HealthContentAdvisors

HHS considering notification requirements for cases when the security of de-identified patient data used in research is breached.

Advertising may help increase book publishers’ profits, but it is unlikely that books will become less expensive: they are already inexpensive. Readers are unlikely to invite advertising, unless books become totally free.

Good review of why there is skepticism among doctors & others (including me) about how investment in EHRs will provide “magic bullet”. Key issue is the quality of the EHR systems being sold by many of the big health IT vendors. Key quality factors include: ease of use, interoperability, low downtime.

Dr. Denis Cortese, CEO Mayo Clinic, interviewed on Charlie Rose week of July 20 2009.

Obama visits Cleveland Clinic on July 23, 2009. This is the press release from CC.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe describes why the current system for reporting doctors in the NPDB isn’t working.

Jbat puts Twitter’s emergence in the context of Google in 2004 and suggests that small-to-medium sized businesses will be the lifeblood of Twitter. These SMBs need to continously find better/faster/cheaper ways of marketing their goods & services and Twitter can help. I like the comment from a reader that describes Twitter as a new “marketplace” for buyers & sellers. That’s what I said of online directories 5-6 years ago.

AP creates new technology for tracking usage of articles and wrapping reuse rights into code in each article. In principle, the concept could work; in practice it may flop due to too many restrictions on links.

Rand study analyzes effect of rising health care costs on employment, output, and value-add to GDP across 38 industries over the period 1987-2005. Concludes that HC costs had adverse effects on all 3 measures, esp. in industries w/ high % of employer-sponsored insurance.

Scribd succeeding where others have not by keeping it simple. Straightforward rev share (20% to Scribd; 80% to publisher/author) and easy to use platform. Let seller set terms.

Physicians Interactive, owned by PE company Perseus, buys Skycape, the leading mobile platform for medical info delivered to physicians.

Assessment of the effectiveness of Pharma ads in medical journals. Haven’t read the article through yet, but looks to have good data.

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn’s commentary on recent PWC report. She points to stats abt patient involvement that break down survey results by type of insured. Most notable stat: 61% of those covered by employer report their reason for lack of involvement: “I do not know where to go to find good information”.

WSJ points out key issue in using Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, or KP as models for health reform: these are integrated systems that facilitate sharing info, coordinating care, and can impose standards.

Key median ratios for the 134 health systems rated by S&P declining in all categories in 2008.

WebMD launches Medscape Mobile for iPhone & iPod Touch. Free content includes: Drug db, drug interaction checker, Medscape medical news, CME from Medscape, & WebMD Health Dictionary.

Boston area advertising firm, Pangea, uses QuizEngine, its content-focused advertising platform to engage readers.

DoD has successful pilot PHR program, MiCare, that uses GoogleHealth & MSFT HealthVault.

NPR story on Comparative Effectiveness (CER) of treatment for irregular heart beat. Quotes Carolyn Clancy of AHRQ, but doesn’t draw any conclusions.

Good insight from John Moore at Chilmark on acquisition of Medem by Medfusion.

Zynx to provide order sets directly through eClinicalWorks EMR.

Paul Levy shares some learnings from BIDMC’s performance improvement efforts.

According to study conducted by AON, employers want enhancements to existing health insurance system rather than a complete overhaul. Key changes requested: more info on comparative effectiveness, more focus on wellness and preventive care, and changes to reimbursement policies.

Chronicle of Higher Ed on Elsevier’s Cell Press’ beta site for “next gen” journal article. At first glance, I’m impressed by the added-value that Cell Press is providing to their users. I’m also a little (just a little) annoyed at the commenters who dismiss the efforts because of Elsevier’s high profits (estimates are inflated in one comment) in their journals business. STM publishing segment needs innovation to respond to needs of the scientist and researchers who use the info and data.

CHH Medical Supply convicted of Medicare Fraud for unneccessary power wheelchair prescriptions.

GAO report (links to full report included) analyzing resource needs for FDA to manage growing responsibilities in medical device/product segment.

