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Patient Adherence/Self-Management

“The Top Ten Things You Need To Know About Engaging Patients”…and the Why

Hi all, my name is Howard Rosen (Founder & CEO of LifeWIRE Corp), co-author of the recently published white paper report entitled “Top Ten Things You Need To Know About Engaging Patients.” You can access a copy here through the Institute for Health Technology Transformation (scroll down to “Whitepapers”.)

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 88% of American adults with Internet access research health information online and 60% say Internet info influenced a decision about how […]

Will Mobile/Wireless Apps Be the Breakthrough for Retail eHealth & Remote Monitoring?

Two slides from Mary Meeker’s presentation at Web 2.0 this week really caught my attention.

Compare the proportions that “users pay” for desktop Internet services vs. mobile Internet services (the area inside the red lines — click on the graphics to see larger versions).

 

What do these slides tell us?

Geek Wisdom: “Interoperability” Must Include Process Collaboration

I know — you’re thinking that using “geek” and “wisdom” in the same sentence is an oxymoron. Bear with me — I’m trying to make a really important point in today’s posting.

Interoperability has multiple dimensions — and I’d bet that most of us have never thought of interoperabilty as involving “process” — people working together and collaborating; I know I hadn’t.

The Interoperability Work Group of HL7’s Electronic Health Record (EHR) Technical Committee was formed in April 2005 to attempt to define […]

How Much Health-Related Productivity Loss is Really Avoidable? And Why Should I Care??

by John E. Riedel

Study breaks new ground in calculating the "normal impairment factor."

We know that poor health accounts for a considerable amount of productivity loss-anywhere from 1 ½ to 3 times direct medical costs.  The potential for disease prevention and disease management programs to reduce productivity loss has, for obvious reasons, caught the attention of healthcare purchasers.  But let’s be careful about making big claims to "recapture" productivity loss.  People find it tough to change health behaviors.  And, […]

Book Review: Good Health is Good Business

My colleague Dr. Dave Rearick asked me to review his recent book, Good Health is Good Business.  I’m pleased to recommend it enthusiastically.

While the book is targeted at small to medium size employers, the lessons go far beyond this audience.

By the end of the 3rd chapter, Dr. Rearick had convinced me of two conclusions that I’d describe as indisputable, but uncomfortable:

The only way employers are going to control their health care costs is to influence the health of their workforce.
You (the employer) need […]

The PowerPoint — DM Megatrends 2008

Last week I did the major annual tune-up of my presentation on Disease Management Megatrends for the MCOL Future Care Web Summit. 

I’m pleased to share a copy of the PowerPoint presentation with you, and I hope you find it useful and provocative.  You can view and/or download a copy here (6MB).  This version contains 77 slides, which would be about the length I’d use for a 3 hour workshop; you’d see a more compact version for a conference keynote, Board summary, or management […]

Podcast: The 20 Minute Version of “DM Megatrends”

Over the past week I’ve been doing a major tune-up of my presentation on Disease Management Megatrends for the annual MCOL Future Care Web Summit. 

More typically, DM Megatrends is 45–90 minute presentation with accompanying PowerPoint slides.

As part of the Web Summit, the good folks at MCOL asked me to do a short podcast on highlights of this presentation. They’re allowing me to share it with you… click here to save or listen to the podcast.

fyi, the DM Megatrends are:

MAGNITUDE: We are just scratching the […]

Guaranteed Weight Loss :) The Cell Phone Diet

From Christine Chen at the Foreign Policy Blog:

…a group of public health insurance officials in Osaka are trying a new way of combat in the battle of the bulge. Dieters can use their cell phones to take photos of meals they’re about to eat, and then send the photos to a health expert who can then evaluate the meal for calorie count and nutrition.

The only drawback is that it can take three days for the results to get back.

Cut Co-Pays for Prescription Drugs to Zero? Are You Crazy? No, and Here’s Why.

The tagline to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal [subscription required] reads: Employers, Insurers Bet That Covering More of the Cost of Drugs Can Save Money Over the Long Term for Chronic Conditions

Desperate for ways to curb soaring health-care costs, a groundswell of employers and health insurers are turning to a radically different approach: motivate patients to take not just the cheapest medicines, but the ones they need the most….

Behind the about-face is mounting evidence that higher copayments may […]