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Make Healthcare Cheap, Washington Post
Imagine for a moment that the price of health care suddenly dropped by 90 percent. Care that cost $1,000 could be had for $100. Not only that, but the cost curve began to bend the other way. The next year the care was $95. The year after that it was $90.

In that world, would it matter whether we had RyanCare or ObamaCare? Would it matter if most people had health insurance at all?

Such a world could only be achieved by changes on the supply side. Health care would have to become cheaper to produce. Indeed, health care stands in stark contrast to a portion of our economy that displays that property: information and communication technology. Read More >

The Twitter Chat that Killed Sermo | #MedDevice, Medical Marcom
According to its About page, Sermo is where practicing US physicians – spanning 68 specialties and all 50 states – collaborate on difficult cases and exchange observations about drugs, devices, and clinical issues. They explain, “Sermo is free to practicing physicians. Revenue is generated as healthcare institutions, financial services firms and government agencies purchase Sermo products to access this elite group of practitioners.” Read More >

Unprofessional Physician Behavior on Twitter, 33 Charts
Whether you change details or not, the use of the social space at the comical expense of those we’re called to treat is irresponsible. While the detailed depiction of the patient’s problem is bad enough, the suggestion that you would have somehow ‘fixed’ the situation long before 36 hours is reprehensible. This is something I’d expect from a frat house, not a treating physician. Read More >

ACO Rules Under Fire, Healthcare Technology Online
Healthcare leaders question how the system will function during that “in-between period” as it moves from a pay-for-service to an ACO model. Concerns also abound regarding the lack of financial incentives for providers to transition to an ACO. More fuel was added to the ACO fire in recent weeks when CMS (The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) released its proposed ACO regulations. These rules have been met with a great deal of opposition by some key associations in the healthcare field — namely AMGA (American Medical Group Association) and CHIME (The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives). Read More >

ACOs will bring more losses than savings, hospital CEOs say, Fierce Healthcare
CEOs from 10 major health systems–including Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, the Billings Clinic, Park Nicollet, the Geisinger Clinic, Marshfield Clinic and Novant–sent a letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald M. Berwick. The May 12 correspondence expressed serious misgivings regarding the regulations. Read More >

How an ACO will affect the relationship between a doctor and a patient, KevinMD.com
The more a doctor knows about his patients, the better. While visual changes and numbness might represent migraine symptoms for one patient, for another they could forebode a stroke. Having followed patients through the stages of life, participating in their medical experiences firsthand rather than solely reviewing those as written case-files — I can vouch that knowing their lifestyle and personality helps doctors not only in diagnosis but also in tailoring treatment. Read More >

Health-Care Overhaul Could Ironically Increase Consumer Power—for Some, Health Care News
It will cause a major increase in concierge doctors, concierge facilities, and concierge-type services. It will lead to the creation of new markets where providers are free to repackage and reprice their services without third-party payer approval; where transparency of price and quality becomes the norm for patients; and where suppliers of services compete for patients on price, quality and amenities. Read More >

The Massachusetts Mistake, The Healthcare Blog
A year after the passage of health care reform, fewer than half of Americans support it, a similar percentage believe that it has already been found unconstitutional or soon will be, health care costs are continuing to rise far faster than the CPI, and the Republican Party has seized on the issue as a sure election winner. Read More >

Why Primary Care Parity Matters, The Health Care Blog
After an exciting and challenging day of caring for patients and teaching students, a third-year medical student on his family medicine rotation says to me, “I really like what you do, but I just cannot afford to go into family practice.” I realized that by “afford,” he was referring not only to finances but also to the expectations of his parents, friends, and medical school. After spending 35 wonderful years as a family doctor, I have been “dissed’ by a kid who wants to become a dermatologist. Read More >

How primary care will play a central role with health care reform, KevinMD.com
Regardless of how you define it, and regardless of what the ACO regs (expected out by the end of March, 2011) say, one thing must be accepted: there is a strong movement in the public and private sector to (1) control and reduce healthcare costs, while (2) improving quality. And ANYTHING that can do that will have a strong spot on the chess board, whether you call it an “ACO,” and “Patient-centered medical home” or a “tomato.” Read More >

