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Archive for the ‘Health Grades’ Category
Headline Commentary Feb 1 - Feb 13
- Posted February 13th 2010
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
PatientFinder, which estimates # of insured patients in region that have specific diseases but are untreated, to be offered by HealthLeaders Interstudy.
Denise Silber writes about provider ratings sites in Europe (France and UK) and how the survey-based rating sites differ from the “narrative” sites that allow patients to describe their experience in their own words. Combination would be better, wouldn’t it?
KLAS on current state of HIEs–vendors “pass around packets of information without necessarily taking ownership of what is in the packet”.
Xconomy on PatientsLikeMe, the Cambridge-based patient community site that leads in this space in collecting data. Also mentions Keas and its recent deal with Pfizer.
More on MSFT MyLife health project that utilizes Windows mobile phones to capture and transmit health-related data. Talks about accelerometers in phones and how they could be used to monitor movement.
MSFT research at conference in Beijing talks about using XBox as part of a total health care system. Also refers to MSFT MyLife for Windows mobile phones, which uses mobile phones to capture and transmit data relevant to a EHR/PHR.
Melissa Chang comments on projections from AMR Research on increased spending by B2B marketers on social media and questions where the projected 21% growth in social media spend will be focused. Note, lead-gen sites marketing is projected to increase 17% and online directories -2%.
Interesting. Pfizer in alliance with Keas to enable health & wellness experts to produce and distribute online care plans directly to patients. My take: Pfizer and other pharma companies already subsidize the publication of a great deal of health care information. With this deal, they’re extending their reach into new channels.
P&G completes its acq. of MDVIP, a concierge medical practice based in Boca Raton, FL.
Nice. CenterWatch now provides feeds by therapeutic area, disease category, FDA approved drugs and more that can be added to a website–for Free!
David Harlow’s insightful commentary on why medical apologies–accompanied by a commitment to investigate root cause–may reduce malpractice suits. And could lead to performance improvement, too….
Patient Safety and workflow solutions company raises $30M led by TPG Biotechnology Partners.
Why communicating absolute vs. relative probabilities is important in healthcare–and in fin’l planning.
Harvard Med School’s Laboratory for Quantitative Medicine has created personalized risk assessment tools based on “binary biology”. Interesting.
Thomas Goetz on nomograms, or clinical decision tools, that help calculate risk of specific diseases on a personalized basis.
Really good analysis and commentary about ebook pricing and the recent controversy between Macmillan and Amazon about books on Kindle prices. I agree with author that the market should determine the value of the content. Market structure in book publishing industry inhibits market forces to apply. I like 4th paragraph that addresses fact that not all song tracks–or all books–have same value, so why are they priced nearly the same? In book publishing, the bizarre returns policy does provide mechanism to sell less popular books for very low prices, but authors receive no royalties. I also agree that far more ebooks would sell if prices were lower.
Good review of recent Time article, Patients 2.0, and differing attitudes about the effectiveness of patient-reported data in medical research. Article points to concern on part of doctors of reliability of patient-reported outcomes data. My view: methods need to be developed for incorporating patient-reported or patient-recorded outcomes data into medical research methods, but these data are too important to ignore!
Very cool. FDA allows Bayesian analysis for studies of effectiveness in medical device clinical trials. Bayesian analysis allows use of results from previous studies to serve as prior distribution and may allow for results from smaller or shorter new studies to provide sufficient evidence of effectiveness.
Or outcomes-based research. By Gilles Frydman, founder of ACOR.org and co-founder of e-Patients.net, a pioneer in participatory medicine. Good introduction to potential benefits of PDR and the need for guidelines on how to conduct PDR, since no accepted structure and review processes currently exist.
Article describes how CMS is becoming more specific in requiring proof that treatments produce improved outcomes, not just evidence of their safety and short-term efficacy.
Start-up, Truth on Call, offers system for posing questions via Twitter to a group of doctors, for $10 per response. Target audience is fin’l, pharma, research, but will be offered to patients, too.
More on the Text4baby partnership btwn HHS, other fed agencies, industry (Pharma, telecom carriers) and insurance plans.
Text4baby is a program managed by HHS that includes mobile telecom carriers, federal agencies, insurance plans and other healthcare industry reps. 3,400 women have signed up so far.
Important points about need for care providers to understand the effect of healthcare costs on patients who can’t afford expensive treatments. Cost factors must be considered when addressing compliance issues.
Article states that pending lab tests are only included on hospitalist discharge summaries 16% of the time. Incredible. Follow-up visits aren’t very useful when docs don’t even know what to check. Inadequate discharge summaries are core problem. IT systems that don’t communicate are equally critical problem.
Hope Leman hits one out of the park with a fantastic interview with Danny Sands, MD at BIDMC and well-known in participatory medicine circle (also e-Patient Dave’s doctor).
