learning from round 1: people live with and manage their health every day, not in discrete and separate...
May 8, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Roni Zeiger on what Google Health is doing next

By Matthew Holt For those of you who weren't at Health 2.0 Meets Ix to hear from the mouths of the four horsemen (Halamka, Sands, Zeiger & deBronkhart) here is Google's Roni Zeiger’s version of what went wrong with the...
April 28, 2009 in Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Technology, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (9)

Health 2.0 Met Ix....

By Matthew Holt So the party's over, the buntings are down, the #health2con tweets—more than 3,000 of them—are drying up but recorded here, and the Health 2.0 & Ix teams have returned to their respective coasts. Even though this is...
April 27, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Health 2.0 Meets Ix--Tweeted

By Matthew Holt I’ll be up with reflections on an action packed Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference later, but for now is you want to see the 1500+ tweets from Thursday alone, Gilles Frydman has figured out how to get...
April 25, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)

A.D.A.M intros Medzio Mobile Health Partners

By Matthew Holt For you iPhone-ers (and there are lots and of you--30 million plus was the last number I heard) there's some exciting news (that actually concerns Health 2.0 and THCB too). A.D.A.M has launched a new platform on...
April 22, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (6)

Health 2.0 Fuels the Accelerator

By AARON APODACA, JULIE MURCHINSON, MATTHEW HOLT & INDU SUBAIYA Have fuel, will accelerate! In the months leading up to the Fall Health 2.0 Conference, the Accelerator wiki membership grew from a few to over a hundred individuals and companies...
April 21, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's Amy Tendrich's birthday, time for Grand Rounds

By Matthew Holt It's Amy Tendrich's birthday. I happen to know she's on a plane on her way to Health 2.0 Meets Ix in Boston, but that hasn't stopped her putting together a great Grand Rounds at DiabetesMine.
April 21, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is the Physician's Role in a Web-based World?

By JAY PARKINSON, MD With all of the super accessible health information now available, consumers have turned into the equivalent of first year medical students, armed with too much information but not enough objective experience. The ideal doctor patient relationship...
April 21, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (20)

Jay Parkinson, Hello Health & Myca, talks about the new release

By Matthew Holt Myca/Hello Health is launching it's new platform in a special Deep Dive at Health 2.0 Meets Ix, Weds 22nd at 12 noon. Sean Khozin will also be demoing it as part of the "Building Health 2.0 into...
April 20, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Health 2.0 Meets Ix, and other gossip

By Matthew Holt The Health 2.0 team is in Boston, and we’ve been prepping with our friends from Information Therapy. The Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference is coming up on Wednesday and Thursday 22nd & 23rd April. We have a...
April 20, 2009 in Health 2.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

Rich Noffsinger, AnvitaHealth

By Matthew Holt AnvitaHealth, recently changed its name from SafeMed. It's been one of the more interesting companies using its technology to personalize drug interaction and guideline data to individuals based on their clinical data. Why the name change and...
April 20, 2009 in Health 2.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the skeptics who think Health 2.0 tools don't matter...

By Matthew Holt Read this
April 15, 2009 in Health 2.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments (5)

American Well bags BCBS Minnesota

By Matthew Holt American Well, who were big stars at (and sponsors of) the recent Health 2.0 Hawaii symposium have announced the second big Blues to sign on to use their service. It's Blues of Minnesota, who Health 2.0 watchers...
April 13, 2009 in Health 2.0, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

The public's belief in scientific uncertainty and the importance of the social health Internet

By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn Americans believe that scientific evidence is not always clear when differentiating between different treatment options for their health. Yesterday, as I moderated the the kick-off Great Debate session of the Health 2.0 Conference, co-hosted by the Center...
April 13, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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, reform, Technology, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (20)

Building Health into the Delivery System, Take Two

By Rushika Fernandopulle The following is a guest post from Rushika Fernandopulle, MD, MPP, Co-Founder of Renaissance Health . This is part of a continuing series of blog entries cross-posted here, on the Center for Information Therapy Blog, and the...
April 9, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (7)

How do we build Health 2.0 into the delivery system?

By JOHN HALAMKA The Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference, will take place April 22 and 23 in Boston, Massachusetts. As part of the lead-up to the conference, which will focus on the interplay between the Health 2.0 and Information Therapy...
April 9, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (8)

From Health 2.0 meets Ix: A Breathtaking Display of Possibilities

By BRIAN KLEPPER (Boston) Jane Sarasohn-Kahn and I were quickly comparing notes this morning. Our impression is that, compared to past meetings, this one seems more characterized by doers than observers. This conference brings together a dizzying array of tools...
April 2, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Conferences, Health 2.0, Joshua Seidman, Matthew Holt, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (5)

The Hive Mind

By JOHN HALAMKA Over the past few years, I've radically redesigned my approach to learning. In the past, I memorized information. Now, I need to be a knowledge navigator, not a repository of facts. I've delegated the management of facts...
April 2, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (8)

Health 2.0 NYC Chapter, has meeting, needs a place!

