HealthContentAdvisors

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Headline Commentary Sept 8-Sept 13

  • Posted September 13th 2009
  • by Janice
  • » Online Database: UK Makes First Major Independent Data Contribution to WorldWideScience.org Next Week « ResourceShelf

    Richard Boulderstone chairs global committee (with members from 50 countries) to provide access to scientific information through WorldWideScience.org.

  • » Patient Money - Patient Advocates Help Find Health Care Answers - NYTimes.com

    Demand for patient advocates is on the rise. Clear indication that our healthcare system is not consumer-focused, since it takes a specialist to sort through the choices.

  • » Health Reform Galaxy Blog: The high cost of healthcare: getting past denial

    RWJF rebuts comments about high health care costs being a direct function of poverty. Issue is far more complex and poverty only explains a small portion.

  • » Web 2 Preview: DigitalGlobe: The World Is The Index - John Battelle’s Searchblog

    JBat coos over DigitalGlobe, which takes satellite pictures of the entire earth and sells commercially (and esp. to govt.).

  • » Why the XML Community Must Follow Medical Health Record Debate | XML Today

    Alphabet soup of health IT standards described in this article. Although technical, it includes some very important points about data standards that allow interoperability.

  • » Harvard drops effort to alter media policy for medical students - The Boston Globe

    Harvard drops its earlier policy to require med school students to filter media communications through Harvard’s communications office. Students are working with admin. to establish guidelines to protect patient confidentiality.

  • » Ghostwriting Widespread in Medical Journals, Study Says - NYTimes.com

    New study indicates ghostwriting prevalent even in top journals. Systems for requiring transparency in reporting relationships between industry and the research it funds are required if trust in scholarly medical publishing is to remain. Industry funding is needed, but researchers and other readers need to know who funded the research.

  • » AMA hops on the social media bandwagon - Medical Marketing and Media

    Since parting ways with Sermo earlier this year, AMA is forging ahead on its own in social media.

  • » Kent Bottles: How to Understand Our Acceptance of Lies, Distortions, and Myths About Health Care Reform « ICSI Health Care Blog

    Dr. Kent Bottles, who heads the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (CSI), writes on how fear motivates and why fear tactics have become so prevalent in our current political environment. All in relation to health care reform.

  • » Government, Not Magazine Ranking, is Better Source for Hospital Data - News digest - Quality/Equality newsroom - Quality/Equality - RWJF

    Study compares official gov’t data on hospital quality against US News & World Report hospital rankings and finds that hospitals w/ best outcomes don’t correspond to US New’s rankings.

  • » davidrothman.net » EBSCO’s Free Influenza Portal

    EBSCO opens up a sliver of its health info to the world for H1N1 info.

  • » Good News, Bad News for System Surveys : Hospital Accreditation Changes

    Joint Commission (JCAHO) is changing procedures for surveying hospitals that comprise a hospital system. In short, hospitals systems will be surveyed concurrently.

  • » Regional payment reforms critical to health reform (Health Affairs)

    Harold Miller outlines critical payment reforms needed to put US healthcare system on track.

  • » Popular Online Skin Care and Wellness Resource Gets Makeover | Reuters

    Logical Images renames its consumer website for skin health and wellness to Skinsight.com (fmly visualdxhealth.com)

  • » AMNews: Sept. 7, 2009. More hospitals looking to merge, buy physician groups … American Medical News

    More evidence of trend toward increased mergers among hospitals and physician groups.

  • » GetFugu and Health Matrix in $5 Million Licensing Deal | Reuters

    Health Matrix, a health info company that provides drug info, licenses the GetFugu mobile platform to enhance access to its health info for professionals and consumers.

  • » Retail Health Clinics Move to Treat Complex Illnesses, Rankling Doctors - WSJ.com

    Retail clinics like CVS MinuteClinics expand their services to include treating chronic diseases such as asthma. Driver of expansion=need for more consistent revenue.

