Consumer Directed Health Care Conference – April 2007
January 29, 2007
CDHCC has posted information about their Spring 2007 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. There are 7 tracks: medical wellness, achieving a healthy company, convenient care, healthcare blogging, banking strategies, small to midsize employers, consumer health world venture forum. In the blogging track, chaired by Dmitriy Kruglyak, The Medical Blog Network/Trusted.MD, some familiar names will be presenting: Matthew Holt of The Healthcare Blog, Tom Eng of Healia search, and Ves Dimov from Clinical Cases blog. Consumer Health World also has a blog with a variety of contributors.
Looks like a fascinating list of cutting edge topics and speakers.
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HIMSS 2007 Activities
January 27, 2007
HIMSS 2007 is coming up in a month. I have three main activities there:
- an eSession on Web 2.0: Beyond Open Source – As an emerging technology, Web 2.0, which includes blogs, podcasts and other tools, has the advantage of ease of implementation and ease of use. Sound implementation strategies will be discussed. (with Jack Mason of IBM HealthNex)
- a Roundtable – Online Patient Interaction: The Growing Use of Patient Portals – This roundtable discussion session will focus on the features and functions of the growing number of patient-centered portals offered by
healthcare provider and payor organizations. With Deborah Kohn of Dak Systems Consulting - the eHealth Special Interest Group which I chair
Looks like it will be an interesting time especially in the city rising from the ashes.
Share this:New Online Appointment Service
January 26, 2007
DoctorsDirect.com is a new service available in just a few cities but offers a convience service for making appointments online. ” DoctorsDirect.com (www.doctorsdirect.com) is a new online marketplace for medical services and physician information that improves access to care by facilitating a faster, easier and more satisfying experience for all.” Cities currently covered are LA, San Francisco, Philly, New York and Boston. For some specialist, the initial consultation has a specific price tag, such as, LA cardiologists at $265 – $320. It also indicates if the doctor does not have any available appointments to choose from but you can request an appointment.
To me this looks like a beta launch because of the limited number of physicians using the service and the fact that some features are not yet enabled. I wonder about its potential success since it is a limited service offering. Might be more successful if it was part of a more comprehensive patient portal like RevolutionHealth.
Share this:Blue Cross in PA to Offer PHR on Cell Phones
January 25, 2007
In an story from InfomationWeek, Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania plans to offer a PHR on cell phones to its 600,000 members. The informaiton will come from claims data and includes “recent diagnoses, prescribed medications, allergies, and immunization history.” It will also be accessible from PDAs and PCs. “
To ensure the secure wireless access to that data, BCNEPA has licensed Diversinet Corp.’s MobiSecure Wallet and Vault soft token, wireless authentication products.”
But how familiar are users with mobile security and how much do they trust it? The potential advantages I see include its portability (in case of an ER visit) and the ability to deliver health reminders.
Share this:PHRs Sprotting Up Everywhere
January 24, 2007
WebMD is not only previewing their new website design here, but are also promoting a PHR called Personal Health Manager. This offering includes a variety of health management tools and benefits management, however, the preview site lacks a tour of features. It does attempt to provide some reassurance about privacy. There is also an interesting announcement which says “COMING SOON! Sign-in for employees and health plan members using Personal Health Manager powered by WebMD.” So it appears they have been marketing this to employers and health plans.
The other big announcement is Revolution Health, which received coverage in the Wall Street Journal. This Web 2.0 tool (rumored to be written with Rudy on Rails), already has the beginnings of social networking with 45,000 messages posted and more that that for ratings. It also features the ability to manage healthcare expenses, a much need service for consumers. It also include vetted content from Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic among others.
Share this:Virtual Visit to the Doctor
January 23, 2007
On the radio program Marketplace Money this weekend, a story on personal health records, eprescribing and other ehealth topics aired. It’s good to see PHRs and ehealth beginning to seep into the media, even if it is only NPR so far. The story (available in audio only), gave an odd example of a patient in the Boston area who actually avoids going to the doctor and gets his cholesterol-lowering drugs refilled apparently without even a blood test. Patient Site was the example given; the story could have looked more broadly at PHRs or give a more typical example of the use of communication with a provider in combination with office visits.
Share this:Free ePrescribing
January 22, 2007
A new national initiative has a bold goal: “FREE electronic prescribing…for every physician in America”. The National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI) is offering this service with a list of impressive corporate members. Based on AllScripts, the initiative has major medical groups as partners as well. One major limitation is implementing eRX in the absence of an EMR or RHIOs which means more double documentation for physicians already using EMRs or paper records. While eRX has the potential for reducing errors, this double record keeping could add some risk. On the pro side of this initiative is the alerts and the elimination of dependency on paper scripts which can be prone to errors and often require phone calls from the pharmacist to the physician for clarification.
This will be an interesting trend to watch.
Share this:Two PHR Offerings
January 20, 2007
Medic Alert announced that it will give free PHRs to families of deployed military service personnel. The project includes “a free MedicAlert membership that, includes a PHR maintained in a secure database, personalized stainless steel bracelet, pendant, or dog-tag, emergency member wallet card, and 24-hour emergency response and family notification services.” Medic Alert offers both online and thumb-drive PHRs. This is a generous offer and to be commended. Hopefully, there will be more information on their website soon.
The second story involves myNDMA.com, National Digital Medical Archive’s (NDMA) Citizens Health Portal, which was featured on NBC Nightly News. Why should this product be featured in a broad field of new products? It does have at least two unique features – the ability to store medical images (not sure how easy it is for patients to obtain these digitally from their provider or hospital) and the ability to have records faxed from the web application to a doctor or hospital. In addition, they offer a community forum for “for consumers to have a voice in the direction of personal health records.” It will be interesting to see if this concept of a forum gains traction.
Share this:AMIA 2006 follow up
January 18, 2007
Photo with Enoch Choi and myself at AMIA 2006 in Washington, DC, in November and his poster on KatrinaHealth.org.
Also, photo of a poster on Academic Podcasting.
Share this:Palo Alto Medical Foundation blog
January 17, 2007
PAMF is a medical institution in bordered by Stanford University and Silicon Valley so it is no surprise that they are on the cutting edge of Web 2.0. The institution’s blog includes postings about once a week with a combination of health information (How often should I visit my doctor?) and institution news. It uses Google’s blogger and has a link to their Google Coop subscription page. There are also links to PAMF podcasts and Urgent Care wait time, the most interesting use of a blog for health care. I have two friends who work there, Enoch Choi, a physician in Urgent Care and Haya R. Rubin, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Research Institute and formerly of Cleveland, Ohio.
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