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Archive for the ‘WebMD’ Category
Today’s Health Content Headlines
- Posted March 11th 2010
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Please scroll down if the story you are looking for is not the first headline. New stories are added throughout the day and I may have provided a link to the most current story that is now lower down on the page. Follow me on Twitter @janicemccallum.
Needed: Guided Navigation for Health Information Search
- Posted February 3rd 2010
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
There has been a lively dialogue occurring on the e-patients.net site this past week about how Google and Microsoft Bing display search results for health care queries. Google recently introduced a special result listing that provides links to Mayo Clinic, ADAM, WebMD and MedlinePlus when users type in a common health condition as their search term. For example, type in “hypertension” in the Google search box and the first listing in the search results will look like this:
| Hypertension | |
| Google Health Mayo Clinic Medline Plus WebMD | |
| Hypertension is the term used to describe high blood pressure. Blood pressure readings are measured in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) and usually given as two numbers. For example, 120 over 80 (written as … www.google.com/health |
|
The thread on e-patients.net was initiated by Susannah Fox, Associate Director, Digital Strategy at Pew Internet Research and so far has elicited 73 comments about Google’s policy of providing special placement for these four specialty health sites. Further comments on the post focused on the inability of existing consumer health portals, aggregators, and search engines in guiding patients to information sources that may be more relevant to them. I highly recommend a thorough reading of Susannah’s post and the subsequent comments.
I contributed the following comments: “At this point, the big search engines focus on the broadest topics and Mayo, ADAM, WebMD and MedlinePlus are good sources for basic info on diseases and conditions. But, the common complaint I hear about these resources is that they are too broad, not deep enough, too removed from the current needs of the patient, and certainly not geographically specific.” Susannah wisely brought up the topic of how useful it would be to offer more guidance to people who are seeking more specific reliable information in their health-related query. She asks “I wonder if curated search results are the answer to the ongoing debate over information quality?”
It may be difficult to offer “pre-curated” health information that suits everyone’s needs because of the vast array of queries and the disparate number of sources that exists. The ‘big 3′ consumer health portals, WebMD, EveryDay Health[ii], and HealthCentral already serve as curators to the content they make available under their umbrellas. But, these sites share many of the same mile-wide, inch-deep characteristics of the previously mentioned sites. Even though there are some patient communities represented on these consumer health portals, it is often difficult to find the relevant community and relevant information buried in a post.
The discoverability problems in consumer health search relates to the early-stage of the health content product life cycle. Some online patient communities may have existed for a long time, but most are relatively new. Because many are small and specialized, it is unlikely they will ever achieve sufficient PageRank in Google’s relevancy algorithm to be listed on the first couple of search results pages on Google.
As social networking and other factors that drive the demand for healthcare information matures, there will be more demand for services that guide users through the process of researching, communicating, and recording health information. Who will be the likely winners in the race to provide guided navigation to health information? There are roles for EHR/PHR vendors, content companies (i.e., publishers), patient community sites, pharma and other vendors, providers, and payer organizations to create, distribute and sponsor health content. I expect to see a growing number of licensing and other content sharing deals between these health industry stakeholders in the coming years. And there will always be a role for aggregators and search engines that can improve the customer experience.
[i]Note, Google has changed the display to read “Google Health” instead of ADAM. Google licenses the content from ADAM.
[ii] Everday Health (the new parent company name for what was formerly Waterfront Media) filed to go public last week.
Headline Commentary Jan 1 - Jan 22
- Posted January 22nd 2010
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
“Press Ganey Associates, Inc. today announced the addition of Philip Marshall, MD, MPH, as senior vice president, clinical products. Dr. Marshall joins the company at a time of continued growth and will be responsible for expanding the clinical product lines for the company.” Dr. Marshall was most recently VP Product Strategy at WebMD Health.
New Study in NEJM points to benefits of reducing salt intake in american diet. See my article on NY’s planned program to reduce salt and my criticism of AAFP for promoting salty foods in advertisements on their site. Note, a recheck of the AAFP FamilyDoctor.org site indicates that fewer packaged foods are advertised today. My blog appears to have been influential!
Superb analysis of impact of Scott Brown’s win to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate on health reform. David Harlow (whom I finally got to meet yesterday) and Joseph Kvedar offer insightful quotes. Kvedar suggests that if health reform legislation doesn’t pass, we still have raised awareness of need for change to control costs and that some changes will occur even w/o legislation. Harlow says that costs and quality will continue to decline w/o legislation and could lead to a stronger bill with some form of a public option down the road.
UMass Medical selects NDoc to automate home health services care. NDoc provides billing and operational s/w for use at pointofcare for home health services.
Good article from former HBS professor on how companies can mine their own propriety data about customers and partners to their advantage. Lays out the 5 keys to doing it right: 1) create a network to collect proprietary data; 2) use best technology; 3)analyze with insight & precision; 4) figure out how to act on info to your advantage; 5) be lucky enough to have good timing.
Trish (about.com) recounts story of pediatrician who molested patients and how comments on doctor rating sites prior to his conviction were positive. She suggests that the current array of ratings sites all share weaknesses. I tend to agree. Comments can be useful, but there need to be a large number and attributes of the people providing the ratings are needed. Plus, multiple criteria from formally reported and collected info need to form the basis. I’d want to know about outcomes, not just opinions.
Nuval, a Boston-area company that provides numeric ratings that reflect nutritional value of foods, gets official endorsement from American College of Preventive Medicine.
Martin Fenner in Nature’s Nature Network on growing options for reading scholarly articles. Covers various devices as well as the concept of using connected information to provide context. No clear-cut perfect solution yet.