Rewards for posing good questions and providing best answers about Diabetes 1. Program sponsored by Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center and uses the InnoCentive platform to manage the competition/collaboration.
WK Health updates Facts& Comparisons and rebrands it as (drumroll please…) Facts & Comparisons eAnswers. Drug info resource.
Good overview of why social networking sites are flourishing. I like comments about how sites are more welcoming now and how sites serve as tools for users–not just discussion boards. LinkedIn is great example. Same applies to patient communities and PatientsLikeMe and CareTogether are good examples of increased utility of online communities.
Astonishing. I finally read more details of the retraction and the original study. Only 12 children were studied and they were paid 5 pounds each to give blood at a child’s birthday party. Researcher had claimed that they were all referred to physicians, which was not true. Parents who suspected link helped raise funds for the researcher via their lawyers. So, Lancet finally retracts article, but what about the 10-years worth of fallout from the falsified research that has rippled across official and unofficial research sites and commentary on the Web?
Nice counter to Twitter naysayers who address only the downside of Twitter (time sink) — without ever having used it. Writer emphasizes how critical Twitter is to the online news business for generating links and being part of the conversation.
Google Ventures has invested in Adimab, a New Hampshire biopharma company and is providing computing power to handle the heavy lifting of computer search work of matching candidate antibodies and targets to speed up the current process used by most biopharma labs.
Initiate Systems, a master data management company that specializes in healthcare data, is acquired by IBM. Initiate clients include payers, providers, and PBMs. Terms not disclosed; Initiate had raised over $67M in VC funding from Apex Venture Partners, First Analysis Group, Sigma Partners, BC/BS Venture Partners and Paladin Capital.
DeepDyve, the specialty search service with features that simplify finding related information, adds 6 new publishing partners. ACM, AIP, MIT Press, and UC Press among them. All 6 will join the DeepDyve article rental system that was introduced last year, which allows users access to premium subscription content for $0.99 per article (with volume discounts). More details in press release.
Anthony Guerra provides commentary on inadequacies of MU guidelines and reimbursement requirements.
Good article that describes how quickly move toward personalized medicine–based on an individual’s genetic data–is occurring.
Good idea, but it looks as though Nielsen chooses healthy foods based on manufacturer claims.
Cute: a Jeopardy quiz for the rudiments of EBM for medical librarians.
Patient Safety Act of 2005 scheduled to yield database in 2011. 65 Patient Safety Organizations have been set up, but few are collecting data yet. No plans set to collect from other providers beyond hospitals.
ABRY provides funding to HealthTrans to support organic growth and acquisitions.
Wow! Glam raises another $50 M at a rumored valuation of $750M. Glam is an ad network with focus on health & beauty sites. Many of the sites tend toward the trashy end of beauty sites, not reputable healthcare info. See comments. Notwithstanding previous 2 sentences, Glam sure is good at fundraising!
David Weinberger on flaws in the data-information-knowledge-wisdom hierarchy model. Hierarchy is too limited–one way progression, when gaining knowledge is more of a system that requires observation, hypothesis building, and testing.
Comments about online sites that offer ratings of doctors. Points out weaknesses of current info, esp. fact that ratings aren’t based on outcomes. Hints at other problems: most patients choose docs based on info from referring physician. Docs in network are critical. I’d add: trustworthiness of online ratings sites is not clear.
Long article that provides some evidence that breakthrough research is not getting sufficient coverage in top journals. Theory is that peer reviewers are protecting their own group and making it too difficult for innovative researchers to break through. I think there’s some credibility to the theory that innovations are more likely to occur outside of the traditional circles of scholarly publishing, since researchers are increasingly making source data available. New metrics that incorporate real-time online measures are needed.
The main article (see previous entry) about risk calculators to help surgeions communicate risks of surgery to patients.
Addresses issue of why hospitals don’t track and use data to help them reduce risk in surgery. Mentions NSQUIP from ACS.
Healogica, a site that connects potential candidates to clinical trials to shut down. They had about 2,000 registered users but couldn’t get enough CROs and pharma companies to pay for access to the leads they generated.
Social networking for weight loss site, iChange, gets funding from Momentum Venture Managment(MVM) and names MVM principal Stuart MacFarlane CEO. MacFarlane fmly of Insider Pages.
Great display of information on # tweets by disease type/condition.
Good description of how the use of e-prescribing systems (in this case Kryptic) can alert doctors & pharmacists of “doctor shoppers” who go from doctor to doctor to get multiple prescriptions for pain medications and other drugs.
Excellent article that proposes ways to improve how medical research is communicated by consumer media. In lecture I gave last week at Simmons College School of Health Sciences, I emphasized the importance of communicating medical research and other healthcare information clearly, especially risk information.