  • » Burst Media Research Reveals High H1N1 Concern- Particularly Among Parents | Reuters

    Burst Media, an ad network located in Burlington, MA, announces new Health & Wellness vertical that includes Healthguru.com. Burst previously had Wellness vertical; not sure if this replaces it.

  • » Infodemiology and Infoveillance: Framework for an Emerging Set of Public Health Informatics Methods to Analyze Search, Communication and Publication Behavior on the Internet | Eysenbach | Journal of Medical Internet Research

    Indepth article on “infodemiology”, a term to describe analyzing online data to extract intelligence on public health trends. I like the term & used it at last year’s Health Content event.

  • » Journalism Online’s charging clients a 20% commission » Nieman Journalism Lab

    Details on Brill’s Journalism Online’s business model for paid access to online news.

  • » Developers Build Useful, Fun Apps with Fed Data - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership

    Great list of data content built on open government data. I’ll check out Govpulse, which article says turns Federal Register into something more useful (sorted and searchable by dept and geography).

  • » APG Creative Strategy Awards - The Economist ‘let your mind wander’ by AMV BBDO - advertising news - Campaign

    Interesting repositioning of the Economist & new ad campaign in UK.

  • » Shannon Brownlee and Michael Wilkes: Health debate short on evidence-based science - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

    Nice opinion piece that focuses on issue of improved evidence base for medical care. To those that oppose evidence-based medicine, my comment is: “do you prefer the opposite?” As this article points out, patients don’t know that half of treatment is not based on objective scientific research.

  • » Google Health® Information: Surprising Facts « Alisha764’s Blog

    Nice thorough review of reference content currently available via Google Health. Google’s strategy toward content in GHealth still remains murky.

  • » HHS and USDA Unveil New Food Safety Consumer Web Site at www.foodsafety.gov

    New site from FDA/USDA provides a central place to find info on food safety, recalls, etc.

  • » Dr. Susan Love’s Approach to Patient Recruitment

    Dr. Susan Love is building “an army of women” one million strong to serve as universe to be tapped for medical research/clinical trials. To date, site has 300,000. Dr. Love’s model also represents the new model for publishing: bringing parties together to faciliate transactions as well as exchange information.

  • » 100 Best Twitter Feeds for Women’s Health - Online Nurse Practitioner Schools

    List of lists for twitter feeds that cover women’s health. 10 lists in total. mostly good.

  • » YouTube - iPhone as a medical tool

    Ohio State School of Medicine has developed iPod Touch & iPhone apps for medical students.

  • » peHUB » Superior Capital Buys National Archive Publishing

    This brings back old memories. Superior Capital, a MI PE company, buys National Archive Publishing, which was spun off from UMI/ProQuest (x years ago). National Archive includes XanEdu, the coursepack group, and microfilm, the original UMI product line.

  • » Nascent: Andrew Savikas visits Nature [talks ebooks]

    Excellent brief article with link to slide presentation on ebooks. Note the comment about mobile being the fastest growing platform for non-US sales. Good comments on pricing and revenue models, too.

  • » pMDsoft Announces Interfaces with Additional EMR, EHR, Practice Management, Hospital and Billing Systems

    pMDsoft, “an elegant EMR front-end” announces interfaces with additional EMR, EHR and other health IT systems.

  • » The Carlat Psychiatry Blog: Schering-Plough to SAPHRIS Hired Guns: Come ‘n Git It!

    Psychiatrist Daniel Carlat skewers Schering-Plough for its marketing practices for its new Saphris antipsychotic drug. Dr. Carlat lists the compensation offered to him for promoting Saphris.

  • » CCHIT Rolls Out Preliminary E-Health Certification — Healtcare IT — InformationWeek

    Information Week brief article on premilinary certification for health IT by CCHIT, in advance of full requirements for meaningful use (MU) from ONC by year-end.

  • » Health | Better care, pay less: Some communities find a way | Seattle Times Newspaper

    Some good examples of value pricing (or at least new types of pricing) for healthcare.