Health 2.0’s NYC chapter is having a meeting this Thursday 4/2–-around 50 people are due to attend and it’s set to be a great session. There is one minor problem though. Due to a last minute cancellation by the existing...
April 1, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Will CIGNA Remake The Health Plan Marketplace?

By BRIAN KLEPPER America’s health plans are floundering. If their job has been to provide the nation’s mainstream families with access to affordable care (let’s leave quality out of it for the moment), they have failed miserably, though they were...
March 30, 2009 in Brian Klepper, Health 2.0, Health Plans, Marketplace, primary care, reform, The Industry | Permalink | Comments (15)

Health 2.0 Meets Ix--The Great Debates

By Matthew Holt, Indu Subaiya and Joshua Seidman On April 22–23 in Boston, two ideas are going to come together. Health 2.0 has been defined in different ways, but is most often considered to be the use of lightweight online...
March 27, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (5)

The Hawaii Health 2.0 Chapter meeting

By Matthew Holt Indu & Matthew traveled to Hawaii (tough gig but someone’s got to do it) to take part in the Hawaii Health 2.0 chapter on Online Care, held on Thursday March 26. The chapter meeting was rather more...
March 27, 2009 in Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

A Sticky Solution to a Sticky Problem

By ALISTAIR ROCK “Don’t pull the knot tight,” the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once warned, “before being sure you have got hold of the right end.” Those who hope to sort out the tangle of health care spending would do well...
March 16, 2009 in Health 2.0, Health Plans, Marketplace, Technology, The Industry, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (23)

Health Affairs is all about IT

By Matthew Holt Most of the Health care geek squad is in DC as I write, at a press conference conducted by Health Affairs which has an entire issue out today about IT in health care. Here’s the table of...
March 10, 2009 in e-patients, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Technology | Permalink | Comments (6)

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, reform, Technology, The Industry, Transparency, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (14)

Google Health sharing--simple but potentially important

By Matthew Holt Today late afternoon PST Google flipped the switch on an important change/add to Google Health. Recently they’ve been adding more and more little features, such as printing & graphing, and in the last month getting CVS retail...
March 4, 2009 in Consumers, e-patients, Electronic Medical Records, Google, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Physicians, Technology | Permalink | Comments (11)

Frances Dare explains HITECH, really well

By Matthew Holt Frances Dare from Cisco is a buddy of mine who has more and more been their student of what's going on in Washington. Given that we just saw the biggest piece of health care IT legislation ever...
March 4, 2009 in Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Physicians, Podcasts, Policy, Policy/Politics, Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

Health 2.0 more interesting than porn!

By Matthew Holt Last Thursday I gave a talk to a very high powered group, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics. My old colleague Matt Quinn is now working for the soon to be very rich Agency for...
March 1, 2009 in Health 2.0, Policy, Policy/Politics, reform, RHIOs, Technology, User Generated Content | Permalink | Comments (5)

Getting "the CCHIT question" wrong

By Matthew Holt There’s been a lot of blather from one commenter (who may or may not be a front for a group of malcontents) on the WSJ Health Blog and lots of other blogs about CCHIT and whether it...
February 24, 2009 in Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Physicians, Policy, Policy/Politics, Technology | Permalink | Comments (8)

Yelp: The Backlash Begins...

By Matthew Holt There's a pretty serious article about Yelp, which has become the dominant player in restaurant and service reviews in the SF Bay Area, in a local alternative weekly The East Bay Express called Yelp and the Business...
February 21, 2009 in Consumers, Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Podcast: Blues VC fund invests in Phreesia

By MATTHEW HOLT I’ve been following Phreesia since it was two guys in an apartment trying to figure out how to make the patient check-in at the doctors office a better and more useful experience. Today they announced an $11m...
February 17, 2009 in Consumers, Health 2.0, Physicians, Technology | Permalink | Comments (7)

I'm the Man of the Month, really!

By Matthew Holt OK, perhaps not the only man of the month in the whole world, but Missy Krasner from Google Health, who is also a founder of the relatively new Disruptive Women in Health Care blog interviewed little ol’...
February 11, 2009 in Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, THCB | Permalink | Comments (1)

Univita buys Enurgi (with a little explanation about the future of long-term care...)

By Matthew Holt Univita is a new play from a strong executive team led by former Anthem CEO Ben Lytle. Post Anthem, Lytle and his son Hugh founded Axia, a wellness company, and sold it to DM industry giant (albeit...
February 3, 2009 in Health 2.0, Marketplace, Matthew Holt | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cats & dogs: Can we find unity on health care IT change?

By Matthew Holt Those of you paying attention for the past few days might have noticed on the one hand a sense of optimism and unity as Barrack H. Obama, somewhat somberly, began his presidency. Meanwhile, over the past few...
January 22, 2009 in Election 08, Electronic Medical Records, Health 2.0, Matthew Holt, Policy, Policy/Politics, RHIOs, Technology | Permalink | Comments (10)

Online communities helped psoriasis sufferers

By Matthew Holt In one of the first articles of this type I've seen published in a mainstream medical journal, in this case the Archives of Dermatology, there's some evidence that being in an online community helps patients. This study...
January 22, 2009 in Health 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (8)