Very good commentary about shortcomings of continued medical education (CME) from a Canadian physician’s perspective. In Canada, CME (called CPD in Canada) is more structured and reporting is more detailed. Dr. Rob is very critical of US system that relies primarily on attendance at medical conferences.
Excellent overview of trends in healthcare research being influenced by patient particpation via Internet channels. Specific focus on last October’s ePatient Connections conference. David Ellis and Julian Bond of HFD conclude that healthcare data analytics will become increasingly important in divining patterns from all the data being generated by epatients and even diagnosing for individual patients. They also point to the importance of mobile computing in healthcare.
Highlights IdeaBounty and InnoCentive as examples of companies that facilitate crowdsourced innovations. In these two cases, winning participants are paid for their ideas/solutions. Good article that describes how 1 company replaced their ad agency with IdeaBounty for creative.
Boston company that repurposes discarded specimens and matches basic EHR data to allow for additional medical research studies to be carried out on the specimens. iSpecimen then aggregates and uses datamining techniques to analyze patterns in the data.
Pearson FT is apparently shopping Interactive Data.
Insititute for Safe Medication Practices reports results of recent survey about impact of recession on hospital staffing, capital expenses, patient acuity, and medication safety.
DeepDyve makes another move toward making scholarly journal articles more accessible. The partnership with CiteULike expands the utility of DeepDyve to knowledge workers who don’t have high-priced subscriptions through their corporate or academic library. CiteULike is a “delicious”-type bookmarking service popular in the scholarly community. DeepDyve also announced partnership with publisher De Gruyter. I am impressed with the pace of innovation and content deals carried out at DeepDyve. Their $0.99 rental price for journal articles is an important step toward opening up access to scholarly research on a much wider scale.
MedScape article that explores the value of online searching for patients. Shallow article with no conclusions, but it does offer some good criticism of existing options.
Good article and comments about expectations of enhanced ebooks. Key themes IMO: 1) publishers have to understand the technology platform/distribution platform that is appropriate for their audience; 2) pricing plays a role in selecting the right platform (CD-ROM allowed fixed pricing at a time when online access charged per second); trying to use new technology as a guise for increasing prices is a risky move.
HubSpot marketing director explains why they have chosen to drop trade show exhibiting from their marketing mix. They still will attend events and seek speaking slots and will sponsor some events, but they don’t find the process of shipping booth & collateral and several sales people to be as worthwhile as other marketing options. Very good comments and responses.
Poll of 800 physicians on Sermo indicate that large percentage feel current Medicare policies are out of sync with market needs. “[O]ver 40% of the physicians polled feel the US government “never will” understand how declining reimbursement rates from Medicare negatively affect the care patients receive from their physicians. They fear reimbursements will continue to decline in the coming years, reducing patient access to physicians.”
MSNBC story that picks up on recent article in NEJM about pros and cons of sites that provide patient comments and ratings of doctors. Hook in this article is how some of the ratings sites, including Angie’s List, now flag doctors who are part of the Medical Justice Services group that require patients to sign contract that prohibits them from posting comments online. I agree that anonymous comments are a problem, and I’ve written before that a single numeric rating is insufficient, but it’s short-sighted of doctors to try to prohibit patients from expressing their opinions online.
Nice article that describes some reliable sources of health info for consumers from a Minnesota pub. Note, they still have PDR listed as owned by Thomson Healthcare, even though it’s a winter 2010 article.
Quidel, a San-Diego point-of-care diagnostic testing company, buys Diagnostic Hybrids, an Athens, Ohio company for $130 Million in cash. Acquisition expands the range of tests provided by the combined company, and should provide some economies in R&D.
Good overview of the two companies and the impact of the acquisition. John Moore of Chilmark views the acquisition as a long-term investment since he doesn’t see much life in the PHR segment at this time.
Quest offers new test for early detection of colorectal cancer.
Adams replaces Carl Byers, athena’s initial CFO, who last June said he wanted to live abroad.
Cegedim Dendrite, the life sciences group of Cegedim, Paris-based CRM solutions provider, acquires SK&A, the leading US healthcare professionals directory. According to press release, revenues of SK&A are about $15 M.
Credit rating firm TransUnion has acquired MedData LLC, a Charlotte, N.C.-based health care transactions processing firm, for an undisclosed sum.
Pfizer provides $3m in funding to Stanford to develop CME framework that incorporates a more participatory learning environment. Can it be donew/o industry influence given the source of the funding? Stanford says “yes”….
Healthcare IT News reviews Allscripts/Misys Q2 results. Rev. up 30% yoy. Allscripts CEO, Glen Tullman, calls 2010 “year of the EHR” due to stimulus funds.
Another content + IT deal that will help hospitals/providers achieve meangingful use of EHRs. Zynx Health provides order sets; Meditech will integrate order sets from Zynx into EHR–press release doesn’t provide much detail on how they will integrate the info.
Origin, a CT-based provider of RCM and clinical and BI analytics, gets growth equity funding from TCV. Previous investors include Beecken, Petty & O’Keefe & Company (“BPOC”), an investor since 2006, and management as investors in Origin.
Quantros, a health IT company that helps hospitals with patient safety and risk assessment, names Gerard Livaudais, MD, MPH, as EVP Product Management.
Not enough info is provided in blog entry to make much sense of the results. Asking people what general categories of content they would pay for isn’t very telling; better research methods are needed. Plus, there’s such a range of content in each type that results aren’t very valuable.
athenahealth’s athenaClinicals was rated highly in recent KLAS ambulatory EMR report on confidence that athenaClinicals will meet meaningful use criteria.