Netsmart, an enterprise software vendor to behavioral & public health providers, acquires Crown Software. Crown provides pharmacy management s/w that integrates with EHRs.

A short, concise piece that provides some good examples of how newspaper/news publishers could create new revenue streams. Good examples, including some I’ve used in the past (post original documents & databases, better repurposing of archives, special editions, and more).

University presses looking at forming consortium program to promote ebook sales.

Good examples of how healthIT can add efficiency, but physician author cautions that entering data takes time. This doc is part of Kaiser Permanente, which is frequently held up as an example of effective use of electronic health records. Problem is, KP is an integrated system, which makes it much easier to enforce interoperability and usage.

Good roundup of providers and related info about trend toward elderly staying in their homes and retrofitting with safety gear. Role of occupational therapist growing for this purpose, too.

Example of industry information company adding value through data-analytics.

Article provides breakdown of downloaded apps by category & within category, by free & paid.

Lewin Group, a health care policy research firm, launches new center for comparative effectiveness research (CER). note, Lewin won an HHS bid recently to construct CER framework. Lewin will incorporate longitudinal patient data (de-identified)from Ingenix, it’s parent company.

Josh Seidman’s very clear exposition of why needs of clinicians and patients have to be central to efforts to define meaningful use of electronic health records. Sadly, these voices are mostly absent from the discussions (apart from clinicians with IT roles in large provider organizations).

Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJ) loses motion to dismiss copyright & trademark infringement suit from HealthGrades for misuse of its ratings info, although RWF is mostly successful in motion to dismiss breach of contract claims. RWJ used copyrighted HealthGrades ratings in press releases & articles.

Post provides some historical context on how medical research in academic settings has changed in age of Google. But, the adage “plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” almost always applies, esp. when it comes to business models/pricing models. Note, I worked at Dialog from ‘85-’95 during the time when CDRom was introduced.

Wow, when I have referred to “intermediaries” as a key category in the health content supply chain, entertainment companies weren’t top of mind. But, after reading the description of this program at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center, it makes sense. TV programs and movies have a lot of influence on the health literacy of our population. It’s important that the writers, editors & all parties in media understand where to find authoritative info & learn how to interpret it.

Jim Spanfeller resigns from Forbes, where he has led digital efforts for past 9 years, to start his own media management firm. Forbes had fared better than other business publications in part due to its more aggressive online strategies, but in my opinion, their online presense lacked cohesion and proper design. In print, Forbes remains a notch above most business pubs and can still leverage its readership.

3 PE groups resubmitted bids for Springer at request of Candover & Cinven. New bids slightly higher (>400 M Euros vs. 350-380M Euros of 1st round), but still short of the hoped for 500 M Euro bid for up to 40% of Springer. PEHub rightly points out that Candover & Cinven recapitalized Springer 3 times and paid themselves healthy dividends each time.

Perhaps the UK will promote & accelerate adoption of Google & MSFT’s PHR platforms before they gain traction in US.

Interesting new aggregator of top journal content (based on impact factor & google scholar rankings) in clear, attractive interface. Access to premium fulltext journals is limited to existing subscribers via Athens. [edited 7/15] Note, Clinical Reader has been called out by medical librarians because of sloppy copyright practices and use of false implied endorsements by NLM & others. To gain credibility as source of authoritative content, CR team needs to tread carefully!]

I wouldn’t call it WebMD, but it includes health and wellness information and lots of information on the institution.

Beta version released; official release sched. for Q4 2009. Breakthrough sounds like an exaggeration, but it is a step forward for a traditional directory publisher who sells to libraries.

SpringerImages, which includes over 1.5 million scientific images, tables, charts & graphs, to be officially launches at ALA in Chicago this week. Was originally planned for Q1 release.