Reports on programs that provide behavioral counseling to MDs that have depression, substance abuse and stress problems.
Headline Commentary May 31-June 7
- Posted June 7th 2009
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
A rundown of a handful of online physician ratings sites. Also mentions pushback by physicians who can’t respond to reviews. Mentions RateMDs.com, DrScore.com, AngiesList, Heatlhgrades and some state-specific sites.
Good series on how the Google algorithm has evolved and how human reviewers have been added to the formula.
IAB PWC research shows that online ad spend declined in Q1 2009 YoY for the 1st time in years.
The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Assos. and DOAJ/Lund University LIbraries will hole 1st conf. on Open Access in Sweden Sept. 14-16.
E-patient Dave’s slides from presentation at National eHealth Collaborative last week.
Good overview of Data.gov by Info Today.
David E. Williams provides a very nice summary of Michael Porter’s excellent article in NEJM (available for free): A Strategy for Health Care Reform — Toward a Value-Based System.
The participatory medicine/epatient pioneers have formed a society, the Society of Participatory Medicine, and will publish a journal called Jounral of Participatory Medicine. Dr. Alan Green, MD is the first president. Journal will be open access, of course!
Some background on why drug companies aren’t flocking to Twitter.
This story supports theme of the June 4 blog on Health Data Analytics and the bounty of new data streams that will be available from digitized records of all sorts. Cerner’s data warehouse includes 1.2 billion lab results, as well as medication orders and other data.
Good post that expands on theme that EHRs (EMRs) should be designed with patient needs in mind and that simply automated current procedures in hospitals won’t likely lead to an improved experience for patients who want to participate in their health care decisions.
Commonwealth Fund study on Comparative Effectiveness Research from 4 other countries. In my reading pile.
Healthcare a bright spot in employement trends: health care jobs grew >23,000 in May, while overall nonfarm payrolls shrank by 345,000.
Dr. Val discusses the “workflow interruption” aspect of most EHR systems. The “workflow interruption” is my term. She describes more elegantly, but I am putting it in context of good marketing practices in IT and publishing, where product developers spend time shadowing prospective customers and get a deep understanding of their workflow in order to design information tools that increase efficiency and try to improve outcomes, not just add a layer of technology in order to record data.
A new condition of interest to data publishers: Database Hugging Disorder (DBHD). Humor aside, this post addresses trend toward allowing access to the databases that were used in medical and other studies. In line with the Open Access movement in scholarly publishing that campaigns for free access to research articles where the research was funded with public funds, the open database movement seems to be growing very quickly. Oddly enough, even though the databases hold more value than individual articles (especially when data can be combined from multiple databases), the fact that they haven’t been monetized in most cases may lead research organizations to be more willing to make them freely available while still charging for published articles based on the data.
Good post that includes links to top ideas for Pharma in social media, as well as John Mack’s thoughts on the need for Pharma companies to create “corporate” blogs or websites that serve as central resources on diseases, conditions, or other topics that are more broad than a marketing site for a drug. Points to importance of providing links and information from other sources. This is a theme I think is important and publishers should take note. Pharma websites are now prospective buyers of authoritative content for their websites.
J&J said “pipeline productivity is on track” and outlined growth strategies: -greater marekt penetration, new commercial models, exapnded geographic presence.
Elsevier to publish guidelines for sponsored reprints.
Good piece from Michael Porter on key changes required to reform our healthcare system. Porter emphasizes the need to align incentives for insurers, providers, employers, and patients with health of the patients/consumers as the objective. I’ve only skimmed the article, but it looks spot on.
Stunning numbers from new study that says 62% of all bankruptices filed in 2007 were in part due to medical expenses–and 78% of those individuals had health insurance.
Only PE companies left in bidding. Interesting twist: Springer’s current owners, Candover & Cinven are looking to raise a specific amount (500M Euros) and are asking interested parties to bid on share they are willing to accept for that amount. Springer has large number of scholarly journals & books, and has done well selling ebook versions in the past couple of years, but has lagged behind in creating decision tool applications based on their content. Heavily focused on academic market.
Anthem Blue Cross, the BC provider in California, announces wide availability of its cost comparison data to members in CA. The transparency tool provides access to costs associatied with all aspects of a medical procedure, from lat tests to recovery room charges & physician costs for specific facilites. Eventually, BC/BS plans to make similar info available countrywide. A big move in the right direction to support consumer driven health plans with high deductibles & copays.
Great post on the potential value of the huge amount of data that are being collected as more info on individual patients is recorded in digital form. Effects of drug interactions across a broad population is key example given here.