  • » Is the Kindle Destined for SkyMall? | Not Quite Conversation | Fast Company

    Written by a designer, but article homes in on the business models for ebooks.

  • » A Lower Bar for Computerized Physician Order Entry Adoption — Is It Worth It? - iHealthBeat

    HITECH Act waters down the requirements for CPOE in its meaningful use (MU) definition.

  • » CMS Releases Guidance on Medicaid Incentive Payments for EHR Use - iHealthBeat

    CMS’ guidance pertains to states and HIEs.

  • » Technology Review: Catching Fake Meds in a Snapshot

    Describes Epothecary system that uses bar codes & cell phones to authenticate Rx medications. Proposed usage in developing countries.

  • » FDA Opens the Reportable Food Registry Electronic Portal for Industry

    FDA launches real-time reporting of food safety issues by manufacturers & other industry players.

  • » Regulators and Physicians Raise Alarms About Dangerous Ingredients in Many Herbal Remedies - WSJ.com

    Insufficient labeling and regulation of vitamins and supplements contribute to serious side-effects of OTC supplements. Article incluees excellent list of resources for researching supplements.

  • » Pharmavite LLC Launches New Direct-to-Consumer Company | Reuters

    Pharmavite, mfr of Nature Made vitamins & supplements, to offer vitaminID program to consumers. VitaminID provides individualized vitamin/supplement programs for consumers via a website enabled for ecommerce (of course). Newsletters & online chat with a dietician are included.

  • » First interstate HIE announced in Ohio/Indiana

    Three HIEs in Ohio and Indiana collaborate to increase interconnectivity.

  • » The top 100 tech media companies | Tech Media Invest 100 | The Guardian

    Guardian lists top 100 tech media companies in UK.

  • » “Dr Nobody” in JAMA editors flap speaks his mind « CardioBrief

    Growing brouhaha in medical journal policies with JAMA arguing that writers have no right to comment on articles in any forum except through JAMA letters to the editor. Demonstrates how isolated medical journal publishers are from realities of social media and the influence of online communication.

  • » Reference Site of the Day: Anatomy Atlases: A digital library of anatomy information

    A nice post that provides list of online anatomy resources. Good to find another medical librarian on Twitter.

  • » Vital Signs - Awareness - Clinical Trial Rule Is Widely Ignored - NYTimes.com

    Requirement that clinical trials be registered upon inception to ensure that all results are reported (not just positive results) has been largely ingnored according to this article.

  • » Ebooks, DRM and more. David Rothman on Gilbane Group report

    David Rothman reviews new Gilbane Group report on ebooks.

  • » How Oprah could make e-book readers a mass market - SmartPlanet

    Or, why publishers (content companies) should subsidize the costs of the reader! Razor/razor blades analogy anyone? Problem is that publishers are still resistant to e-books.

  • » Patient Safety Common Formats from AHRQ

    AHRQ is in process of releasing version 1.0 (from beta) of Common Formats for submitting patient safety information.

  • » Google Insights for Search

    Google does analytics. Need to check it out in more detail, but this furthers Google’s expansion into publishing.

  • » LEO Pharma to Acquire Peplin for US$287.5m | Reuters

    LEO Pharma, a privately-held pharma company specializing in dermatology & critical care will acquire Peplin, a public Australian company fo US$287.5 million in cash.

  • » Cool technology of the week: Digital dashboards of community health data : MedCity News

    John Halamka’s recommended cool community hospital info sites: good examples of aggregating and displaying information.

  • » Disease Management Care Blog: What Karen Ignagni Said, Meant & Should Have Said in the New England Journal of Medicine

    Response to Ignagni’s editorial in NEJM, which expresses why health insurers are against a public plan.

  • » Top Hospitals May Not Be So Special - in Cardiovascular, CHF from MedPage Today

    Article dissects US News & World Report’s hospital rankings to performance reported in govt statistics and finds that US News’ rankings are based on handling of complex or unusual care. Comment: current state of ratings and rankings for hospitals and doctors are not very helpful in guiding consumer decisions in choosing providers.

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