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disease management

hotspotting

Hotspotting, Superutilizers, and Avoiding “RTM Traps”

Be wary of falling into an RTM Trap when working with superutilizers. RTM can be especially pronounced in this group of patients.

abbas

Data from Connected Medical Devices: 5 Benefits

Why Healthcare Needs the Internet of Things

Guest Post by Abbas Dhilawala, Chief Technology Officer, Galen Data 

The IoT consists of smart objects or devices with cloud connectivity capabilities — devices that can perform a function, collect data and transmit that data to a network where it can be used by humans to accomplish a goal. IoT devices are appearing everywhere in society, from the industrial supply chain to automated cars, but one of the most important applications for the IoT […]

Complimentary Webinar — An Impending Marriage: Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Care Management Software

Webinar Title: An Impending Marriage: Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and Care Management Software

The presentation will be geared at practicing clinical case managers in health plans, hospitals, disease management companies, and similar organizations:

Describe market forces driving integration of EHRs and care management software. 
Review care management software survey data and stimulus funding for EHR adoption. 
Describe a 3 stage framework for the evolution of EHRs and care management software. 
Characterize benefits to patients and impacts on care manager responsibilities.

The event is sponsored by HealthSciences Institute […]

MGH Medicare Disease/Care Management Demo Shows Home Run Results!

Medicare has (finally) recently released a report showing home run results for a disease/care management demonstration project!

Evaluation of Medicare Care Management for High Cost Beneficiaries (CMHCB) Demonstration: Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGH)

Remind Me Again About the CMHCB Medicare Demo…

The CMHCB started in 2005. My recollection is that the demo requirements were extremely similar to the Medicare Health Support (MHS) project, with a few exceptions: 1) Applicants had to include direct care providers (delivery systems, physicians) in their program design, 2) patient populations […]

The State-of-the-Art of Care Management Software: Disconnected

Care management software is intended to help patients make critical connections across the health care delivery system.  Today it’s used primarily by 3rd party care managers who are typically either employed directed or indirectly by payers. While not surprising, the state-of-the-art of care management software is that it continues to function as disconnected islands of information.

The  2010 Health Information Technology Survey (available at no charge) provides an insightful yet sobering snapshot of care management software. The study was sponsored by TCS Healthcare Technologies, the […]

“Disease Management” RIP

The Care Continuum Alliance has mercifully and wisely rebranded it’s name and eliminated the initials “DMAA”. See its press release: Care Continuum Alliance Launches New Brand for Population Health Improvement. (As a reminder, DMAA originally stood for Disease Management Association of America.)

I for one say “hurrah, and good riddance”.

Where Did the Term “Disease Management” (DM) Trip Up?

Megatrend Spotting: Health Plan Role of Having “Best Data About YOUR Medical Conditions” is Up for Grabs

Who has the most comprehensive data about YOUR clinical conditions?

For most people, the answer today is “your health plan”, but it’s not at all clear that health plans will continue to have this role in the future.

As physicians and hospitals adopt EHRs, it’s foreseeable that clinical data about patients will be far more available and accessible.

Will patient data become:

A jockeying point for control and business advantage between health plans and care providers,
A collaborative opportunity to optimize clinical care and care […]

Overview: Here Come Stages 2 and 3 of HITECH!

 

We’ve spent the past year creating the MU (meaningful use) requirements for Stage 1 of the HITECH act.  As shown by the diagram above, Stage 1 focuses on Data Capture and Sharing. Now it’s time to begin to focus on Stage 2 (Advanced Clinical Processes) and Stage 3 (Improved Outcomes).

The current generation of EMRs (electronic medical records) were designed primarily to assist care providers with clinical documentation, billing, and maximizing revenues. They were not designed to enable care coordination and […]

Nuggets

The Emerging Market in Health Care Innovation
Tilman Ehrbeck, Nicolaus Henke, and Thomas Kibasi
McKinsey Quarterly May 2010
McKinsey conducted research in partnership with the World Economic Forum to study the most promising novel forms of health care delivery and, in particular, to understand how these innovations changed its economics.

The Delineation of Home Healthcare: The Natural Evolution of a Healthy Industry
Wyatt Matas & Associates (investment bankers), April 2010
This whitepaper discusses the opportunity for home healthcare to become the center of chronic care disease […]

Is HITECH Working? #6: HITECH and Health Reform Objectives are Synergistic

by Vince Kuraitis JD, MBA and David C. Kibbe MD, MBA

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….or to be more specific, HITECH is synergistic with payment reform that could come from the recently passed national health care reform legislation — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

We’ll keep this post fairly short and try to avoid many of the more divisive aspects of this topic. The need for healthcare payment reform is well understood on both sides of the aisle:

Realizing the full potential of health IT depends in […]