Experts often compare how slowly the health care system is "reforming" to how hard it is to turn a battleship. They're so big that they can't turn on a dime (much less on $3 trillion!), and there is as much risk in trying to oversteer as in not turning at all. Things are changing, we're assured, but it will take time to get on the desired new course. Maybe. But maybe it is time to jump off the obsolete battleship onto something more nimble. Some call it Do-It-Yourself Health (there are both .org and .com sites devoted to the topic, among others). PwC declared it to be one of the top ten trends of 2015. Dave Chase believes that "DIY health reform is now leading the way for the highest performing reform" -- not Medicare, health insurers, not even employers...
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10 Things the Most Progressive Hospitals Do
It's been said that there are three types of people in the world: the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive. The same could be said for organizations, particularly in healthcare. There are hospitals that will cling to the ways of the past. There are also organizations that will settle as they are, resisting major change, surviving rather than excelling. Read More »
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Cardiologist Eric Topol on Why We Need to Map the Human Body and “Go Deep” with Big Data
This year’s Big Data in Biomedicine conference included a passionate talk from cardiologist Eric Topol, MD, of The Scripps Research Institute. Topol, who has been named one of the most influential physician leaders in the United States, described in gripping detail what’s wrong with medical care today and why we need to move forward to the kind of individualized medicine that can make for healthier individuals and healthier populations...
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Digital Health’s Dirty Little Secrets Revealed
Digital health is hot. Consider the evidence...
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DIY Health to the Rescue
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eHealth Exchange Expands Support for Disabled Veterans and Their Families
The eHealth Exchange, an initiative of The Sequoia Project, celebrates Veterans Day powering the launch of a Social Security Administration (SSA) and Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) health IT initiative to speed disability determinations for veterans by enabling all Social Security disability case processing sites to receive medical records electronically from all VA facilities. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense’s Military Health System (MHS) and the eHealth Exchange expanded cooperation to enable electronic health data sharing for more than 9.4 million active duty service members, veterans, retirees, and families served by the MHS...
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Five Major Drug Chains To Adopt Blue Button Prescription Standards
Five major national pharmacy chains with a total of more than 20,000 stores throughout the country have signed on to the Blue Button health information sharing initiative pioneered by the Veterans Affairs Department in 2010, the White House said in a blog post. Read More »
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Group of Electronic Health Record Vendors To Become Officially Interoperable
A group of electronic health record vendors that announced to much fanfare plans to facilitate the exchange of patient data more than a year ago, will start rolling out that facility to their customers this summer...CommonWell Health Alliance members, which include Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth and Greenway, have embedded within their software code that allows health care providers to find and share a patient’s medical information, wherever it might be...
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I'm OK -- You, Maybe Not So Much
It is widely agreed that competition, or lack thereof, in health care is a problem. The Wall Street Journal recently showed how Viagra and Cialis prices seem to move -- up, of course -- in lockstep. USA Today found Walgreens charging 1237% more than Costco, for the same drug. Economists like Martin Gaynor have been discussing problems with competition in health care for years. The Harvard Business Review just published a lengthy article on the problem. But, it turns out, we may be ignoring an important competition that has real impacts on our health: with each other...
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Pharmacies See Business Case For Blue Button
Following newly guaranteed patient access to their lab tests, the country’s largest pharmacies are promising to adopt a simple consumer health technology tool: the Blue Button personal health record. Read More »
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Rise of Drones for Medical Supply Delivery
This is not going to all be about getting your books, or your socks, or even your new HD television faster. It is going to impact many industries -- including health care. And that impact has already started to happen. Zipline International, for example, is already delivering medical supplies by drone in Rwanda. They deliver directly to isolated clinics despite any intervening "challenging terrain and gaps in infrastructure." They plan to limit themselves to medical supplies, but not only in developing countries; they see rural areas in the U.S. as potential opportunities as well. Last fall they raised $25 million in Series B funding. Drones are also being considered for medical supply delivery in Guyana, Haiti, and the Philippines...
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The Pathway to Patient Data Ownership and Better Health
Digital health data are rapidly expanding to include patient-reported outcomes, patient-generated health data, and social determinants of health. Measurements collected in clinical settings are being supplemented by data collected in daily life, such as data derived from wearable sensors and smartphone apps, and access to other data, such as genomic data, is rapidly increasing. One projection suggests that a billion individuals will have their whole genome sequenced in the next several years. These additional sources of data, whether patient-generated, genomic, or other, are critical for a comprehensive picture of an individual’s health...
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Using EHR, HIE To Share Vaccine Data Improves Public Health
EHRs are an effective tool in the fight against infectious diseases, according to a new study by researchers at the Columbia University School of Nursing. Automated immunization reporting using EHR data helped speed the collection of vaccine data and allowed public health agencies to assemble a clearer picture of at-risk populations. Read More »
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VA Secretary McDonald Outlines Steps For VA Transformation at Institute of Medicine Annual Meeting
As the Nation’s foremost advisory body in medicine and healthcare, you know that the Department of Veterans Affairs is in the midst of overcoming problems involving access to healthcare. We own them, and we’re fixing them. But I know you also know that VA has a legacy of excellence, innovation, cutting-edge research, and achievements in healthcare delivery that is as broad and historically significant as it is profound—and often unrecognized. There’s something else. Right now, VA has before it perhaps its greatest opportunity to enhance care for Veterans in its history. Read More »
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VA Teams With Walgreens On Vaccinations, Electronic Data Sharing
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday it has entered into an agreement with Walgreens — the nation’s largest retail drugstore chain — to provide vaccinations to veterans nationwide and said it will leverage the company’s cloud-based health record system to integrate vaccination records in real-time with VA...
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Verizon, WellPoint, CVS, Walgreens Ally With Former Senators To Push Telehealth Policy Reform
A cohort of big players in connected health is joining three former senators in pursuit of policy that supports broad use of telehealth and remote patient monitoring. Read More »
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