Medical Wikis Proliferate
April 24, 2007
A posting on Clinical Cases and Images points to David Rothman’s list of Medical Wikis. I agree that there are enough to annotate and categorize. Not sure how since they are a wide variety – prehaps to distiguish at least general reference wikis from those which are specific to one disease.
Some of the wikis are oriented toward patients, such as, wikicancer. I am frustrated when I cannot easily find the sponsor of a wiki although I realize that there are many contributors, albiet relatively annonymous.
How long before there is a medical wiki aggregator, a master wiki?
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Curing the Trust Crisis in Health Care
April 20, 2007
Daniel A. Shore from the Harvard School of Public Health speaks on this topic at the Cato Institute tomorrow (4/20/2007). He has editted a new book on the topic as well, The Trust Crisis in Health Care. Here are some of the main points:
“- systemic conditions that lead to medical errors, and remedies for promoting quality of care.
- outdated modes of doctor-patient communication that hinder compliance.
- novel modes of interaction to improve satisfaction. – patient-centered care and metrics to evaluate its presence or absence.
- media communication and miscommunication, and new standards for medical reporting.
- clinical insights applied to the use of human subjects in biomedical research.
- recommendations for revising medical school curricula and strengthening the peer-review process in medical journals.
- practical strategies for decreasing the lingering discord between patients, providers, and health plans.”
While not directly related to Heath IT, the implications are there – EMRs and PHRs cannot succeed as long as their is an atmosphere of distrust between physician and patient.
Share this:Are PHRs Unprotected?
April 19, 2007
In Modern Health Care, Deborah Peel, founder of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, states that PHRs are “not protected by any laws and will be held in databases owned by corporations not subject to laws or medical ethics that guarantee privacy.” She opposes the concept of promoting PHRs as is done by the AHIMA and American Medical Informatics Association. Their joint statement states that consumers do have rights, although it should be noted that HIPAA only covers providers and payors. There is a lack of any overarching policy and consumers are not always aware of how their records might be secured or used unless they read site agreements carefully.
Share this:Blue Tooth Medical Wrist Watch
April 18, 2007
Microsoft’s Channel 10 has a short video on Exmocare which has produced this device which can monitor pulse and temperature and send it to a smart phone and then a server. It is also supposed to monitor emotions. Interesting concept for remote monitoring of chronic conditions.
A longer post explaining the device on The Health Care Blog.
Share this:Health care 2.0
April 17, 2007
This article in Government HealthIT is a cautious review of Web 2.0 in health care. Brian Robinson poses the question, “New Web tools promise to tear down barriers to health care information sharing, but will they pass the test for privacy and accuracy?” He notes from various sources that while Web 2.0 may have great potential in health care, practitioners and consumers a just getting their first taste of it. He quotes Eric Dishman from Intel that Web 2.0 as a concept may be unfamiliar but when you show someone what it can do, they get it.
He also quotes Anil Jain, MD, of the eCleveland Clinic eResearch initiative who sees opportunity to use RSS and other technologies to enable information about clinical trials to be more quickly distributed.
Google and wikis are noted as tools which are beginning to be used for diagnosis search and medical reference, respectively.
Overall the article is positive while noting privacy and security issues which are yet to be completely addressed.
Share this:Revolution Health Launch
April 16, 2007
A story in the NY Times today reports on the official launch of Revolution Health. Titled “AOL Founder Hopes to Build New Giant Among a Bevy of Health Care Web Sites”, the article details the competition, WebMD, NIH, MayoClinic and others who already have a large market share and appropriately wonders where this venture will end up. As a new brand, Revolution Health will need to establish itself over time but with unique offerings in terms of interactive features (rating articles, providers, hospitals), personal blogs and comments, it may easily gain traction. The article notes that, “Google is also reportedly at work on various links to consumer health information that users will be able to personalize to their own specifications.” But indicates that Steve Case’s response is unimpressed, “not particularly helpful.”
The report quotes a Gartner analyst about the insignificant market for Personal Health records and predicting that the PHR within Revolution Health will have little affect on its success.
My perspective is that this skepticism about PHRs is overstated and the technology will begin to reach a tipping point in the next year.
Share this:Wikinomics
April 14, 2007
I am about half way through this book and came across the website as well which includes an active blog. With the provocative subtitle, “how mass collaboration changes everything”, you know you are in for some wild claims. But in many cases, the claims are backup up by observations of how companies are inviting consumers and others to contribute to innovation within their businesses. No examples from health care yet, but one can see how consumer suggestions on how to improve care or especially patient safety might provide important contributions.
More thoughts to come.
Cigna: Free eVisits for Seniors
April 13, 2007
In an article from the Phoenix Business Journal, Cigna Medical Group is offering “online health care services, including e-visits at a nominal charge, to its non-Medicare patients. Now all CMG patients can use RelayHealth to schedule or cancel appointments, refill prescriptions, request lab results, send a note to their doctor’s office, request a referral, and manage their personal health records online.”
This is a significant expansion of a service that is rarely offered but needs to be expanded by insurors as an incentive to physicians and patients. In the long run, it will reduce physician work time and costs.
Share this:Investor’s Daily on eHealth
April 13, 2007
It’s not often an investor’s publication covers EMRs and PHRs. In today’s issue, the authors say that futurists “see the day when emergency room staff can get online to quickly learn that an accident victim is a diabetic or has a pacemaker, or to find what drug allergies his family doctor has listed.” The Stark Law as a barrier is cited as it was discussed at the National Governors’ Association in March.
Share this:Best Presentation on Privacy and Security for PHRs
April 12, 2007
Just posted by HIMSS Weekly Insider is a powerpoint by Lisa A. Gallagher, BSEE, CISM, HIMSS director of Privacy and Security, titled Privacy and Security Issues for PHRs. She presented this to a HIMSS task force I serve on and I consider it one of the most thorough treatments of this important issue I have seen. An important point is that HIPAA only applies to PHRs for “covered entities” like providers and health plans. It does not cover PHRs which are developed by employers or private health care websites. She outlines patient concerns including transmission of data through data exchanges, data mining, correcting errors, etc. What is the issue? “It is about who accesses, who owns, and who controls the information stored in a PHR, and how that information might be used.”
Definitely read this powerpoint. I hope it will become a white paper or journal article soon so it can be cited appropriately.
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