Modern Healthcare reports that GetWellNetwork, which provides bedside computer apps for “patient engagement” is “promoting the use of its own and similar products by creating and helping fund a not-for-profit institute devoted to researching patient-engagement effectiveness”. GetWellNetwork calls their applications “interactive patient care”. My comment: it gets confusing when there are so many fragmented terms for improving patient care & safety, some that involve patient participation, some that don’t. Rationalizing the health IT market, esp for vendors to hospitals, and incorporating patient education providers would add efficiency and perhaps even make sense to the patients. Relationship of GetWell and the insitutute also raises doubts on transparency. Parallels relationship between Healthwise & Center for Ix Therapy, although at least both are non-profits in this case.
Medidata, which provides s/w for managing clinical trials and for managing clinical research data (Rave), sets terms for IPO. S1 was filed in January 09. Insight Ventures key investor. Market cap at expected $11-13 range to be up to $290. See: http://www.mdsol.com/products/rave_overview.htm
Medsphere, a San Diego company, has raised $1.0M of a $15M funding round. Medsphere is commercializing an open source version of the EHR system developed for Veterans Affairs. Backers include Thomas Weisel, Azure Capital Partners, & Epic Ventures.
Good overview of Google Wave by folks at ReadWriteWeb.
Posts by pharma sales reps on site: CafePharma allowed in lawsuit that claims Schering hid study results on Vytorin.
More on Google’s plans to sell ebooks. Even though publishers get to set price, Google retains right to discount at its own expense.
Previously announced collaboration between Nature Publishing and InnoCentive launches. Innocentives provides platform for problem “Seekers” to solicit solutions from problem “Solvers”–all with a life sciences focus.
CMPMedica announces new online healthcare education program for patients & their caregivers. Health Empowerment Initiative targets “knowledge gaps” in patient understanding to improve compliance with prescriptions and healthful behavior. Sounds interesting & I’ll check it out, but they should have come up with a better name for the program!
Headlines for March 8-15
- Posted March 15th 2009
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
MedAdvant, a revenue cycle management (RCM) services provider that was acquired by Marlin Equity Partners in January, rebrands itself Capario.
Pharma Capital Partners is the new fund formed by former Merck Capital Ventures partners. PCP is raising $100M to invest in technologies that improve performace in pharma company operations (not drug development).
Health IT implementation services company, Vitalize (Reading, MA) acquires r3 Health Partners (Santa Ana, CA), a competitor.
Business Roundtable publishes report that concludes that US healthcare lags other countries in value — taking cost and outcomes into consideration. No surprise. Link to report in article; I haven’t read it yet.
Through partnerships with HealthGrades and Joint Commission, Med-Avantage (which creates provider directories for health plans) enhances its directories with hospital quality measures.
ARRA applies HIPAA privacy regulations to pharmacies and “business associates” of pharmacies. New restrictions apply to “communications” that are subsidized by pharma. Data-mining of Rx records (even anonymized records) not addressed in ARRA (stimilus bill).
Hospital Value Index (www.hospitalvalue.com), a comprehensive index of hospital quality, affordability, efficiency, and patient satisfaction, releases latest study results. Produced by Data Advantage, a private healthcare info company based in Nashville, Hospital Value Index integrates measures on over 3000 hospitals, using multiple data sources from CMS (e.g., Medicare spending, HCAHPS scores) and some additional sources.
Home page for AHRQ’s comparative effectiveness research site.
Xconomy interviews David Cerino, general manager of health care solutions at Microsoft. Cerino describes evolution of Microsoft’s HealthVault, its health care platform.
Even though CVS is closing some regional clinics until the fall because of seasonal demand, use of CVS MinuteClinics is on the rise in Massachusetts. It seems the high level of focus on healthcare costs in Mass combined with the price transparency & convenience of MinuteClinics over traditional office visits is driving demand for MinuteClinic services.
Margaret Hamburg, former health commissioner in NYC, is leading candidate for FDA commissioner.
FDA approves device that is injected into tumors and sends back radiation level readings via RFID, allowing accurate measuring of higher energy/shorter radiation time treatment. DVS-HFT dosimeter device is made by Sicel Technologies, Morrisville, NC.
NIH announces the availability of $1.5B in research grants from ARRA to be distributed for: medical research (at least $200M); construction grants for research facilities ($1B); and grants for purchasing research equipment ($300M).
Soon physicians will be able to buy a complete package of software & maintenance for an electronic health records system at Sam’s Club. WalMart has partnered with Dell & eClinicalWorks (an EMR vendor). Initial fees start at under $25K with maintenance fees of about $4-6.5K/year.
Practice Fusion, which promotes its free ad-supported electronic medical records s/w has partnered with LDM Group, St. Louis, to offer its ScriptGuide that provides physicians with custom patient education info for certain chronic diseases.
Enclarity, based in Aliso Viejo, CA, raises $5.5M from existing investors Bain Capital (Boston) and Ignition Partners (Seattle). Enclarity sells data management software to healthcare companies that provides data cleansing and matching services, along with a master provider db.
