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DMAA

Webinar: Beacon Communities Reshaping Landscape for HIT and Population Health

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 1-2 p.m. Eastern Time — Presented by the Care Continuum Alliance

Federally supported “Beacon Communities” are at work now defining how health information technology will support accountable, evidence-based care in communities – especially for care of chronic conditions. Backed by $235 million in federal grants, 15 communities across the country are serving as Beacon Community pilots for eventual wide-scale, performance-based use of technology to improve our health care delivery system.

The goal of the webinar is to address

The fundamental nature […]

“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?

Digital Medical Office of the Future Conference. Las Vegas, Sept. 9-10

CLICK HERE FOR THE CONFERENCE WEBSITE

Healthcare providers face critical choices in selecting and implementing Electronic Health Records (EHRs). In addition, physicians and hospitals will need to develop the capacity to exchange clinical information in order to meet Meaningful Use requirements. This program will offer detailed and practical information on EHR selection and implementation, as well as strategies for creating a sustainable health information exchange (HIE). The program also features sessions on legal/regulatory issues, clinical platforms and applications as […]

HITECH Health IT Legislation: Opportunities for the DMAA Community

Dr. Don Storey and I spoke at the at The Forum 09 conference in San Diego earlier this week. The DMAA publication “The Continuum” had an excellent writeup of our enthusiastically received presentation. 

Here’s a copy of our PowerPoint slides…

HITECH Health IT Legislation: Opportunities for the DMAA Community
View more presentations from vincek.

and here’s DMAA’s writeup:

Helping physicians and hospitals meet the “meaningful use” criteria for federal support for health information technology under recently passed legislation represents a keen opportunity for the population health management industry, presenters at […]

Meeting Announcement: “Introduction to the Clinical Groupware Collaborative”

by Steve Adams, CEO, RMD Networks and Acting President, Clinical Groupware Collaborative  

I’m writing to extend a warm personal invitation to learn more about the Clinical Groupware Collaborative (CGC).  To-date, purely through word-of-mouth over 40 companies have expressed interest in the CGC, and we expect that you’ll be hearing a lot more about us over the coming months.

Our meeting will take place next Tuesday, September 22, 6 PM in conjunction with The Forum 09, the annual meeting of DMAA: […]

Medicare Health Support: 8 Takeaways on Building Better Bridges

by Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH and Vince Kuraitis

What’s the right metaphor for Medicare Health Support (MHS), CMS’ major experiment with disease management for Medicare beneficiaries?  We prefer to look it as a bridge failure that presents an opportunity to improve future engineering and design.

We’ve now had the time to read, reread, and reread again the very recent report from Research Triangle Institute (RTI) — Evaluation of Phase I of the Medicare Health Support Pilot Program Under Traditional Fee-for-Service Medicare: […]

CMS Releases 2nd Report on Medicare Health Support

by Vince Kuraitis and Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH

CMS has just released the 2nd Report to Congress evaluating the Medicare Health Support (MHS) program. MHS is Medicare’s most visible and significant demo focusing on chronic disease management.

We’ve been poring over the report and will provide more detailed analysis and implications later this week. This 2nd Report to Congress covers 18 months of data on this 3 year project. It provides far more details and substantiation than RTI’s first report, which only covered 6 […]

Disruption in the Neighborhood? The PCs Build the Medical Home.

There’s a new house being built in the vacant lot across the street.  It’s the medical home, and it is going to be occupied by several primary care physician families (PCs).

From what’s been said, the PCs are nice folks and will make good neighbors.  They’re friendly, many are Episcopalian, they like white picket fences, and they have barbeques on Sunday afternoons. The neighborhood they’re coming from is not as well off nor as pristine — they’re said to be suffering from […]

Attend the Best DM/Population Health Conference of the Year!

In a little less than three weeks, DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance will open its 10th annual meeting , in Hollywood, Fla. – a notable milestone for an organization that has evolved with its membership over the past decade.

I’ll be there, presenting with Dr. Victor Villagra on the "March toward Data Interoperability" and the outlook for disease management.

The content this year promises to be among the best yet, with a new track on […]

The Medical Home: Pull the RUC Out

This third and final post in the series addresses questions about the future of the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCHM):

What’s problematic about using the RUC methodology with the PCMH?
What’s the optimal level for a PCMH care management fee?
Should primary care leaders pull the RUC out? How?

What’s Problematic About Using the RUC Methodology with the PCMH?

There are at least two reasons for not having the RUC methodology seen anywhere in the same county country as the PCMH. First, the RUC methodology doesn’t […]