Good article on outlook for Informa. Author indicates that asset sales are likely in 2010 and points to Performance Improvement as a top candidate, since it doesn’t fit with other Informa assets. However, Informa’s CEO, Peter Rigby, is against divestments and would prefer to grow through more acquisitions, according to article. Also, academic/scholary publishing division is called out as their best performer (due to high margins). Given pressures on this segment and lack of innovation from Informa, I would be worried if I were a shareholder.
SF-based Practice Fusion raises $5m of anticipated $7.1 round for it’s EHR software. Practice Fusion offers s/w for no charge and makes money with advertising–and has plans to sell data mined from customers.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Inc. has won a $72 Million grant from the FDA to build a system to monitor the safety of drugs and medical devices after they have gone on the market.
Adidas introduce miCoach at CES. Similar to Nike’s popular Nike+.
Good commonsense views on what will and will not change in 2010.
David Walt, professor of chemistry at Tufts and chairman of Illumina, provides his top 5 trends to watch in biotech. Optimistic outlook for advances in curing cancer, but thinks that the data management and analysis issues will be a challenge due to the magnitude of data (”Moore’s Law just can’t keep up”).
Short but insightful article that reports some interaction between Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt and Atul Gawande, MD, author of new book The Checklist Manifesto. Key point, workflow or “clinical encounter” is not understood by the computer scientists who create EMR systems. Also, systems analysis and performance improvement (my terms) are not respected uses of time for MDs.
Interesting example of how incentives from CMS can trickle down to specific programs within hospitals. In this case, residents can earn up to $1200 per year in incentive pay for reaching 3 goals related to patient satisfication–two from Press Ganey survey results and 1 from UCSF Medical Center compliance audits. Results are measured for a team and each teammember receives payment.
Dr. Fabius, among other things, served as president and chief medical officer for i-TRAX, which was acquired by Walgreens in 2008. “I-TRAX was the parent company of CHD Meridian Healthcare, a leading provider of worksite healthcare centers for large employers.”
AHA endorses Surgical Info Systems for its scheduling, reporting and analytics modules.
Inside Out provides interactive training on the human body for K-12 market.
Nice overview of Cell Press’s (Elsevier) new beta of their planned “article of the future”. Good features for zooming in on charts and link to more data and references. I need to do a more thorough review and hope to see it in action at Cell Press in Cambridge soon.
Brian Ahier summarizes Sec’y HHS Sebelius’ Health Security program.
I’ve mentioned NuVal before. Intriguing company that provides single numeric rating of the nutritional value of foods and works with grocery stores to put labels on shelves. Concept is good, but like the writer, I think the single digit is insufficient. Good for shelf; but maybe more detail could be available via mobile device?
Kaiser and VA (Veteran’s Affairs) will use NHIN to exchange patient data (with permission) in pilot program in San Diego area.
A physician reviews online doctor rating sites. Slams Vitals, in large part because only single numeric rating is available w/o paying. I’ve commented before that single number is ineffective for rating doctors–or most any other item. The reviewing physician likes the comments, however. Note, as list of comments gets larger, some kind of summary indicators become more necessary to annotate and summarize the long comments.
Some good insight here. E.g., 6)PMS vendors will acquire RCM companies (didn’t I just write that yesterday?),8) Payers, PBMs and Pharmacies will use EHRs to deliver information (add publishers to that list).
Nice article from Ingenix analytics on employer wellness programs.
Kevin Noland resigns to make way for former CFO Mark Adams to take helm. Could this be result of change in strategy to focus more on benefits management services than content?
Commonwealth Club program on medicine. Video.
TabSafe, an Indiannapolis company, showcases its medication management system at CES.
AdvancedMD, which provides practice management and RCM solutions to medical practices, acquires PracticeOne, an EHR vendor. Interesting that the vertical integration is occurring in this direction–the vendors of admin/financial systems acquiring the EHR vendors. There’s lots of room for more consolidation in both markets.
“23andMe has completed a $27.8 million second round of funding. In addition to funding from Google and Google founder Sergey Brin (husband of 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki), 23andMe has been funded by Genentech and New Enterprise Associates.”
“Krames has partnered with eClinicalWorks to provide consumer-friendly patient education to physicians using the electronic medical records system, eClinicalWorks 8.0.” Makes good sense.
As my colleague Russell Perkins said, “betcha thought there already was one”.
Sramana Mitra interviews co-founders of NaviNet, a real-time health info exchange based in Boston area. 5-part interview with lots of good stats and info.
Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of AHRQ, describes new report for consumers on anti-depressants. Includes link to full report.
Gawande speaks about his new book, Checklist Manifesto, and the benefits of checklists in medical settings. Specifically mentions how checklists improve teamwork to the benefit of patients, and addresses the issue of physician resistance (20% of those surveyed after trying out checklists said they didn’t think they were useful; however >90% of that 20% group would want checklists to be used if they were the patient!).
“Atenda is one of the largest home health benefit management companies, providing care and exclusively managing more than 1.3 million lives. Atenda is used by major health plans as a single point of contact for managing all home care services, resulting in improved care and cost savings to plans and their members.” Univita was established by Genstar Capital last year with its acquisition of Long Term Care Group, and subsequently acquired ENURGI.
Infotrends broad multi-client study on changing communications needs of small-to-medium sized businesses. TOC and list of tables only. Complete study >$10K
HIMSS writes up new CDSC created by Blackford Middleton at Partners Healthcare.
Caritas hospital group in Boston expands their relationship with athenahealth to include athenaClinicals. They already used athena’s revenue cycle management (RCM) s/w.
“The National Association for Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions (NACHRI), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the operations and quality of care in its almost 200 member hospitals, is using a web-based research database and reporting system developed by IT Consulting Services of Quantros to report on quality improvement initiatives. Quantros is a leading software and services provider for the healthcare industry.”
