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Summarizing Early PCAST HIT Critiques: âBrilliant, but they didnât do all their technical homework.â
Last week PCAST (The Presidentâs Council of Advisors on Science and Technology) issued a major report — âRealizing the Full Potential of Health Information Technology to Improve Healthcare for Americans: The Path Forwardâ.Â
The reviews are filtering in and Iâm seeing two major themes:Â
The vision is on target:Â âextraordinaryâ, âbreathtakingly innovativeâ.
These guys didnât do all their technical homework. The range varies, but the message is consistent.Â
Here are some early critiques of the PCAST report. Let the debate continue!
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 DemoâŚ
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 […]
Things we are grateful for this year
This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team. To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org.
For three years running now, many of us bloggers have participated in what weâve called a âblog rallyâ to promote Engage With Grace â a movement aimed at making sure all of us understand, communicate, and have honored our end-of-life wishes.
The rally is timed to coincide with a weekend when most of us are with the very people with whom we […]
Is Physician EHR Adoption Getting Past the Penguin Problem?
Remember the penguin problem described by economists?
No one moves unless everyone moves, so no one moves.Â
Overcoming the penguin problem has a lot to do with creating expectations. A recent writing by Dr. James O’Connor in Physician Practice expresses a voice from the physician community that I’ve never heard before.  His essay is entitled âMeaningful Use â Doctors Have No Choiceâ.
Is âCMS Innovation Centerâ an Oxymoron?
A press release earlier this week announced the new CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.
If you went to their Twitter feed today, here’s what you’d see:
This struck me as a great pictorial representation of the broader challenges the CMS Innovation Center faces:
They’ve kinda sorta figured out there’s a conversation going on out there â they’ve joined Twitter
They haven’t figured out that they need to listen:Â Following = 0
They haven’t figured out they they need to talk:Â Tweets = 0
I remain hopeful, […]
Testing Technology vs. Enabling a System of Chronic Care â Results of the NIH Tele-HF Trial
by Randy Williams, MD FACC, CEO of Pharos Innovations
The results from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored Tele-HF trial are in, and the findings are worth considering . The results are counter to most of the findings of other studies examining telemonitoring for heart failure and at face value are disappointing to us, and the industry. Upon closer examination, however, this study offers us an excellent opportunity for further innovation, refinement of solutions and continuous improvement. It also provides a snapshot […]
Walled Gardens vs. the Open Web: A Central Debate in Tech Finally Coming to Healthcare
The September issue of Wired magazine and an article in last Sunday’s New York Times illustrate a central debate in technology circles. The debate is not new â it’s being going on for two decades â but it has newfound vibrancy. The essence of the debate is about competing tech/business models: walled gardens vs. the open world wide web (web).
Â
vs.
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The debate is highly controversial and nuanced. There are âexpertsâ on both sides.
My point today is not to take sides […]
âDoes This ACO Thing Really Mean We Need to be âAccountableââ
The American College of Physicians (ACP) just released a well-reasoned and thorough position paper, The Patient-Centered Medical Home Neighbor: The Interface of the Patient-Centered Medical Home with Specialty/Subspecialty Practices.
As I’ve written before, the Big Idea behind ACOs (Accountable Care Organizations) is the notion of accountability, not the specifics of organizational structure.
The purpose of the ACP position paper is to address the gaps that exist in care coordination when a physician refers a patient to a specialist. The obvious and logical answer proposed is to develop […]
Six First-Take Reactions to Surescripts Network Expansion
Yesterday Surescripts announced their new Clinical Interoperability Services:
Extended Network Connectivity â As a network of networks, Surescripts will support and enable the exchange of all types of clinical messages between EHRs, HIEs and health systems that, today, are not connected with each other.
Net2Net Connect â Allows health systems and technology vendors that already support clinical information sharing within their network to connect to Surescripts in order to receive and send clinical information outside their network (December 2010).
Message Stream â Secure messaging […]
Creating the âBlood Pressure Chartâ App: An Independent Developerâs Story
by Mateusz Mucha. Mateusz is a freelance web application developer from Krakow, Poland. 31 y.o., married, enjoys rock climbing, sailing, skiing and having 6 meals a day. Contact him at muszek@gmail.com
This is a short story about Blood Pressure Chart – a web-based tool used to manage, analyze and share blood pressure records. The old saying, “necessity is a mother of invention”, is almost applicable here. Almost, because coming up with an idea to store whatever records in a web app […]