Allscripts sells its medication unit to A-S Medication Solutions for $26M. Allscripts had announced that they would sell the unit last month.
Marlin Equity Partners (an LA-based PE firm) acquires MD Everywhere, a revenue cycle management (RCM) SaaS solution for physicians. Marlin recently acquird Quik+Cross and MedAvant Healthcare Solutions.
CVS Caremark plans to close about 16% of its existing MinuteClinics until fall. CVS now has about 460 clinics (not including the 16% to be closed).
CRS report on Google Book Search Library Project copyright implications. I haven’t read report yet, but will take a look.
Minneapolis-based Muve licensed technology from Mayo Clinic and developed the Gruve. “The Gruve tracks every movement and calculates the number of calories each burns. Then after being synched up with Muve’s accompanying Web site, the device matches that information against the wearer’s weight goal.”
SureScripts-RxHub changes name to Surescripts and launches new site: The E-Prescribing Resource Center at www.surescripts.com.
Interview with Jonathan Bush, CEO of Athenahealth, a web-based s/w (SaaS) company that provides billing, EMR and other services to physician practices. Based in Watertown, MA. Bush comments on $19B of stimulus money targeted to EMR expansion. Also comments that Athenahealth plans to expand its sales & marketing in 2009.
Further consolidation among big pharma. Deal is expected to close in 43rd Qtr 2009. “Monday’s announcement was just the latest in a string of recent deals in the pharmaceutical world. Pfizer Inc. (PFE, Fortune 500) announced Jan. 26 that it is buying the smaller Wyeth (WYE, Fortune 500) for $68 billion, and Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG continues to pursue a $40 billion hostile bid of Genentech Inc. (DNA).”
Late in posting this story that has circulated widely over the last week about Medical Justice, which is trying to encourage physicians to have patients sign waivers saying that they won’t post comments on web physician review sites like Angie’s list or others. We reported on this in earlier blogs, too.
DJ blog on why there may be an uptick in transactions that take public companies private in the health care sector.
Using technology from Baltimore-based VISICU, a telehealth company that allows hospitals to remotely monitor ICU patients, Anchorage’s Providence Alaska Medical Center launches an eICU.
Headlines for Feb 5-16
- Posted February 15th 2009
- Comment (1)
- by Janice
IMS reports 3% growth in rev in constant currency for 2008. See press release for more details & links to full financials.
U. Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health published study that offers conservative view of the short-term benefits of genetic screening tests.
HealthGrades introduces Five-Star Doctors, rated on a mix of objective criteria (affiliated with hospitals with 5-star rating in specialty; board certified; and free from malpractice judgements & sanctions).
Thank you to David Rothman for writing the post that I started to write a couple of days ago to point out some Web 2.0 tools being used by HHS/CDC, including widgets to help spread info on the peanut recall. CDC even has a Twitter feed for health professionals.
Research from Change Sciences Group shows that individuals have greater trust in sharing info with their health insurer than with banks, gov’t agencies, or Google or MSFT. Other results indicate that existing health portals aren’t effective, but that insurers are in the best position to provide info that will be used.
Not health related, but a topic I monitor: business models for online news. I’m afraid NY Times is taking the wrong approach again. The archive is so suitable for monetizing by contextual advertising: a broad collection of content with a broad audience. But, API access should incur a fee or rev share.
Google & IBM announce a partnership to facilitate transfering data from mobile monitoring devices to Google Health record. Article includes some estimates of how many users have created records on GHealth or Microsoft’s HealthVault–one est. is “a few hundred thousand”.
Article tosses around the possibility that DTC ads will be prohibited by Obama admin. More likely scenario is that there will be restrictions and that more info will need to be made available along with ads.
Story about betting pools at offices to encourage weight loss, along with some websites that facilitate the process. Points to success of cash rewards for weight loss and importance of peer pressure/cooperation–especially among men.
Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on the discovery & development of antibiotics for antibiotic-resistant infections, receives $25M in additional funding after strong phase 2 results.
P&G has retained Goldman Sachs to look for buyers of its >$2b pharmaceutical businesses.
Presentations, transcripts and podcast of recent ARHQ webinar on evaluating Clinical Decision Support methods.
David Rothman points to Behind the Medical Headlines, a site produced by Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh & Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons in Glasgow. Site provides pointers to help readers discern the validity or trustworthiness of health-related articles in the press.
PharmaNet, a large provider of outsourced drug development services, is acquired by JLL Partners for $250M.
Montreal-based IT company, CGI Group Inc., receives a contract worth up to $24M to conitnue to develop computerized system for Medicare appeals.
A patient education program developed at BU Medical Center in Boston called RED (for Re-Engineered Hospital Discharge Program) uses specially trained nurses to educate patients about post-hospital care plans. RED led to 30% fewer readmissions and subsequent emergency visits.
