Archive for January, 2007

Low Adoption Rate for Payor-based PHRs

January 31, 2007

Forrester research reports that only 7% of consumers have used a PHR offered by their insuror. In a graphic on iHealthbeat about the report, the majority also report that they have not used their insurors website at all. “34% of respondents said they do not trust the security of computer programs and 29% said they do not believe there is a significant benefit to maintaining a PHR.” Forrester recommends that, “Health plan customer experience executives must address members’ privacy and security concerns as well as provide incentives to use well-designed tools to drive adoption.”

Assuring or even convincing consumers about the value and security of PHRs is essential for anyone providing one. Another factor may be that if your insurance company changes, you would lose this PHR. The solution needed to encourage adoption – the ability to integrate personal health data from all sources – providers, insurors, pharmacies, etc.

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Rate Your Cardiologist

January 30, 2007

Vimo.com is a relatively new Web 2.0 offering which is in the Consumer-directed healthcare space. Specifically, it gives pricing for medical procedures and allows users to rate physicians and hospitals.  For a heart month promotion (an to increase the number of ratings on the site), they are offering to donate $1 for each physician rating to the American Heart Association.  The amount of data pulled from various sources is impressive. Cost data by procedure including average price, negotiated price, whether the hospital is above or below the average. For physicians there are ratings but also integration with Google maps for location. Nice job overall.

My question is, what is the value of these ratings to consumers? Will consumers embrace this practice the way they have for consumer items? Or will these rating sites become places for complaints to be aired rather than the best physicians and hospitals to be spotlighted? The competition between rating sites (see for instance, Revolution Health) will be worth watching. Will there eventually be a site which aggregates comments from these rating sites?

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eHealth Conference in Montreal in May 2007

January 30, 2007

This conference, sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Health Information is currently accepting abstracts for presentations. Topics include EHR, Privacy, Security, Ethical & Legal Considerations, E-nabled Access, Human Factors, Innovation and Sustainability.

I have not seen many conferences which address EHRs also discuss the issue of sustainability.  Human factors, such as, usability, is also a plus.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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