HealthContentAdvisors

Esther Dyson speculates on how Internet could radically change the way patients are involved in their healthcare. Like the way she stresses the important role of information and info tools in changing behavior.

David Rothman gives a brief overview of TrialX, a clinical trials search tool for patients that can incorporate diagnosis and demographic info from Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault.

BMJ article abstract highlights methods for reducing number of unnecessary (and expensive” interventions. Pts out that evidence is often not applied in deciding how to treat.

Quotes David Brailer who says it’s important to consumers to have more control. Currently, hospitals are in the driver’s seat. Author suggests that protecting against fraud will be most important.

Articles describes several employer plans that offer $$ incentives to employees to practice healthy behavior (stop smoking, lose weight, go to the gym, etc). Mentions Tangerine Wellness, RedBrick Health, and quotes Yale economist Dean Karlan.

Article predicts that 85% of doctors will be employed by hospitals w/in next 10 year. Goes on to explain why (primarily reimbursement practices that favor hospitals). Worth a read.

Information Week covers range of doctors’ attitudes toward using social media to communicate with patients.

Article points out how little transparency or rationality there is in current health care pricing and reimbursement systems. AHIP apparently provided data to shore up support for their case, but the article doesn’t portray them in a very positive light. If insurance plans were so good, why would we have so many insured patients receiving outrageous bills?

Canopy Financial, the provider of the platform for the HSA system used by many of the top banks, announces that its statistics show that health savings account (HSA) balances increased in Q109.

Article describes how doctors/surgeons have to make judgements about appropriate devices and treatment for infants (and other groups that weren’t part of the initial clinical trial study), since there often is no established evidence on which to base decisions.

Good brief article that describes 4 search engines that offer features and content that differ from Google or Bing. DeepDyve, which we’ve followed because of its excellent coverage of scholarly research and medical journals content, is one of the 4 mentioned in the article.

CNN lists top inefficiencies in US healthcare system. For example, they quote up to $210B wasted in inefficient medical claims processing that could be remedied through better systems and a simplification (rationalization) of claims used by different insurance companies.

Emdeon, which processes nearly half of all medical payment claims in the US, to debut on NYSE Wednesday (Aug 12, 2009). Expects to raise as much as $333M. “Emdeon has picked a perfect time to test the public equity market. The entire health-care system in the US is in the state of flux, and advancement of health-care IT” is a strong focal point now, according to Alex morozov, Morningstar associate director in a recent research note.

Merge Healthcare, a Wisconsin company, made its 2nd acquisition in past 2 months by acquiring Confirma, a Seattle-based copmuer assisted detection technology company, which specializes in CAD imaging tech for breast, liver, and prostate imaging.

Datamonitor Group, part of Informa, to consolidate its IT research brands under the Ovum name. Datamonitor healthcare & pharma remains separate (as does energy, fin’l svcs, automotive, and consumer). New organization would make it easier to spin off the IT group.

Intriguing idea to use music as part of patient education. I’m a firm believer in using whatever medium is “appropriate” or useful. If music [and poetry] helps people remember key information, then I’m all for it. “The hip bone’s connected to the…”