Serials Solutions, a ProQuest company, expands the content indexed by its Summon Service. Summon aims to offer “Google-like” search interface across library’s holdings. For now, content from ProQuest, Gale, Springer, IEEE, Taylor& Francis and some other scholarly publishers and university presses participate. Summon is in beta at Dartmouth, Claremont Colleges, and 5 other universities in US, Canada, UK, and Australia.

Kent Anderson of NEJM writes about Amazon’s growing role in book publishing, not just redistribution of books. How should publishers react? Comments as of 7/9 suggest scholarly publishers stick to their knitting of creating content and build their own open repositories– and be more aggressive with digital distributors. Granted, scholarly publishers should take more control of digital distribution, but in order to do that, they have to invest in digital infrastructure & know-how.

Good dialogue about social media’s relevance to clinical practice.

Good write-up of interview with Berners-Lee by ReadWriteWeb’s founder, Richard MacManus. W3C’s focus on data content is exciting development for us at InfoCommerce Group, where the role data in publishing businesses has been a central focus on ours from day 1. s

Good article on the under-tapped value of customer lists held by publishers. As author points out, many print publishers seem to miss the connection between their ability to build communities of interest for publications and adapting that ability to web-based communities. Instead, too many publishers are letting upstarts replace them online.

The concepts of EBM and Comparative Effectiveness Research are reaching consumer-focused publications. IMO, considerable education via general press and other venues will be necessary to help consumers/patients understand EBM and CER.

SDI, which acquired Verispan last year, releases results of most respected pharma companies by pediatricians.

Thomson Reuters, already one of the biggest webcast providers, acquires Toronto-based webcasting s/w firm Streamlogics.

A medical librarian’s comparison of DynaMed and UptoDate

More on the “Free” as business model debate. See my comments on the post.

Using tag cloud to help understand key terms and contents of a book, Google Books now makes it easy to glean substance of books in seconds. Pretty cool.

Connectyx’ MedFlash portable PHR enters sales agreement with Healthy Directions, a vendor of “science-based vitamin & nutritional supplement formulas” and other wellness products. By end of August 2009, Health Directions will offer the flash-drive MedFlash EPHR through its distibution channels. Comment: press release alludes to fact that the Healthy Directions’ audience, on average, is more interested in health & health-related products, than the general population and therefore is more likely to be interested in tracking their health-related behavior. Given the behavior of Healthy Directions’ audience, it makes sense for vendors of PHR technology to focus sales efforts on this group.

Massachusetts and Vermont ban on pharma and medical device companies’ giving gifts to doctors (anything from coffee mugs to trips) goes into effect today.

Concerro, a vendor of SaaS workforce management s/w to hospitals acquires CommandAware, which provides hospitals a turn-key solution for emergency response.

Very good article (although long) that lays out reasons why incumbents have difficulty adopting new technologies. I’d add that many large incumbent scientifc publishers have to innovate through acquistions because of the problems described in Nielsen’s article and because of constraints put on them by the financial markets (if they are public). Accounting for acquisitions allows them more freedom to “buy” vs. “make”. I totally agree about the need for scientific publishers (in fact, all publishers) to become proficient in IT. Technology is a key input to all content products & services; without constant innovation, publishers will get disrupted by new entrants. This relates to last week’s article, “Health Content is Rapidly Losing Its Value”.

Using IVR technology, Doctors on Demand allows patients to call in and leave info, then get contacted by MD. Physical visits are required at least 1/year.

UBM’s CMPMedica discontinues 2 print pubs and cuts unspecified # positions; some digital presence of pubs: Infections in Medicine and AIDS Reader will continue.

WK Health announces new research reports that incorporate data and analysis gleaned from their Adis R&D Insight, WK Healthcare Analytics (NDA), and other resources to suppy focused analysis on specific markets. inThought is targeted to financial analysts, health care suppliers and drug manufacturers. Seems like a logical extension to their data services.

Interview with new CEO of Elsevier Health Sciences, Michael Hansen. Describes EHS businesses and where they are focusing for growth (clinical decision support systems; outcomes analysis)