Telephone vs. Web Interaction in Improving Health Outcomes
May 8, 2007
Government Health IT blog points to an article in the Journal of Managed Care which concluded that: “diabetic patients were much more likely to adhere to suggested testing procedures when someone got on the phone and prodded them compared to people who didn’t get this kind of contact.” He concludes: “The challenge for the crop of new Web 2.0 technologies is not in carving out new ways of providing healthcare, at least not yet. It’s finding a way to be relevant in the current hierarchy of healthcare delivery.” Fortunately, there are some studies from groups like CHESS at the University of Wisconsin showing similar results for web interactions.
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Medical Wikis – a followup
May 5, 2007
Some helpful comments on yesterday’s post point to additional Wiki initiatives and discussion:
- WHO adopts Wikipedia approach for key update – a update of the ICD codes will utilize a wiki
- The British Medical Journal article from last year on Web 2.0 has a wealth of Rapid Responses which link to many more emerging Web 2.0 resources including Wikisurgery.com and JournalReview.org
Medical Wikis reviewed in AMA News
May 4, 2007
AskDrWiki and other medical wikis are discussed in AMA News this week. Generally positive, the article cautions, “As more medical wikis launch, experts say the creators will need to break away from the traditional wiki model to ensure that the information accessed is accurate. That is what many medical wikis are doing, which makes adding content slower but allows time for fact-checking.”
On a related note, I recently came across this hospital CEO blog from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, titled Running a Hospital which provides a unique, day-to-day perspective on just that.
Share this:Kaiser Survey on Health Records
May 3, 2007
According to a study released today at a Kaiser Healthcare Summit in DC, while most of the survey respondents stated that their provider uses electronic records, and that they are more efficient, the were slightly more trusting of papers records by 47 to 42%. 46% had visited a health information website, and were slightly more interested in these type of sites as opposed to insuror websites. 51% said they would prefer a doctor who uses an EMR all other qualifications being equal. 73% thought that the benefits of EMRs outweighed the risks.
Overall, these results are encouraging, but they still show a low level of familiarity with EMRs.
Share this:eVisits on CBS News
May 2, 2007
Dr. Kellerman of the American Academy of Family Physicians was on CBS TV this morning discussing the pros and cons of evisits. In the video he discusses doing this in the context of an existing relationship with a physician and not with someone who you do not know and does not know you. He sees value in the future prospects for evisits but cautioned that they not be used for urgent or emergent uses. It is helpful for this information to reach the general public as it will inevitably come in the near future perhaps as a feature of teathered PHRs.
Share this:Quicken Health offered to Cigna Members
May 1, 2007
The San Jose Business Journal reports that Cigna will offer their members Quicken Health from Intuit at no charge. Similar to the personal finance version of Quicken, it allows the member to download claims information and organize medical expenses. Quicken already has their Medical Expense Manager in version 2.0 but the website indicates that Quicken Health is coming soon. Oriented toward Health Savings Account customers, the product will also allow downloading and organizing of medical records. Will this mean some kind of connection to the major EHR/PHR vendors? Quicken Health will also be offered by United Healthcare and others.
Share this:More on Google Health from Neil Versel
April 30, 2007
Neil starts off with an imaginative title, “Google then Gargle: American’s Sorry Performance on Personal Health Records could soon change. ” He reports on the slow adoption rate of PHRs but then cites the speculation that Google will soon get in the game. Adam Bosworth is appearing on more national stages talking about his passion for the Health URL (Neil refers us to Medcommons, a Web 2.0 PHR which is already doing this). He goes on to talk about Dossia which will aggregate claims and provider data plus have the ability to allow the patient to enter their own data. This model seems to be the most robust to gather the largest percentage of one’s scatter medical data. Will Google move in and provide a similar tool and beat Dossia and others to rolling out a real product? Could be since Google’s approach to everything being beta.
There is also an interview with Eric Schmidt on more general Google plans in the current issue of Wired magazine.
Share this:Google Health – Adam Bosworth at World Health Care Congress
April 28, 2007
In a report from the Congress held this week, Adam Bosworth of Google, talked about the rights patients should have and gave more hints about what Google Health might look like. Particularly, he noted having the power of privacy, to decide who would see what in one’s health records. He also noted “Google wants to include in their PHR transaction data between physicians and health plans, physicians and PBMs, labs and physicians and so on. They are not planning to rely on feeds from physician EHRs to do this.”
More hints, no announcements yet.
Share this:One Frustrated Governor
April 27, 2007
According to Digital Healthcare and Productivity, Tennessee Gov. Bredesen is frustrated with the lack of progress in healthcare IT. He is concerned that without establishing some basic standards, that the field will “flop around.” He sees real value in electronic prescribing because the technology is there, it just needs to be implemented to reap the potential value in terms of safety and efficiency. He spoke at the World Health Care Congress where another speaker echoed his sentiments expressed at HIMSS’07 – keep it simple and implement what you can first. Don’t get entangled in the multiple standards which are out there.
Quite a line-up at the congress including Dr. Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic.
Share this:Health 2.0 Conference
April 26, 2007
Does a trend become a reality when there is a conference on it? If so, Health 2.0 is now offical. A conference is being planned by Matthew Holt in San Francisco in September, subtitled, “User-generated Healthcare.” Not much information yet, but a solid advisory board is working on it and there is a growing list of featured companies and organizations. Will watch this as it develops.
Health 2.0 is now a tag on Technorati and del.icio.us
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