HealthContentAdvisors

Roni Zeiger, MD, product manager of Google Health offers a thoughtful & sensible response to questions about patient involvement in medical decisions. I agree with his argument that for standard, time-tested, well understood treatments, the “paternalistic” system works well. I’d go further to say that these are the types of treatments that can more easily be captured in computerized clinical decision support systems and don’t require the expertise of an MD in most cases. Minute Clinics and the like are proving this point. Order sets are followed by nurse practitioners or phys. asisstants. Zeiger goes on to say that in other cases, where multiple courses of treatment are potentially helpful, we need to work on educating patients to ask about the risks and potential outcomes of each treatment. This isn’t an easy task. Zeiger recommends organizing data to help explain options to patients. I second that!

Carol Diamond & Josh Lemieux write about the over-emphasis on technology and not the desired outcome of better healthcare through the use of technology. Good article.

John Halamka’s post on the Meaningful Use definitions presented at today’s HIT Policy committee meeting. Links to the matrix and complete slides included.

Eli Lilly solicits submissions from external institutiions to submit proprietary compounds for potential screening (thus alleviating the need to discover new compounds themselves).

Detailed matrix of Meaningful Use (MU) priorities, objectives,and measures. Contrary to my first reaction, based on less detail, evidence-based content and patient education information do figure into some of the priorities. Thank goodness!

Even with deadline >4 years away, experts at recent Healthcare Financial Mgmt Association meeting recommend that hospitals begin planning immediately.

Abstract of article in Health Affairs that proposes an evidence-based model for physician reimbursement.

ACS Journals to publish in new format with 2 pages of content on each printed page–to save money & space. Results from move to online usage for most readers.

GE and IBM are using financing to their advantage to reel in new prospects for their EHR systems. In this case, GE’s Centricity.

Tom Davenport on why user-generated content must be considered a supplement, not a replacement, for authoritative content in healthcare. An important addition, IX therapy as it now is practiced by Healthwise & Center for IX Therapy represents a very small slice of authoritative medical and healthcare content. There is more than one source beside Healthwise.

WSJ writes about how medical education might be affected by health reform. Important topic, especially continuing medical education (CME).

NYTimes’ About.com increasingly uses celebrity “expert authors’ to drive usage. Celebrities receive free exposure, not payments.

TechWeb, publisher of InformationWeek and related pubs, reorganizes around verticals and shifts execs. I am a loyal reader of InformationWeek, but I marvel at how often the names on the masthead change.

Zix Corp is seeking buyer for its PocketScript payer-sponsored eprescribing business, which had sales of $1million in Q1 2009.

From Obama’s speech to AMA: talk of the additional $313 in healthcare savings to help pay for costs of reform. MedPage Today offers good coverage of the entire speech.

Hanekamp’s site,myfitbrain.com, provides resources that exercise & help retain cognitive abilities in older adults.

Andrew Spong, fmly with Wiley, launches his first workshop for STM publishers on social media.

Good piece on uses of Twitter and some companies to watch that are adding value to Twitter.

Excellent recap with lots of links of MarketingProfs B2B Forum held last week (June 8-9) in Boston.

Summary of Lois Capps’ remarks at Avalere Health’s recent “Raising the Bar: Payment Reform and CardioVascular Disease” conference.