Lots of reaction to ONC’s release of MU requirements. This article highlights a few key concerns, including lack of focus on patient’s rights and support for outdated technology that will not provide advancements that are needed.
Nice article on Google’s view of future of advertising. I agree with Arora from Google that online ads shouldn’t be an afterthought, but a critical part of overall advertising strategy.
Article in NEJM questions equity of wellness program incentives in health reform package.
Nice summary of major milestones in medical research in the last 10 years. Emphasizes the impact of the mapping of human genome a decade ago. Also points to advances in preventing disease. Note, although preventive medicine is a much better long-term goal than treating illness, based on my experience, funds tend to be focused on the crisis of the moment and savings of prevention often get forgotten over time (e.g., vaccinations). However, for the present time, there is likely to be renewed focus on prevention in medicine.
One of the questions posed by David Carr in this column about the reports of a new tablet device from Apple (rumored to be announced later this month (jan 2010)). If Apple can produce an e-reader/tablet that considerably improves the user experience over the Kindle, it could take off even at $800-$1000 per device. Publishers of all types–B2C and B2B–should be planning bus models (mostly advertising) around tablet devices.
Good thought-provoking piece by Joe Esposito. He uses example of early enthusiasm from entrepreneurs and Wall St. to build broadband pipes to households, which puzzled the established RBOCs who couldn’t imagine why HHs would need such high bandwidth. Contrasts that situation with today’s need to radical change in scholarly publishing model to provide more direct interactive between researchers and scientists. Implication is that the needed change won’t come from traditional players. I agree.
Like this list, esp. the top 3.
Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe, on trio of young companies that provide outsourced R&D, using crowdsourcing. Innovcentive, Hypios and Yet2.com are highlighted. Innocentive & Yet2.com are Boston area companies; Hypios is in Paris.
Interesting comments from former insiders and analysts on what made Dow Jones vulnerable and changes under Murdoch. Note, I didn’t see any mention of the enterprise division of Dow Jones (there may be some comments, but most focus in on WSJ and the Telerate mess).
Editor of Journal of Spinal Disorders & Techniques for past seven years receives royalty payments from certain Medtronic devices. “Studies involving Medtronic spinal products or that were funded by Medtronic appeared in the journal at least once per issue, on average.” And, are uniformly reviewed in a positive light. More trouble for scholarly publishing sector–fueled in part by Richard Smith, former editor of BMJ.
Mitch Wagner’s last article for InformationWeek w/ 2 examples of hospitals with successful implementation of business intelligence (document management, integration, analytics, dashboards) software.
Nice post that focuses on improving access to healthcare data–by all stakeholders.
“URAC, the nation’s leading health care accreditation and education organization, today announced its new Consumer Education Initiative, which teaches consumers about health insurance and identifies ways they can make more informed decisions about their health care.”
Interesting news about licensing deal between AllTheContent, a Geneva, Switz based content syndicator, and Pharma Channel, which provides info to pharmacies in Europe.
Nice video explanation of HL7 and how the standard facilitates sharing info between various IT systems in hospitals.
Headline Commentary Nov 9-22
- Posted November 22nd 2009
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Very good article by Linda Peitzman, MD, CMO (Medical) of Wolters Kluwer Health on benefits of order sets. Article provides some detail on how to implement order sets to ensure everyone receives latest most current version. Note, hour long interview with Linda, Nancy Greengold (of Hearst Business Media and co-founder of Zynx Health), Sundeep Karnik (fmr VP Strategy Elsevier Health) and Gary Kennedy, CEO of Remedy MD can be found here: http://www.berkerynoyes.com/pages/innovations_in_evidence_based_medicine.aspx
InformationWeek profiles Transparent health Network, which is compiling prices for direct purchases of healthcare services by patients.
IL launches its hospital compare site. Article points out that public ratings rarely reflect quality of care.
Flybridge invests in woman-owned pilates equipment seller, which has sold over $500M in equip on QVC over the past 12 years.
WSJ writes about new x-discipline collaboration among research scientists. Key point relates to how these scientists are creating their own databases. No mention of third party publishers in this new world of data-driven research.
Workflow study that follows patient through hospital identifies areas for improvement.
Jane Sarasohn-Kahn reviews recent study by Buck Consultants on growth of wellness programs in a variety of countries and compares the priorities of each country’s wellness programs. US is only one where cost-saving is key objective.
Brian Ahier writes about recent developments in electronic healthcare records with a focus on Practice Fusion and GoogleHealth’s attempts to offer patient info that is consistent with physician info.
Matt Holt comments on Practice Fusion’s announcement of patient portal to coincide with their free EHR s/w.
John Moore of Chilmark Research, who moderated closing panel, recaps the day’s highlights. I’ll add that John did a very good job on the last panel, which included Esther Dyson, Steve Munini COO Dossia, Fred Smith of CDC, and George Willock, CEO of HealthString. Audience appreciated the focus on the patient (Adam Bosworth did focus on patient, too). I believe it was Esther who said: “the patient is the most important input into health decisions”. She mentioned the “quantified self” movement and Society for Participatory Medicine also got a plug. This was the most forward-looking session that addressed social media and the exploding amount of new data that will be available for analysis.
Very good video by Nobel laureate in biochemistry, Paul Nurse, who makes the point of the importance of recording healthcare outcomes and analyzing data to prevent misunderstandings based on false correlations. He uses the vaccination scare as an example.