One-half of U.S.health consumers want electronic access to doctors – including online medical records, HealthPopuli
Most U.S. health consumers would be keen to take advantage of alternative communications for their health care encounters. Of these 6 in 10 people, 72% would like nurse helplines, 60% email, and 1 in 3 would use a private online forum for their health. However, only 1 in 10 would use some form of social media for interacting with their providers, such as Facebook or Twitter, were it available to them in February 2011. Read More >

Hospitals Have a Field Day Charging High Rates at Urgent Care Centers, BNET, Critical Condition blog
Sometimes the best-intentioned moves in health care have negative consequences. Such was the case when Medicare recently allowed hospitals to bill for care performed at urgent care centers not attached to their emergency departments. The aim was to encourage hospitals to send patients who didn’t require emergency care to a lower-cost setting. But the result has been a proliferation of hospital-owned walk-in clinics that, in many cases, charge considerably more than non-hospital-owned centers. And, like hospitals’ new focus on sleep centers, the urgent-care sideline may prove to be another trend that boosts health costs. Read More >

Why Consumer-Driven Health Care Will Fail, The Healthcare Blog

If employers wish to help curb medical costs, then they will need to engage workers with programs like employee wellness, assisted decision making (either as second opinions or patient-friendly informed consent), and access to medical experts, equivalent to personal financial advisors, who may be able to help workers make the right choices for their health. Within the business community, there is some acknowledgment that access to these tools will be necessary to not only manage costs but keep employees healthy and productive. Read More >

No One Cares About Your Health (or No One is Willing to Pay For It)!, Healthcare Blog
I’ll start off with you. No one should care more about your health than you. But as the behavioral economists remind us, we are not rational beings. We are more likely to focus on tangible things in the moment rather than long-term uncertain benefits. So we persist in participating in unhealthy behaviors that provide short-term pleasure and lead to downstream sickness. In addition, we’ve been addled into believing that once we are diagnosed, we are victims and that we can abdicate all responsibility for our care. (see 5-17-2010, Are Individual’s with Chronic Illness More Passive?). This insidious combination makes it hard to hold ourselves accountable for our own health. Most times, we’d rather blame the environment, or bad luck, and ask if we can take a convenient pill to make it better. Read More >

New Health Insurance Survey: 9 Million Adults Joined Ranks of Uninsured Due to Job Loss in 2010, The Commonwealth Fund.
Few Viable Health Insurance Options Exist for Unemployed; Biennial Health Insurance Survey Finds 60 Percent Increase in Skipped Care Because of Cost In Past Decade; Number of Uninsured, Medical Debt Problems, and Out-of-Pocket Spending Costs Also on the Rise. Read More >

Patients Google their symptoms, doctors need to deal with it, KevinMD.com
It’s time to stop debating whether patients should research their own symptoms. It’s happening already, and the medical profession would be better served to handle this new reality. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 61% of patients turn to the web to research health information. That number is from 2009, so presumably, it’s higher today. Health information online is akin to the Wild Wild West. Stories from questionable sites come up on Google as high, or higher, than information from reputable institutions. Read More >

Medical practices increasingly allow online appointments, USAToday
Several factors are driving the trend. On the doctors’ side, it’s mostly the need to add patients and reduce overhead costs. They’re also growing more comfortable with computers. About half of family doctors use electronic health records, and 44% prescribe electronically, according to the academy.

Patients report increasing difficulty getting a doctor’s appointment. In 2007, about 35% of patients said they could not get an appointment soon enough — up from 23% in 1997, according to the non-profit Center for Studying Health System Change. Read More >

Patients flock to Facebook for health care needs, Dayton Business Journal
In fact, 41 percent of people said they use social media as a health care resource, according to a National Research Corp. survey of nearly 23,000 U.S. residents. Most of them — 94 percent — said they turned to Facebook for medical content such as diet and exercise tips and health education videos. And some respondents even said the information was likely to impact their future health decisions. Read More >

Your Computer Is the Next Wonder Drug (Video), Dose of Digital
“In the future, digital technologies, and not blockbuster drugs, will prevent, treat, and cure the diseases that kill us.” Read More >

What’s Up Doc? Physicians On Twitter, Huffington Post
“Achieving balance in life with cerebral palsy” and “The differences between comparative and clinical effectiveness” might seem like heady tweets, but they’re the bread-and-butter of Kevin Pho, M.D., the so-called “leading physician voice” of social media. Pho, a New Hampshire-based primary doctor, writes around 20 such posts every day, which go out to a whopping 30,000 followers.