FT interviews Peter Rigby, CEO Informa, with focus on debt and need to divest some assets. Informa has divisions in financial & commercial publishing, as well as academic & scientific, which includes substantial pharma business intelligence databases, publications and events.
More info on ENURGI acquisition by Univita. Techcrunch provides concise descriptions of Univita and ENURGI (a service that helps patients and their advocates find caregivers). Also reports that Univita is backed by Genstar Capital, a SF-based PE company.
ENURGI, which presented at Health Content08’s Innovators Showcase, has been acquired by Univita. Matt Holt provides more details in this post.
Research firm, User Centric, posts results of recent study of consumers’ ease of use and utility of GoogleHealth and Microsoft’s HealthVault personal health records platforms.
Headlines for Dec 11-14
- Posted December 15th 2008
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Blog about our conference, Health Content08, from OneClickMed, one of the companies selected to present at the Innovators Showcase.
Healthgrades publishes list of hospitals scoring in top 15% of HCAHPS survey.
Xconomy’s Wade Rousch interviews Amir Lewkowicz, co-founder of Inspire (fmly Clinica Health). Inspire is a patient/caregiver community site whose primary rev. model is clinical trial recruitment.
Charlie Baker on Milliman, Inc’s study of public and private payment rates. Milliman carried out the study for AHA, BS/BS, Premara Blue Cross and AHIP. Links to study included.
Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on NRC’s latest Healthcare Market Guide survey results.
Overview of Massachusetts’ new hospital database site that includes info on reimbursement rates paid to hospitals by insurers, as well as quality data.
Health Content08 Review
- Posted November 18th 2008
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Our theme for Health Content08 was Incumbents, Innovators, and Intermediaries. The conference demonstrated through programming, presentations and executive panel discussions how IT and the movement toward consumer-directed healthcare are forever changing the way healthcare publishers produce and deliver information to patients, medical professionals, and healthcare payers and administrators.
At Health Content08, we brought together CEOs and strategists from leading consumer health media companies and professional medical publishing companies in our morning panels to offer, in the words of one of the panelists, a view of “industry-specific trends in the context of our respective strategies“. These morning panels, and the keynote by West Shell III, Chairman and CEO of Healthline Networks, were highlights of the event.
The afternoon sessions explored our main themes in more detail through case study presentations. EBSCO Publishing, HealthGrades, Staywell Consumer Health, Advanstar Communications, BenefitFocus Media, Trigram America, and Consumer Reports all offered insight into how they are transforming their information into interactive information tools and livening up their content with video, audio, and integration into customers’ workflow. We closed the program with a look at how personalized medicine will affect the production and consumption of health care information.
Wednesday afternoon’s Innovators Showcase proved to be a huge success. Eleven early stage health content companies took the stage and wowed our audience with their new approaches to helping consumers and professionals solve their information needs.
Once again, I would like to thank our superb speakers. One attendee went out of his way to tell me that he learned something in every session. We will have to work hard to outshine the quality of the panelists and presenters from this year’s event. It was our goal to provide the audience a better understanding of the connection between consumer and professional healthcare publishing and based on feedback from the audience-and speakers-we succeeded.
We will draw on the examples from Health Content08 in future posts to this e-newsletter. For those of you who attended Health Content08, thank you. It was a pleasure to meet all of you. For those of you who missed the event this year, we hope to see you at the next Health Content conference. ICYOU.com will have some videos from the event to share with everyone very soon.
We start planning for our next event immediately and will continue to report on notable developments in health content in our Health Content in Perspective blog/e-newsletter. We welcome feedback on the conference and would be delighted to hear from potential speakers and ideas for next year’s program.
Headlines for Nov 13-16
- Posted November 16th 2008
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
B. Globe on PatientsLikeMe and other social networking sites for patients and how the pool of participants are increasingly being used as research participants. A key theme at Health Content08.
Long investigative piece in B. Globe on lack of price transparency in hospitals, with focus on varying prices paid by insurers for same procedure in different hospitals. Article elicited large # comments from readers, pointing out some shortcomings, but data that are reported clearly hit a nerve.
New HHS site (AHRQ) that provides an aggregate look at all teh quality and performance improvement measures throughout HHS.
Press release from HealthCentral about their new ad network.
Press release from Icyou.com announcing Nina’s participation on the Lively Up Your Content panel at Health Content08.
David E. Williams on pros and cons of home monitoring devices, as relates to Intel’s new initiatives in this space.
HealthGrades is participating in sponsoring a portal (PlanSmartChoice.com) for federal employees to help them select their health care coverage, along with Asparity Decision Solutions
“QualityHealth.com is the leading provider of performance based targeted healthcare advertising and information on the Web.” Press release goes on to explain that QualityHealth.com ” QualityHealth.com offers consumers health savings opportunities along with insightful content such as our new ‘Expert Q&A’ section that can help people make the right choices when it comes to their health.”