DataONE (Data Observation Network for Earth) is one of two $20 million awards made this year as part of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) DataNet program. The collaboration of universities and government agencies coalesced to address the mounting need for organizing and serving up vast amounts of highly diverse and inter-related but often incompatible scientific data. Resulting studies will range from research that illuminates fundamental environmental processes to identifying environmental problems and potential solutions.
Good balanced view of response to recent breast cancer screening guidelines.
Center for Ix Therapy, which was represented at our first Health Content07 conference, to shut down Nov 30, 2009. The Center was small organization with limited resources, and suffered from trying to define a space that already existed and was far more widespread and diverse than their definition of Ix Therapy.
Lois Wingerson writes about Healthcamp NYC and ePatients.
Wonder what Lexis and Westlaw will say about this?
HR and billing IT apps are helping hospitals save money that can be applied to clinical improvements.
Makes sense. FDA and other govt sources are not best at marketing and distribution. Everyday Health (Waterfront Media) can take on that role to extend reach of FDA info.
Latest version of Allscripts (version 11) was launched before it was debugged. HDM asks if Allscripts has overreached its grasp since its merger with Misys. Note also the prices for the KLAS reports: $980 for providers; $11,850 for others!
Grove, former CEO of Intel, promotes concept of new degree to help accelerate the cycle from medical research discoveries to mass production of new treatments. Essentially, Grove wants to combine skills of researchers and engineers to disrupt current cycle that can take many years from bench research to broad availability.
ModernMed, a concierge medical service in Milwaukee, launches with 2 primary care MDs. Founder believes healthcare costs can be controlled via effective primary care.
Physician posits that dependence on checklists may not be to the benefit of good patient care if insufficient attention to individual patients is paid.
CambridgeSoft, which provides IT solutions for pharma BI (esp R&D), receives funding from Health Evolution Partner (David Brailer’s PE company). CambridgeSoft is touting its SaaS solution for pharma & chemical research.
Gary slams the morning TV shows for their promotion of junk information about weight-loss and other health issues. I agree that for the most part, TV news health info is superficial and very seldom put in context. Wouldn’t it be great if the money were spent on disseminating helpful information and pointing people to more trustsworthy sources?
“The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to boost data sharing among its various programs that have common functions using the Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) and the nationwide health information network (NHIN).” Sounds reasonable…
How much information is optimal to share between patients & doctors? Great comments here.
Good article that points out the importance of system change (behavior change) for checklists and the like to be effective.
Article makes the point that it’s great that gov’t agencies are providing more open data, but that data needs to be put in context and displayed in an engaging manner to really have full impact. And that, dear publishers, is what you should be doing…
Another outstanding post by DC patient, who writes that een though she is an engaged patient, she never would have thought to file reports of adverse effects (AE) via FDA’s MedWatch. Her comments make it pretty clear that the MedWatch channel is not effective for monitoring Rx AEs. Patients consider many factors before they single out any particular cause.
Excellent round-up of Day 1 of FDA hearings on social media use by Pharma.
Another story on the funding for Caring.com which recently acquired the Gilbert Guide.
CVS sees value in studying interaction between genes and medication for its PBM business and for its end-customers.
Google’s proposed ad format for Pharma ads. Presented at FDA’s hearing on social media.
Dr. Pauline Chen’s column about the decline in # docs who want to go into primary care. In large part, it’s due to large number of routine cases they deal with and the amount of paperwork and coordination required. Of course, pay is an issue too. This ties with articles I’ve published about the commodization of routine health care enabled by health IT. Programming routine tasks and allowing nurses and other clinicians to take over these tasks should relieve primary care physicians of the “burden” of routine tasks.
Forrester’s CEO on how old media needs to reinvent itself for digital world where customers decide what is valuable.
Nice rundown of vetted sources of online health information from medical librarians.
Explorys, a start-up search engine, partners with Cleveland Clinic to develop search/analytics tool for patient records.
David Blumenthal’s latest statement on goals of the ONC for interoperability of electronic health records.
Chris Truelove’s review of 1st morning of #FDASM
linking patient data and related information
Very good article and great comments on hurdles that impede implementation of electronic health records/electronic medical records.
Live webcast of FDA’s hearing on use of Internet and Social Media Tools by FDA-regulated Medical Products, Nov. 12-13. Much anticipated meeting on topic of use of online media by Pharma and other FDA-regulated companies.
Geonetric survey lists top objectives of patient portals created by hospitals.
More outlets for distributing health and fitness gear as focus on wellness and prevention increases.
Pretty interesting application. Not as far-fetched as it seems.
No matter the outcome on ONC pronouncements about meaningful use, CCHIT, the certifying board for EMR/EHR systems, is continuing to play its previous role. CCHIT describes itself as a “community” and believes they offer meaningful services to small hospitals and group practices.
Lots of info on various IT standards for EMR/EHRs
Comments on Erik Engstrom’s new position as CEO of parent company Reed Elsevier. Engstrom has been CEO of Elsevier, the STM group of RE, for some time. Smart and analytical, I think he’s a good choice.
CareMedic, a Florida revenue cycle management (RCM) company, to be acquired by UnitedHealth’s Ingenix group. Ingenix now has near end-to-end platform for managing every step of the revenue cycle, from patient registration to reimbursement.
Well, even though someone’s gotta pay for the production and dissemination of information, I don’t like this alliance and don’t believe AAFP can be objective in its research on effect of sugary soft drinks if Coke is the sponsor.
WaPo on how some people may overreact to info they find on online health sites. Writer overreacts a bit herself in implying that online resources shouldn’t be used to help diagnose one’s condition. Agree that health literacy is needed; that is, consumers need better training to vet health resources. But, we’ll have hypochondriacs in the real and virtual worlds. Not everyone will gain the same benefits from online health resources.