I think at least starting in medical school, there should be education about the professional opportunities and the potential ethical pitfalls of social media use for physicians. Read More >

Let The Healthcare Tablet Wars Begin, Healthcare Technology Online
There’s no doubt that the growing demand for information access at the point of care is leading to increased use of mobile computers and smartphones by clinicians. Furthermore, the tablet has emerged as the computing platform of choice for physicians, thanks in large part to the form factor made famous by last year’s iteration of the iPad. However, whereas last year the iPad was unique in regards to user experience and feature set, this year there are a whole host of competitive options available — all taking aim at the iPad and its perceived weaknesses as a clinical tool. Read More >

More people using Facebook for health info before face time with a physician, SmartBlog on Social Media, March 11, 2011
A survey of nearly 23,000 Americans, released last month by the National Research Corporation, says that 20% use social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to help make health care decisions, with one in four saying the information found there was “likely” or “very likely” to affect their course of action.

Perhaps more telling was that 32% said they had a “very high” trust in social media — only 7.5% of respondents rated their trust level as “very low.”

These are not the young or poor making these decisions, either. The survey found the average age to be 41, while those with a household income of $75,000 or above were more likely than lesser earners to look to social media sites for health information. Read more >

How Mobile Phones Can Transform Healthcare, Harvard Business Review, March 8th, 2001
The mobile phone is a strong contender as a key transforming agent in the future of health and healthcare. There are nowmore than 5.3 billion cell phone users around the globe, and 90 percent of the world’s population is covered by a commercial wireless signal. We now have a pathway to reach the unreached, and to deliver health services where people are, not merely in health facilities. Read More >

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Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media – a patient story
When we announced formation of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media in late July, Scott Johnson was among those who wrote to express their support. As a patient with Type 1 diabetes who has been blogging since 2004, Scott has a well-developed view of the value of social media. Yesterday he wrote a post about the center on his blog. Read more >

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Understand the Rules for a HIPAA-Compliant Social Media Strategy
In brief:

Do not practice medicine online.

While it is possible to conduct a hospital-patient relationship online, best practice would be to initiate the relationship in real life and obtain appropriate authorization from the patient to continue the dialogue on line. Even then, don’t practice medicine online.

Some patients are more open than others, and are willing to post details about themselves that others consider private. If someone posts these details in a public forum, that posting constitutes consent to the disclosure itself. Your response, however, should never disclose protected health information. Read More >

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Can you get hooked on diet soda? CNN and Health.com
In brief:

How diet soda trains your brain

The simplest explanation for a serious diet-soda habit is caffeine. Many people who chain-drink diet soda may be caffeine addicts who simply prefer soda to coffee or energy drinks, though diet soda doesn’t provide much of a kick by comparison. (A can of Diet Coke contains four to five times less caffeine than a small Starbucks coffee.) Read More >

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Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance, New York Times
In brief:

THIS isn’t the story of a poor family with a mother who has a dreadful disease that bankrupts them, or with a child who has to go without vital medicines. Unlike many others, my family can afford medical care, with or without insurance.

Instead, this is a story about how broken the market for health insurance is, even for those who are healthy and who are willing and able to pay for it. Read More >

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The CDC’s Social Media Toolkit
This toolkit will guide you in developing governance for social media, determine which channels will best meet your communication objectives, and help you create a social media strategy. You will also learn about popular channels you can incorporate into your plan – like blogs, video-sharing sites, RSS feeds, and mobile applications. Download the PDF here > icon pdf The Healthcare Buzz [PDF - 3.76 MB]