Posts Tagged ‘eHealth’
Report on Two Conferences by Bill Crounse, MD, of Microsoft
May 12, 2008
In a recent post on the HealthBlog, Bill Crounse reports on the eHealth Canada conference and the Consumer Health conference providing an interesting contrast and comparisons. Both emphasized the consumerism movement in healthcare as is it exhibited through the Internet and new devices. At home medical testing and medical tourism are both parts of this growing trend.
- The National Conference On Health Care Consumerism (NCHCC)
The convergence of the Consumer Directed Health Care Conference and the National Wellness, Prevention and Fitness Conference - e-Health 2008: Extending the Reach
It would be helpful if these conferences provide post-conference slides and podcasts but none have been posted yet.
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Open Source for eHealth
April 11, 2008
Open Health Tools is a relatively new site which is sponsoring projects related to health care. There are so far a small number of projects uploaded to their project list. They also have a collaboration area called OpenCollabnet.
A related initiative is Open eHealth described as “Open Source for Electronic Health – Open eHealth Foundation to Provide Solid Basis for Interoperability.” This group appears to be more focused on interoperability including SOA and has some important partners include Sun Microsystems. They note that, “The healthcare oriented components will initially include services for patient consent management, virtual patient records, patient information management and services for a standardized users, roles and relations management.” This is obviously in its early stages which may mean it is advantageous to join.
Open source has strong possibilities in health care if it can gain the trust of major players over proprietary systems. It will be important to see how IBM with its open source emphasis will work in this space.
Share this:eHealth Marketing by the CDC
April 9, 2008
Who would expect that the CDC would get into marketing. They actually have a whole website devoted to this with email updates and data briefs on a range of topics including social networking and texting. Disease monitoring and education has gone Web 2.0.
Also, listen to the podcast about this concept on iHealthbeat.
Share this:State Survey on eHealth
April 8, 2008
A new report on 2007 eHealth activities by state has been released by the National Governor’s Association and the Commonwealth Fund. Some of the findings include:
- All states now place a high priority on e-health activities
- priorities over the next two years were the development of electronic HIEs
- State HIT initiatives span a broad range of activities including telehealth and eprescribing
- E-health applications are enabling states to implement quality and transparency initiatives
- Privacy and security remain key concerns
- States have formed public-private consortiums to develop standardized measures of utilization and performance
- Public health has extensive experience operating registries, which will be foundational to other e-health activities
The report includes a 84-page PDF of the complete report as well as chart packs in PDF and PPT formats. I agree with the conclusions that it is hoped that this report will stimulate ideas for advancing eHealth initiatives within and between states.
Share this:The Power of Patient Stories
March 28, 2008
Two examples of the power of patient stories came across my email and feeds. A government website, the Utah Department of Health, is sponsoring the Story Bank. They are very transparent about their reason for soliciting health stories,
- To meet the request from reporters working on health-related stories who need real people to interview.
- To show the Utah Legislature the importance of health as they prepare Utah’s state budget.
- among others.
Another is a personal blog by a cancer survivor aptly titled, I’m Too Young for This by Matthew Zachary. I love the subtitle: Stupid Cancer, Survivors Rule. With topics like “the sticker shock of chemotherapy” and “The other face of cancer” about the Young Survivors group, this one is worth checking out.
Share this:Report from HIMSS – Consumer Health
February 28, 2008
It has been a busy week in Orlando. The 24,000 attendees have packed sessions and the exhibit hall. More attention is being paid to consumer health issues particularly through keynote speakers like Steve Case from Revolution Health and Eric Schmidt of Google. Google and Carepages among others are exhibiting. The PHR Committee has a significant presence with several sessions focusing on PHRs. What is missing is content on Health/Web 2.0. There was a session on open source in radiology but not much else. My hope is that a Special Interest Group on Open Source and Web 2.0 be established in the future.
The acknowledgment of the importance of empowering consumers is a significant move for HIMSS which does not directly serve consumers.
Share this:Microsoft, Google and Revolution Health – Transforming Health Care?
February 23, 2008
In a post by Bill Crounse of Microsoft, he takes an open attitude about the Google Health announcement this week by presenting a “more the merrier” outlook. “Transforming healthcare is an incredibly complex challenge – one which no single organization can solve alone.” Microsoft’s HealthVault, Google’s new PHR aggregator and Revolution Health’s tool set for health care all contribute to what indeed may be a revolution. In two weeks, the second Health 2.0 conference will occur – another opportunity to add to the online tools consumers are coming to expect in health care as they have in many other industries already.
Next question – will you be able to use all 3 sites to manage your health without going to each separately? Or do you have to choose one to manage your health?
Share this:Information Therapy Conference
February 15, 2008
Coming up in June, the annual conference of the Center for Information Therapy will be held in Washington, DC. Titled “Wired: Next Generation Patient Care”, the conference will include tracks on health disparities and patient-centered medical home.
The Center has a website section on Information Therapy for Consumers which is worth checking out.
Share this:Some Virtual Visits Covered
February 13, 2008
In a story from the LA Times, coverage by Cigna and Aetna is described for some online visits. Particularly focused on minor problems and follow ups with existing patients, more routine office visits are moving online. Kaiser with more incentive to move to virtual visits, is even using web cams for a more personal touch. Most visits are more structure than regular email.
This is encouraging news – let’s hope other payers will follow suit.
Share this:New Clinical Trials Website
February 12, 2008
Once ehealth tool that can be neglected is consumer-friendly clinical trials search. One only needs to know someone with cancer or other life-threatening illness to understand their importance. ClinicalTrials.gov sets the standard nationally and includes tools for customizing it’s search for a specific Institution. Stanford Medical Center has just launched a new clinical trials search which includes a keyword search but also helpful tabs Adults by condition, Pediatric or by Department. The result clearly show who is running the trial and whether it is open. One improvement would be to show only open trials or allow the search to be focused by trials for which enrollment is open. Each trial includes the locations and contacts. A helpful disclaimer is at the bottom of each page, “Study Coordinators and Research Nurses cannot give medical advice over the phone.” and then referring patients to a referral line for other problems.
Overall, this is a good model for others to emulate – it looks like they did their home work with focus groups.
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