Google now incorporating dat aon flu shot availability and mashing it up with Google Maps to illustrate where flu shots are currently available. Note, Google is compiling info provided by clinics. More proof positive that Goog is a content publisher.
SDI Health, a PA company that provides healthcare data analytics services, receives funding from Tailwind Capital.
FastIgnite site offers tools for start-up companies to calculate pre-money valuation, vesting, and more.
Article on lack of transparency in reporting health research and health statistics.
CareFocus, parat of the Clinical Xpert suite of CDS workflow solutions from Thomson Reuters (fmly Mercury MD) extends functionality of product line.
Narrated slide slow illustrating new features of reports on Patients Like Me. Impressive.
Dr. Danny Sands on why he believes in participatory medicine and informed patients.
PhRMA proposes methods for verifying FDA-approved data in health info provided to consumers. FDA logo on sites?
Good concise review of Merck Manual Professional Ed. for iPhone
Excellent slide deck that describes influence of social media in healthcare: pharma, med school, epatients, doctors, nurses.
Describes use of mobile devices to monitor steadiness of eldery to prevent falls. Good descriptions of how data from monitoring devices can be used in research to vastly improved current snapshot approach of medical research.
Focus on shortage of primary care doc and how nurses will take on more resposibility. Agree, but shortage isn’t the source of problem. Rather, commoditization of basic medical care & procedures due to digitization of health care info is source of change. See piece on “heatlh content is rapidly becoming a commoditiy” in my blog at Health Content Advisors.
Merck offers iPhone app that allows chemo patients to track symptons, etc.
Sermo creates community on practice management topics for docs to share info about healthIT and the business issues of running a practice. There are even CME activities with 8 module curriculum titled: The New Business of Medicine.
Chief scientist at Endeca, a specialist in faceted search, joins Google.
Microsoft will launch a video web series on health IT beginning Nov 11, 2009.
Review of data.gov with emphasis on healthcare data.
Long interview with David Brailer, now a PE exec, fmly Director ONC.
Emap titles Health Servie Journal and Nursing Times partners with Doctors.net.uk to share content and conduct research.
Anne Woods promoted to CNO (Chief Nursing Officer) at WK Health. She’s responsible for nursing strategy across Medical Research & journals publishing businesses.
Hope Leman’s interview w/ John Sharp of Cleveland Clinic.
Headline Commentary Oct 12-18
- Posted October 18th 2009
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Paul Sheils, who has led many top quality healthinfo-related companies in the past, named CEO of DocSite. DocSite provides “modular, upgradeable, affordable, Web-based tools tied to evidence-based guidelines”. Interesting.
CEO of OptumHealth’s Care Solutions group describes their programs to encourage healthy behavior before and after health care is needed.
HealthGrades latest annual study of patient outcomes by hospital.
Webmedx, which transcribes doctors’ voice recordings, implements new system powered by MarkLogic to create indexed data that can be fed into other apps.
Intuit’s Quicken Health Bill Pay partners with Allscripts to improve efficiency of patient billing. With better information provider to patients about what they owe, bills are being paid faster and can be paid online.
Phase Forward signs Hungarian pharma company, Gedeon Richter, to multi-year deal for PF’s clinical trial management s/w.
RWJF funds Kaiser’s biobank, the largest and most diverse repository of data genetic data that includes info on lifestyle and environmental factors.
Incentives for employees to participate in wellness programs are growing. Safeway is an example of a company that offers financial rewards to employees who achieve certain wellness goals. To encourage similar programs, health reform legislation will increase existing limits for rewards. This amendment is becoming known as the “Safeway Amendment”.
Great article on imporantance of teaching students how to mine through and analyze data–an increasingly important skill especially in medical research.
John Sharp’s presentation at Cleveland Clinic seminar on how IT is transforming medical practice and research. Good preso with good examples.
Lawrence Lessig warns that complete transparency of govt data will lead to misuse of data by those who draw incorrectclusions. Sunlight foundation begs to differe. My point: access to govt data provides opportunity for data publishers to build quality info products and market them.
Article on MD who won HHS contest to prepare a PSA on H1N1. Dr. Clarke wrote a rap music PSA. Links to Youtube video of him performing the short video included.
How access to info–and especially DTC ads–help drive up costs by increasing demand for tests, procedures and drugs.
Among issues mentioned in article, complexity of medical knowledge and explosion of # of journal articles.
Harvard launches new mobile apps on public health, starting with H1N1 info.
Headlines for Mar 24-29
- Posted March 29th 2009
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Peter Suber’s blog summarizes stories about Springer’s owners, PE companies Candover & Cinven, hiring UBS & Goldman to seek potential buyers. According to FT, they want to sell 49% of Springer. But, asset sales are also possible. Springer publishes STM & B2B books, journals & magazines, and has strong collection of medical & pharma info, including Current Medicine Group and Humana Press.
MediaPost reports on FDA views on usage of social media advertising by Pharma. “The FDA hasn’t squarely addressed the role of social media in drug advertising to date. But an agency official offered some insight on the subject in a recent interview with Mark Senak, a Fleishman Hillard executive in Washington, D.C. who separately runs the EyeonFDA blog.” Article also quotes Waterfront Media and HealthCentral execs about slow pickup in advertising by pharma on social media sites.
MedlinePlus, the consumer health database from NIH’s National Library of Medicine, partners with ADAM Corp to include ADAM’s Multimedia Encyclopedia. Interesting reversal of the typical pattern where US gov’t health info is incorporated into commercial apps. In this case, commercial health content is incorporated into gov’t resource.
