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Updates on Proposed Stage 2 and 3 Meaningful Use Criteria
The Health IT Policy Committee has published proposed Stage 2 and 3 Meaningful Use Recommendations and they’re open for public comment until February 25.
I’ll share a couple of particularly useful and well written analyses and commentaries by colleagues.
Health IT guru and thought leader Dr. John Halamka writes about The Proposed Stage 2 and 3 Meaningful Use Recommendations in his blog.
This is a great article to get a thumbnail overview of all the proposed recommendations. John lists 38 criteria and provides a quick […]
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 […]
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 “Meaningful Use — Doctors Have No Choice”.
Testing Technology vs. Enabling a System of Chronic Care – 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 — it’s being going on for two decades — 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).
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The debate is highly controversial and nuanced. There are “experts” on both sides.
My point today is not to take sides […]
Six First-Take Reactions to Surescripts Network Expansion
Yesterday Surescripts announced their new Clinical Interoperability Services:
Extended Network Connectivity – 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 – 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 – Secure messaging […]
A Dark Horse in ACO Formation: Large Physician Groups
Kudos to the AMGA (American Medical Group Association) for advancing the cause of physician-led accountable care organizations (ACOs)! A few days ago it “convened leadership teams from 22 leading medical groups and organized systems of care at the inaugural meeting of the AMGA ACO Development Collaborative”.
In many communities, hospitals (delivery systems) will be the “natural” organization to lead an ACO. Hospitals bring management expertise, IT, capital, and community relationships to the table as important assets.
Questions about Hospital-Led ACOs
I’ll try to keep an open mind, […]
Hospital Readmissions Avoidance “Programs” — Vendors and Hospitals Not All On the Same Wavelength
Last week I attended and participated in an excellent conference — the National Reducing Hospital Readmissions Forum sponsored by World Research Group.
One of my main take aways is to observe a simple — yet huge — difference in mindset between hospital executives and vendors.
Over the past few months I’ve heard many vendors with diverse health care offerings talking about building readmission avoidance “programs” that they want to sell to hospitals. Their idea here is to put together a soup-to-nuts offering of technologies and services […]
The Achilles Heel of ACOs? Shared Savings Payment Model Unlikely to Motivate Hospitals
Sometimes you read something and the full impact doesn’t hit you until hours — perhaps days — later. As I was out mountain biking today, the importance of something I ran across yesterday suddenly hit me.
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are today’s cure-du-jour for reforming the health care delivery system. Bob Berensen, MD of the Urban Institute strongly questions whether the shared savings model under current legislation provides enough economic incentive for hospitals to disrupt their existing core business of acute, inpatient care.
The dialogue […]
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 […]