Commentary on the slow pick-up of PHRs.
Health Content Innovators Take Center Stage at Health Content08
- Posted November 14th 2008
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Our Health Content08 Conference, held Wednesday & Thursday of this week was a resounding success. We’d like to thank the outstanding speakers, advisory board, sponsors and engaged audience for their participation. More reviews of the conference will be posted soon, as well as links to session videos for those who attended. For now, I append the press release that details the early-stage companies that dazzled us at the Wednesday afternoon Innovators Showcase. [Note, BodyMaps was unable to attend.]
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Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:00am EST
Conference, produced by Health Content Advisors, convenes
commercial health content producers and syndicators in both consumer
and professional markets
PHILADELPHIA–(Business Wire)–
Health Content Advisors, (www.healthcontentadvisors.com) (a
division of InfoCommerce Group, Inc. (www.infocommercegroup.com) is
pleased to announce the winning entrants to present at Health
Content08’s Innovators Showcase being held today, Wednesday, November
12 from 2-5pm.
The debut Innovators Showcase is being held in conjunction with
Health Content08, a full-day conference that takes place on Thursday,
November 13, from 9 am to 5 pm, both at the Park Hyatt, Philadelphia.
It is being sponsored by Berkery, Noyes.
The theme of Health Content08, Incumbents, Innovators, and
Intermediaries, was chosen to highlight how technology and market
forces are driving health content publishers to innovate or partner to
meet new market opportunities.
The twelve early-stage health content companies selected to
present at the Innovators Showcase include:
BodyMaps, Paramount, CA
change:healthcare, Franklin, TN
eCaring, New York, NY
ENURGI, Singer Island, FL
DeepDyve(TM) (formerly Infovell), Menlo Park, CA
GenomeQuest, Westborough, MA
HealthWorldWeb, Staten Island, NY
Healthcare News Network, Cape Coral, FL
Healthy Humans, Wayne, PA
OneClickMed, Mesa, AZ
PatientImpact, Evanston, IL
RemedyMD, Sandy, UT
At Innovators Showcase, you will hear from companies that are:
– creating and transforming content to provide better sources of
healthcare information to consumer markets;
– creating infrastructure and integrating data with applications
to improve the flow of information between stakeholders; and
– capitalizing on the trend toward personalized medicine.
The value-added health care information and decision tools
produced by these innovators are transforming the market for health
care information used by all stakeholders in the health care industry,
including hospitals and physician practices, medical and clinical
researchers, consumers/patients, pharmaceutical companies, patient
advocates and other intermediaries.
Of special note, OneClickMed is making its debut at Health
Content08 and Infovell is announcing its new name and brand identity:
DeepDyve (TM).
The full program is available at: www.healthcontent08.com, with
detailed schedule at:
http://www.healthcontentadvisors.com/2008/11/05/schedule-for-health-co
ntent08/. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted
into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if
one exists.)
ABOUT HEALTH CONTENT ADVISORS
Health Content Advisors provides consulting services to consumer
and business health content companies and serves as an industry
connector and arbiter of best practices and trends. It continually
monitors and interprets shifts in information usage in all sectors of
the healthcare market to guide publishers in their current business
and identify opportunities. Its blog, Health Content in Perspective,
is issued every week and can be accessed at
http://www.healthcontentadvisors.com/blog/. More information about Health
Content Advisors is available at http://www.healthcontentadvisors.comor by
calling 781-356-1766.
InfoCommerce Group, Inc.
Roxanne Christensen, 610-505-9189
rchristensen@infocommercegroup.com
Copyright Business Wire 2008
Schedule for Health Content08
- Posted November 5th 2008
- Comments (2)
- by Janice
I have received several requests for the schedule of the sessions at Health Content08, which will be held next week (Wednesday, November 12 and Thursday, November 13) at the Park Hyatt in Philadelphia. We look forward to meeting many of you there!
The full schedule follows:
Conference Program
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - Grand Ballroom
INNOVATORS SHOWCASE
2:00 - 5:00 Innovator Presentations
5:00 - 6:30 Cocktail Reception sponsored by Berkery Noyes
Thursday, November 13, 2008
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
8:00-9:00 Continental Breakfast
9:00-9:10 SETTING THE THEME
Russell Perkins, Founder and Managing Director, InfoCommerce Group
Janice McCallum, Managing Director, Health Content Advisors
9:10-10:00 KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
West Shell III, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Healthline Networks
10:00-10:10 Health Content in Perspective: The Big Picture
Janice McCallum, Managing Director, Health Content Advisors
10:10-11:00 Session - Consumer-driven healthcare
Scott Meyer, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Warburg Pincus [Moderator]
Jack Barrette, CEO & Founder, WEGO Health
Jeremy Shane, President, Health Central Network
Benjamin Wolin, CEO & Co-founder, Waterfront Media Inc.