Add Wellpoint to the list of insurers being sued by AMA &/or NY atty general Cuomo. Similar class actions suits have been filed against Aetna & Cigna for using the Ingenix db that led to overcharges to patients for out-of-network care.
NY Times writes about another article in upcoming NEJM about electronic medical records, which cautions about suitability of some of the EMR systems being sold and urges an open s/w platform be used to facilitate interoperability. Authors also point to the importance of looking beyond automating routine tasks to “how the technology will be used to improve clinical performance,” said Herbert S. Lin, a senior scientist the National Academy of Sciences, an advisory group to the government.
Press release on study published in NEJM online 3/25/09 that reports that only 1.5% of US hospitals use comprehensive electronic medical records systems that connect various depts, lab reports, prescription info. Link to int. with primary author/researcher included in release. Study conducted by Harvard Sch. Public Health, Mass General, and George Washington Univ; Ashish Jha of HSPH was lead author.
OptumHealth, the health & wellness division of UnitedHealth, partners with Rodale to publish “100 Smart Choices”, a book that offers health & wellness advice to consumers.
Elsevier launches Innovation Explorers, an online community of research scientists & librarians, to help involve customers in the design of products.
Google enhances search with longer snippets for longer searches and increases semantic analysis in presenting results.
David Rothman describes his experience trying to get a price quote for an information product that was promoting a 30-day free trial. Illuminates pricing practices by medical publishers that vary customer-by-customer.
BusinessWeek story on mobile clinical tools.
TechCrunch reports that Trusera, a recent entry on “health 2.0″ patient social-networking scene, will run out of money by end-of-April if it can’t raise more funds. Started by ex-Amazon exec in Seattle. Comments on post point out key problems: crowded field and lack of revenue model.
NPR’s interview with Dr. Jeffrey Siegel, founder of Medical Justice, which asks patients to sign waiver that they will not post comments on medical ratings sites. “There are dozens of such sites, but now doctors are fighting back. Dr. Jeffrey Segal, founder of Medic…”
AP article on importance of “getting it right” when spending $19B on electronic medical records investment. Emphasizes the importance of ability to transfer data between systems.
WSJ names some of the vendors that stand to benefit from HealthIT spending in stimulus bill (ARRA). Calls out eClinicalWorks, the company that has partnered with WalMart & Dell to sell EMR s/w in Sam’s Clubs.
Greenhill SAVP partners with Valhalla Partners and High Peaks Venture Partners on an $8M investment in Flat World Knowledge. Flat World, based in Nyack, NY, publishes open source textbooks and charges only for print-on-demand, audio textbooks and ind. chapter sales.
InnoCentive, a Boston-area company that offers a marketplace for buying & selling innovative solutions, partners with Nature Publishing Group to promote its marketplace to NPG’s readership.
DeepDyve (formerly Infovell), a Health Content08 Innovator, adds Steve Wozniak to its advisory board. DeepDyve released a new interface recently that is clear and simple, yet offers access to body of information not available through standard web search engines.
From press release: “The combination of Oracle and Relsys is expected to deliver the only suite of software applications that supports end-to-end drug safety processes across clinical development, post-market surveillance and patient care, and is expected to extend Oracle’s leadership in providing drug safety applications to the health sciences industry.” More on Oracle’s Health Sciences Global Business Unit, which was created last June, in the release. Berkery Noyes represented Relsys in the transaction.
Wolters Kluwer’s medical coding s/w, ProVation, is profiled by AARP with a focus on WK Health’s Clinical Solutions group in Minneapolis (which now employs 130).
Describes benefits/costs of medical tourism, ie, traveling abroad for medical care.
John Halamka,MD, offers definitions and descriptions of terms used in healthIT, along with some commentary on adoption rates and potential for healthIT. Worth a read.
Collection of pharmacists-related associations collaborate to make sure that pharmacists’ voices are heard in the health care reform debate.
Article highlights rapid adoption of the iPhone as a medical device to communicate info to patients. Further evidence to support my commentary last week that interfaces,design & convenience of electronic medical devices needs to be improved.
From Press Release: “The new web site will leverage WebMD’s proven technology and expertise in consumer health information services and will include original health news and features, wellness and condition centers and guides, interactive tools and applications, including WebMD’s proprietary symptom checker, health trackers, calculators and health and wellness videos. Boots UK plans to market the new health portal through in-store promotion, links on their current e-commerce site, outreach to their loyal group of affinity customers and promotion in their health and beauty magazine. The new service is planned to launch in the second half of 2009. WebMD and Boots UK will jointly share in the development costs and benefits of this new site. WebMD will directly manage the sales and revenue operation for the new site.”
Discusses business-rule management systems (BRMS) usage for clinicians. BRMS is really just another acronym for clinical decision support tools that rely healthcare data analytics. Article points out that such systems are only as good as the quality of the rules that are applied in the s/w–and I would add only as good as the quality (and quantity) of the data in the system that is mined to determine the recommendations. Article also refers to what has been called “alert fatigue”; that is, if too many warnings are flashed each time, and most are very rudimentary, clinicians will start ignoring the warnings about potential adverse effects, etc.
MedAptus, a provider of “charge capture” technologies for medical billing receives new funding from existing investors.
Press release from HHS describing $268M in ARRA (Stimulus bill) funds available to hospitals to treat most vulnerable patients.
Articles discusses need for data collection and analysis in determining effectiveness of wellness programs.
Headlines for Dec 15-26
- Posted December 26th 2008
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
Sermo joins the fray — along with Google — in using online tools to track spread of flu. Sermo has advantage of compiling clinical observations rather than inferring data from search queries as does Google.
From Toronto Public Library Consumer Health Information Service, a list of top 10 health-related websites from 1999 and update on where they stand today, as well as some notable new sources.
