In its list of chosen organizations (DOC), HHS noted that the groups were selected for their “significant experience” in offering coordinated, patient-centered care and operating in ACO-like arrangements. The groups participated in an open, competitive process in which HHS received 160 letters of intent and 80 applications.
According to HHS, the chosen Pioneer ACOs represent 18 states and could improve care for about 860,000 Medicare beneficiaries. The first performance period will begin Jan. 1, 2012.
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Chad Johnson shared this post on Facebook page. (December 19, 2011 3:39 PM) |
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Chad Johnson shared this post on Twitter. (December 19, 2011 3:39 PM) |
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New post from Angela Dunn: Doctors, healthcare professionals, and patients from around the world will convene in Paris, May 23-24, 2012, for the second annual Doctors 2.0 and You Conference whose focus is Web 2.0, social media and mobile apps for healthcare. 
The Atlantic: Ronald Coase's example of farmers and ranchers shows that the insurance mandate is about responsibility, not liberty. Framing the issue in terms of individual liberty is deeply misleading. When the uninsured get sick and go to the emergency room for care they cannot afford, someone has to pay the costs. If the law gives the uninsured the right not to buy health insurance, then the costs for their emergency care are imposed on the insured, whose payments must cover the hospital's costs. If the law instead requires the uninsured to buy health insurance, they become personally responsible for the cost of the care they receive. Otis Brawley, M.D., chief medical and scientific officer, American Cancer Society, was the keynote speaker at Health Journalism 2012, the annual conference o... 
In The Cost of Hope, Amanda Bennett weaves a memoir of a volatile but loving marriage with the tale of a journey through the cancer-treatment system. "The Cost of Hope" raises more questions than it answers about the inner workings of insurance and hospital charges. But it illuminates the conundrum Americans face over the high cost of care—the fact that we will do almost anything to keep our loved ones alive because we can't bear to let them go. 
Government Health IT: President Obama's IT budget for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) totals $7.1 billion for fiscal year 2013, marking a 3 percent increase from FY12. The IT budget request covers a variety of business functions and plays a pivotal role in supporting the Department’s overall mission to protect the health of all Americans and provide essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves. View the article at the link for the highlights. EHRintelligence.com: In a speech last week at the George Washington University Hospital (Washington, DC), Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski addressed what his organization was doing to spur innovation in connectivity, particularly in healthare. For health IT innovation to connect providers and patients in all parts of the U.S., the FCC is looking to provision a spectrum dedicated the medical communication, the Medical Body Area Network (MBAN). Via MBAN, medical devices that monitor the condition of patients and provide real-time data for many more individuals can help “doctors and nurses to identify life-threatening problems or events before they occur.” And the potential savings of proactive monitoring are significant. “Avoiding expenses from moving patients from rehabilitation clinics and nursing homes to emergency departments and physician offices, or from one emergency department to another, could result in $1.2 billion in annual savings,” noted Genachowski. taking healthpersonally personalization as a consumer health trend Rock Report May 2012... 
Apologies for including that ridiculous clip art... on to the article: HealthImaging: Understanding end users' perspectives towards health information exchange (HIE) technology is crucial to the long-term success of HIE, according to researchers from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn., who developed an in-depth understanding of HIE usage by applying qualitative methods. Data were collected using direct observation, informal interviews during observation and formal semi-structured interviews. During 121 hours of ED observation, the researchers observed 91 instances of exchange use and six instances of alternative HIE system use. During 66 hours of observation in the ambulatory environment, they observed 39 instances of exchange use and 12 instances of alternative HIE system use (including external EMR systems, the Tennessee web immunization service and the Tennessee controlled substance monitoring database). The total amount of observation time in individual ED ranged from seven to 38 hours and from four to 13 hours at ambulatory clinic sites. In an attempt to keep government accountable for its actions, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made available a web-based tool for the public to monitor and measure how the healthcare system performs. The Health System Measurement Project will seek to allow policymakers, providers and the public to develop consistent data-driven views of changes in critical U.S. health system indicators bringing together data sets from across the federal government that span topical areas, such as access to care, cost and affordability, prevention and health IT, HHS stated in a release. The tool presents indicators by population characteristics, such as age, sex, income level, insurance coverage and geography. Click on the link to access the Health System Measurement Project. 
In her latest post on gamification in healthcare, Jennifer Thew discusses how people, not just dogs, can be trained to give a conditioned response. "Chocolate is also the way to get nurses to use HIT. At least it worked pretty well when I was working at the bedside. When we converted from a manual medication cart to the electronic Pyxis system, the pharmacists loaded the machine with different types of chocolate to motivate the RN staff to practice using it before it went live. It was genius as well as delicious and fun. And it worked. When the Pyxis went live, we were all comfortable with the machine, though perhaps a little sad that it gave out Tylenol and not Snickers. "The reason it worked was pretty Pavlovian (ring bell, get food; open drawer, get chocolate). We were being rewarded for a desired behavior. The fact that people, not just dogs, can be trained to give a conditioned response is the concept behind the trend known as gamification." 
