Archive for 2006
Health Wonk Review
December 27, 2006
I am cited in the Review of December 14th on my recent post about a new business model for EHRs under the Technology Section.
Share this:
Web 2.0 invades Corporate Computing
December 27, 2006
An article from the Economist details both how universities and corporations are adopting Web 2.0 technologies and also dealing with unauthorized use of those technologies. One example is Arizona State University adopting Gmail accounts through Google Apps for your domain thereby giving students all the innovations which Google will include in the future (and offloading the problem of managing email servers). Browser-based services are going to be used by employees so the IT strategy should be to make them secure, not try to prevent them. Salesforce.com is also cited as a browser based tool which is upsetting the CRM market. “Big companies will probably keep “mission critical” systems in-house.
But as everything else migrates to web-based services, software will increasingly resemble the web technologies of the consumer market.”
The article does not address healthcare where HIPAA looms large and privacy concerns result in more conservative attitudes toward these “consumer technologies.”
Share this:Rate Your Doctor?
December 22, 2006
If you can rate books on Amazon and electronics on other ecommerce sites, why not rate your doctor? RateMD.com provides this ability. However, for many doctors there are only one or two rankings so it is based on limited experience. Each doctor is rated on punctuality, helpfulness and knowledge on a scale from 1-5 with room for comments and a smile or frown face. Total rankings to date is 66,000 with 300 per day.
This may be a useful tool for some and an alternative method of looking at quality. However, the only way to tell if a doctor improves is to look at all the comments for that doctor by date to see if there was a change or if the negative rating was a one-time occurance.
Share this:New insurance guidelines will promote portability and adoption of personal e-health records
December 15, 2006
This article from Information Week discusses the push by payors to get physicians to move off of paper-based records but also provide consumers with electronic PHRs. Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans state that they have “created a “health-plan based” personal health record model and portability
standards that will enable consumers to transfer their data when they change insurers.” Since claims information is not always standardized, the insurance companies will encourage consumers to add family medical history and other pertinent information. They admit that this is not substitute for interoperable e-medical record tools. Privacy concerns are still a barrier.
Also noted in the article is the fact that the Cleveland Clinic has 70,000 patients using their MyChart PHR.
Share this:Google Health – Adam Bosworth’s latest Speech
December 13, 2006
Adam Bosworth, VP of Google spoke at the recent Connecting Americans to Their Health Care conference. In his two posts on Google Blog, he discusses his thoughts on health care including a link to his speech. That speech is worth the read – it is both personal (his experience with his mother’s cancer) and technical, proposing the use of Google Coop for healthcare information but also a link to one’s consolidated personal health information from various sources. The concept is a health URL which each person would have as a personal portal. He states, “As Google has explored this issue over the past year and we have spoken to leading health providers and institutions from coast to coast, we have heard people say that it is too hard to build consistent standards and to define interoperable ways to move the information. It is not!”
It is great to hear his confidence and willingness to talk to health care leaders but also lead the way to interoperability.
Share this:New EHR Business Model
December 12, 2006
In a report from HealthcareIT News, titled, “Vendor to offer web-based EHRs to docs in exchange for data“, a company called Practice Fusion is announcing an new business model for community physicians. It is a hosted model for EHRs where the company will discount their services and then sell “de-identified data to insurance groups, clinical researchers and pharmaceutical companies.” Can this business model work? Small practices might welcome a lower cost solution, however, they and their patients might be concerned about whether the data is fully deidentified and their privacy protected. Will the host vendor be covered by HIPAA?
Share this:Questons Raised about Employer PHR Initiative
December 12, 2006
In iHealthbeat today, there are questions raised about the security and accuracy of integrating personal health records from different sources. The CEO of Omnimedix, said, “The personal data of the patient is only ever
centralized on the browser, so when the system turns off, it disappears.” “Patients can request that changes be made on incorrect information, but they cannot change or tamper with what is in the health record. However, patients can
choose to exclude certain medical details, such as a prescription or drunken-driving incident, from their PHR.” This raises questions about th accuracy of the data should the patient be brought to an ER and not be able to communicate, one of the key uses of a PHR. So providers want to know more about the Dossia initiative but will need to wait as the project is in its early stages.
Becauseit is largely employer driven, there may be questions about employer access to records which will need to be addressed.
Share this:Health e-Technologies Initiative Announces Articles on eHealth Research
December 8, 2006
Published in Evaluation and Programming Planning, these articles from grantees of Health e-Technologies Initiative, are important contributions to ehealth research. Topics include,
- An introduction to methodological challenges in the evaluation of eHealth research: Perspectives from the Health e-Technologies Initiative
- A framework for evaluating eHealth research
- Multidisciplinary eHealth survey evaluation methods
You can view them on the journal’s website.
Share this:Project Health Design Grants Announced
December 8, 2006
Project HealthDesign of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has announces its grants related to innovation in personal health records. The grantees are:
- University of Rochester, Personal Health Management Assistant
- Joslin Diabetes Center, Inc, Personal Health Application for Diabetes Self-Management
- University of Washington, Chronic Disease Medication Management Between Office Visits
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center, My-Medi-Health: A Vision for a Child-focused Personal Medication Management System
- University of Massachusetts Medical School, Supporting Patient and Provider Management of Chronic Pain with PDA Applications Linked to Personal Health Records
- Research Triangle Institute, ActivHealth: A PHR System for At-Risk Sedentary Adults
- Art Center College of Design, Living Profiles: Transmedia Personal Health Record Systems for Young Adults
- University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, Assisting Older Adults with Transitions of Care
All sound interesting and great contributions to the relatively new and growing PHR field. I look forward to the results of these efforts.
Share this:Americans Positive about EHRs/PHRs – Markle Survey
December 7, 2006
In a new survey released today by the Markle Foundation, reports that the “Survey shows that consumers view personal health records as an important element in reducing medical errors and increasing quality of care.” Yet 80% were concerned about privacy and the possible use of information by marketers. 75% see a role for government in protecting their privacy. The report on the survey will be presented at the Connecting Americans to Their Health Care conference in Washington, D.C. The conference includes a keynote address by Adam Bosworth of Google.
Share this: