Subscribe if you want to be notified of new blog posts. You will receive an email confirming your subscription.
HIE
CMS: “Rumors of Medicare Health Support’s Death Have Not Been Greatly Exaggerated”
Vince Kuraitis and Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH
Today’s POO (persistent obfuscatory orations) Award goes to the Centers for Medicare Services (CMS) for their posting of two bizarre documents updating progress on the Medicare Health Support (MHS) program. The documents “appeared” (no press release, no announcement, a reference to “today” but no date) on the web page for the MHS demonstration project.
While a casual reader would probably review these documents and scratch their head, we interpret them as a death knell for the Medicare Health Support […]
Disease Management and the Medicare Health Support (MHS) Project: “Houston, we have a problem.”
Thomas Wilson, PhD, DrPH and Vince Kuraitis, JD, MBA
The conventional wisdom in the disease management (DM) community has been that the Medicare Health Support (MHS) project would provide the evidence to resolve two issues:
First, MHS would once-and-for-all resolve the issue of “does DM have ROI? (return on investment).” It was thought that the randomized control trial process employed in MHS would provide scientific evidence to prove that DM has a positive ROI, clearing the way for unqualified acceptance and widespread […]
Ruminations on the 2007 Healthcare Unbound Conference
Although a bit late, I’d like to share perspectives from the latest Healthcare Unbound conference. The conference took place in San Francisco on July 16 and 17 and attracted 400 attendees with a rich blend of business, information technology, and clinical backgrounds.
PowerPoint from Opening Keynote
Here’s a copy of the PowerPoint for my opening keynote presentation. My colleague and fellow blogger Tim Gee did a great job summarizing key points on his blog. THANKS, Tim.
In a nutshell, my main theme is that the adoption of Healthcare Unbound […]
First “Official” Report on Medicare Health Support DM Pilot Finds Virtually No Evidence of Success
I know that I’m sounding like a broken record.
The first “official” results from the Medicare Health Support (MHS) disease management (DM) pilot projects were published last week. While the results are preliminary, there is virtually no evidence of any early success. Here are three key findings from the executive summary of the report:
“In God We Trust” is NOT an Option for Your PHR: 5 Responses to the Google Health Trust Issue
Dear readers,
Thanks for your interest and feedback on my recent posting Connecting the Dots…Google Health Promises to Create AND Dominate Next Generation PHRs.
Despite being over 3,500 words long, this essay has quickly become the #1 most widely read posting on my blog. It continues to generate several hundred views per day and has been linked to by over a dozen other bloggers and news sources.
Reader comments center around two primary themes:
1) Should I trust Google Health’s (GH’s) next generation personal health record (PHR) with my […]
Connecting the Dots…Google Health Promises to Create AND Dominate Next Generation PHRs
Google Health (GH) could be the event of the decade in advancing health care reform — not just healthcare information technology (HIT) reform, but health care system reform. GH promises simultaneously to create AND dominate the market for next generation personal health records (PHRs). There is nothing else in our solar system or in the entire universe like it.
While Google has not “officially” announced the details of GH, they’ve left a lot of clues. In this essay I’m going to […]
European vs U.S. Primary Care: We Have Things Backwards
The status of primary care is dramatically different in Europe vs. the U.S.
While doing background reading, I was startled by the title of a book: “Primary care in the driver’s seat? Organisational reform in European primary care” The book was reviewed in the International Journal of Integrated Care .
Is primary care capable of taking a dominant role in running the whole health care system? This challenging question is what makes this book interesting and takes the debate one step ahead […]
Yet Another Dark Cloud in the Stormy Skies of Medicare DM
Medicare’s major thrust at chronic disease management innovation — the Medicare Health Support (MHS) pilot project — continues to gather storm clouds.
Today’s POO (persistent obfuscatory orations) Award goes to Healthways for their explanation of MHS progress (or lack thereof) in an April 4 press release. If you can understand what they’re saying about MHS (see p. 3) without having your CPA explain it, you’re a lot smarter than I am:
The recently received sixth quarterly CMS report for the MHS pilots continued to cumulatively […]
Latest Edition of Health Wonk Review at the Health Affairs Blog
Thank you to Jane Hiebert-White, who hosts the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review at the Health Affairs Blog. Health Wonk Review is a bi-weekly round-up of the best in health care policy blogging commentary. This edition is entitled “Health Wonk Review And Health Reform 2.0”.
Jane’s tribute to Paul Hiebert really touched me:
For myself, my hope is to stay just a fraction as sharp as my father-in-law, Paul Hiebert, whose memorial service I attended yesterday. In his last 2 months […]
Porter/Teisberg JAMA Article: Out-of-the-Box or Out-of-Touch?
“In theory, there is no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there is.” Yogi Bera
Out-of-the-box thinking is good; out-of-touch thinking is not. Dr. Porter and Teisberg’s (PT’s) recent article in JAMA “How Physicians Can Change the Future of Health Care” is disappointing, unrealistic and dangerous.
Disappointing: Please Answer the Challenges About Why Your Theory isn’t Workable
Unrealistic: Money Does Matter a Lot
Dangerous: Measuring Process in Health Care Does Add Value
What’s so seductive about their writing is that about 90% […]