Healthcare Informatics Magazine: The American Medical Association (AMA) has sent a letter to the acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Marilyn B. Tavenner, asking for a longer delay time period to the ICD-10 transition compliance date. While AMA says it welcomes the proposed extension in the compliance deadline for ICD-10 from Oct. 1, 2013 to Oct. 1, 2014, it urgesCMS to further extend the ICD-10 deadline at a minimum to Oct. 1, 2015. 
HealthLeaders Media: A plastic surgeon pursues litigation against a patient who anonymously complained on an Internet discussion site about a medical procedure. 
By Jon Mertz HITECH. Meaningful Use. HIE. IHE. Many words and acronyms, but there is one often overlooked — Health Level Seven or HL7. The key points to remember are:
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Insurers, hospitals and doctors say they are forming partnerships and creating programs to find ways to slow the growth in the nation’s $2.7 trillion health care bill. 
The Washington Post: It is projected that there will be more than 10 billion mobile devices in use around the world by 2016, and a new report from Brookings Institution’s Darrell West outlines just how powerful mobile devices could be in the battle to bring down health care costs while simultaneously improving and expanding care. The report, published Tuesday and titled “How Mobile Devices are Transforming Healthcare,” outlines some of the latest findings in the mobile health, or “mHealth,” market, including improvements to remote monitoring technologies, which Brookings’ Robert Litan projects could save as much as $197 billion over the next 25 years in the U.S. alone. Government Health IT: Oregon healthcare providers can now register for Direct secure messaging services through CareAccord, the state’s health information exchange. Direct is the first set of exchange services to become available to Oregon providers with more underway. 
Just how broken is the United States health care system? Dr. Otis Brawley, CMO for the American Cancer Society answers a Q&A about his intriguing new book. Excerpt: Q: What prompted you to write this book? A. I started looking at my career, listening to the discussions going on about health care reform and health care costs being exorbitant. A lot of people didn’t seem to realize that in a lot of the discussion, we’re talking about human beings who are suffering because of lack of health care, and sometimes we’re suffering because of overuse of health. People are so focused on fears about rationing of health care. The talk should not be about rationing health care but about rational health care. So much of what we do in health care is irrational. 
Forbes: You want a vision for the future of health care? Don’t look to policymakers and regulators. Look to innovators and innovations. Look to San Diego’s wireless mesas and San Francisco’s silicon valleys. Look at Scanadu’s protean medical Tricorder. They get it, and it’s awesome. 
WTOP, adding to the security fear: Pacemakers, brain implants, insulin pumps and other medically implanted and external devices with wireless interfaces are vulnerable to cyber-attacks by hackers. 
Healthcare Payer News: Leading financial analysts scoffed at the notion of a healthcare IT “bubble” that could slow the pace of mergers and acquisitions this year. Speaking on a panel called “Financing The Deal” at the Nashville Health Care Council, they predicted that 2012 M&A activity would be brisk, though not superheated. Panelists were reluctant to make long-range forecasts. “Five years ago, who would have predicted that you’d have payers acquiring HIEs?” said Jahns. “But that’s exactly what’s happening now.” The panel members agreed that one long-term trend is rock-solid: a lot of money will continue to flow through America’s healthcare system – enough money to allay dealmakers’ concerns about declining state and federal reimbursements. 
The Boston Globe: What is the government’s role in developing new technology? Some would say to stay out of the way. Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the national coordinator for health information technology, said that’s overly cynical. But, Mostashari said in an interview, government is no longer the major producer of innovative products and services that it once was, creating things for military purposes or space exploration that work their way into the consumer market. Visit the link to view his 5 things that govt can do to improve Health IT. 
American Medical News: The study that examined ED use found savings came from fewer hospital admissions. Experts say benefits found in HIE can extend to primary care practices. The May issue of the Journal of the American Medical Information Association includes a study of the members of the MidSouth eHealth Alliance in Memphis. During a 13-month period in which emergency physicians were given access to patient information through a health information exchange, there were reduced admissions and costs associated with cases for which the HIE was accessed. In today’s connected healthcare environment, an interface engine should enable faster deployment cycle times of high quality interfaces. Happtique, a mobile health app store aimed at healthcare professionals, will launch a trial of mRx, which it touts as the first program to enable physicians to prescribe mHealth apps to patients. Happtique officials say more physician-to-patient services will improve compliance and health outcomes, and that Happtique's patent-pending technology will help physicians in all specialties to prescribe apps to patients. 
While some $560 million in federal health information exchange funding may soon run dry, changing reimbursement models mean market-driven growth will continue, says a new report on HIEs from Chilmark Research. Be they public networks or enterprise set-ups, most HIEs nowadays exchange fairly simple data sets, such as lab results and patient summaries – falling far short, researchers say, of the vision of an integrated record that can facilitate care as patients move between care providers and settings. Until EHR vendors incorporate a shared set of standards, HIEs will remain in a state of stunted development, said Moore: "Across the board, legacy systems fail to support true interoperability, and vendors are doing little to remedy this situation." |
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