11:00-11:15 Break
11:15-12:15 Session - Innovations in Evidence-based Medicine
Tom O’Connor, Managing Director, Berkery Noyes [moderator]
Nancy Greengold, MD, MBA, Vice President & Medical Director, Hearst Business Media
Dr. Sundeep Karnik, MD, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Development, Elsevier Health Sciences
Gary D. Kennedy, CEO & Chairman, RemedyMD
Linda Peitzman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Wolters Kluwer Health
12:15-1:30 LUNCH - Conservatory
1:30- 2:15 Session - Lively Up Your Content
Megan St. John, Managing Director, InfoCommerce Group [moderator]
Deborah Breen, Director of Medical Market Development, EBSCO Publishing
Helen Hoart, President, StayWell Consumer Health Publishing
Nina Sossamon-Pogue, VP of Media, BenefitFocus
2:15 - 3:00 Session - Clinical News to Clinical Tools
Teri Mendelsohn, President, Mendelsohn Consulting, Inc [moderator]
Mike Alic, Vice President, Electronic Media Group, Advanstar Communications
Carolyn Simpkins, MD, Business Development Manager, BMJ Point of Care
3:15 - 3:35 Break
3:35 - 4:15 Session - Getting Clear on Price Transparency
Russell Perkins, Founder and Managing Director, InfoCommerce Group [moderator]
Danny Ezrol, Vice President, Strategy & Business Development
Thomas Johnsrud, Executive Vice President, Trigram America
Ronni Sandroff, Director/Editor, Health and Family, Consumer Reports
4:15- 5:00 Session - Let’s Get Personal
Janice McCallum, Managing Director, Health Content Advisors [moderator]
Anne Seymour, Associate Director, BioMedical Library, University of Pennsylvania
Rishi Sikka, MD, Chief Medial Officer, Praxeon
Conference concludes
Sponsored by: Berkery Noyes
Headlines for October 24-26
- Posted October 26th 2008
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Good run-down of presentations of consumer health tools at Health 2.0 conference.
High-level perspective of consumer attitudes toward health system and health IT responses to improving the system (drawing on Health 2.0 conference). Bottom line: we have a long way to go to change a complex system via tech improvements.
Good post by Bill Crounse, MD, Sr. Dir, Worldwide Health, MSFT about translating Health IT developments into useful tools that add value to the patient’s healthcare experience. Good contrast between Health2.0 and Health Content08, where we stress the importance of intermediaries (whether they be publishers, navigation tools/advocates, or producers of decision tools) to guide consumers and medical professionals in finding and using new tools that are ready for the market.
Comprehensive slide show on future of health care.
“(Reuters Health) - If you’re searching the Internet for surgery information, you may want to stick with sites run by professional medical groups and other sources free of commercial sponsors, a new study suggests. In a study that examined the quality of various surgery-related websites, researchers found that unsponsored sites generally gave more reliable information than sponsored sites did. When it came to the specific sources, sites run by professional medical groups got the highest marks, followed by government-run sites. The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Surgery, underscore the need for consumers to consider the source when looking for online medical information.”
“October 23, 2008 — Sermo, Inc. (http://www.sermo.com), the world’s largest physician-only online community, today announced the creation of The Healthcare Exchange™, a new forum that for the first time provides healthcare investors with instant access to exclusive medical information directly from 90,000 practicing physicians.” Exclusively via Bloomberg.
Librarian Hope Leman gives positive review of Infovell, a new search service that “culls content from thousands of journals, millions of documents and billions of untapped pages of Life Sciences, Medicines, Patents, Industry news, and other reference content from trusted and expert sources.” Note, Infovell is one of 12 companies to present at Health Content08’s Innovators Showcase Nov. 12. (www.healthcontent08.com)
Good round-up of recent announcements by consumer-focused health content companies (mostly announced at the Health 2.0 conf in SF). Implications will be explored in more depth at Health Content08.
“Yahoo! Health will incorporate HealthGrades data into a new search-driven directory that will leverage numerous Yahoo! technologies and applications. The new physician directory will offer detailed physician and care provider pages, insurance coverage information, ratings and reviews from other users, comparable physician charts and health-focused Yahoo! Answer and Yahoo! Group modules.”
The Hartford, Conn.-based insurer will pay for the technology from Zix Corp., Dallas. It includes an electronic prescribing device and connectivity for transmitting the prescriptions. The services also include access to health plan formulary and drug interaction information. The three-year contract follows pilot programs Aetna has done with Zix in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York. Aetna roughly estimates 40,000 of its covered members could be served under its new program in northern New Jersey.
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