Google’s Research Datasets project is shutdown. Announced about a year ago, Research Datasets was seeking to aggregate large datasets that backed research projects. One 30 datasets were uploaded, but some were huge (Hubble project with 120TBs). Media focus has pointed to storage costs as problem, but the need to reduce # of early-stage projects at Google also contributed to the decision. Google says it will focus on G Scholar instead.
Informa plans to cut its debt, which will likely require selling off some assets. In Healthcare (with heavy emphasis on Pharma BI), Informa owns Taylor & Francis publishing,PJB (Pharmaprojects, Scrip, and other pharma bi databases, publications and events),Citeline TrialTrove, and recently acquired Datamonitor (see: www.informa.com/divisions/academic_and_amp_scientific/informa_healthcare for full list. In other divisions, Informa is known as the owner of Lloyd’s list, finance and insurance publications, and global events producer IIR.
More on the investigation into undisclosed influence from Wyeth (purportedly hiring medical communications company to ghostwrite and article and finding an academic to put his name on it) in Elsevier’s American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Elsevier has launched its own investigation.
David Harlow takes the new Massachusetts’ online hospital database MyHealthCareOptions, for a spin. Reveals that cost data are only given in broad ranges and ratings in the form of star, which don’t provide sufficient data to make informed decisions.
PaidContent on 8-K filing by WebMD that reports a 4-5% workforce reduction at WebMD, accompanied by $2.5M restructuring charge.
Thomson Reuters to issue up to $3B in debt to use for general corporate purposes. Thomson Healthcare is a division of Thomson Reuters.
Health insurers and other payers are organizing community meetings to provide input into Obama administration’s health policy.
Wolters Kluwer Health’s ProVation medical coding product “has been designated Number One in the Clinical Procedure Documentation category of the 2008 Top 20 Best in KLAS Awards: Software & Professional Services report”.
FDA study finds that information provided with new prescriptions fails to provide the level of usefulness called for by FDA: “The current voluntary system has failed to provide consumers with the quality information they need in order to use medicines effectively and safely,” said Janet Woodcock, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Because the congressional goals have not been met, the FDA intends to seek public comment on initiatives that can be used to meet the goals.” “We need to work with pharmacy operators, drug manufacturers, health care professionals, and consumers to come up with a sensible, comprehensive and more effective solution,” said Woodcock. Link to full study included.
CMPMedica to provide drug info content to iSOFT, one of the world’s largest providers of healthcare IT solutions. (iSOFT press release was distributed on 11/25/08)
“Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), announces the launch of myLWW, a new, personalized and intuitive interface that integrates medical journal content and rich media to enable collaboration, sharing, and innovation among medical professionals. LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health.” Uses MS Sharepoint to host over 280 journals and allows collaboration.
“The Center for Improving Medication Management ( The Center ) today launched http://www.LearnAboutRxSafety.org, a new Web site where consumers can learn how to use medications safely. Developed in conjunction with the National Council on Patient Information and Education ( NCPIE ), the Web site is primarily intended as a resource for families and all individuals seeking information on medication safety. The Center will collaborate with consumer organizations, provider and payer organizations and other groups interested in promoting medication safety and adherence for consumers.”
KLAS’ annual Best in Klas winners announced and listed in this article.
Xconomy reports on how foundations are more carefully considering the investments they make in pharma and biotech companies due to the economy. Cites a CenterWatch study.
MediKeeper provides web-based PHR technology for providers and employers and is now partnered with Dossia.
2009 edition of Scrip 100 - Informa Healthcare’s annual analysis of pharma industry is now available online: http://www.scripnews.com/supplements/download_today/Scrip-100
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.
MyOptumHealth Consumer Health & Wellness Portal Launches
- Posted December 4th 2008
- Comment (1)
- by Janice
In launching myOptumHealth.com OptumHealth, the health and wellness division of UnitedHealth Group, clearly believes that producing their own open Web portal for consumers is a better bet than serving as a sponsor for the many consumer health portals that currently exists. Having their own site, which rivals leading consumer health portals such as Revolution Health, HealthCentral, and WebMD, doesn’t preclude United’s advertising on other sites that compete with myOptumHealth, but the statement is loud and clear that they believe that controlling their own site has merits above and beyond sponsoring other sites.
OptumHealth was already in the business of providing private health portals for employer clients, so the R&D for design and content architecture for myOptumHealth will be broadly leveraged. Also, OptumHealth can provide unique content about best practices for health & wellness management programs that it extracts from its experience in offering wellness services and its parent’s experience in offering health insurance. And, even though they chose to build and control their own site, they are not trying to create all the content or features in-house. OptumHealth is partnering with Healthline Networks for search technology and advertising utilities, and they are licensing some of the content from reputable third-party sources.
Although the site looks a lot like the other consumer health portals, the purpose of myOptumHealth has some different goals than the media-owned sites. myOptumHealth does include advertising, but it will also serve as a lead-generator for UnitedHealth and OptumHealth’s services, as well as a test bed for its private portal business. This multi-faceted business model has some key advantages over the primarily ad-supported model of the consumer media health sites. Furthermore, by creating their own consumer site, OptumHealth has diverted a potential source of advertising dollars from the consumer media health sites.
Headlines for Dec 1-3
- Posted December 3rd 2008
- Comments (0)
- by Janice
“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and WebMD are partnering to expand access to timely and reliable information for consumers. FDA Consumer Health Information will be featured on WebMD’s site and in WebMD The Magazine.”
Summary of some comments from HP, Siemens and Oracle at last month’s Personalized Medicine meeting at Harvard about the bright prospects for health analytics companies with the growth in personalized medicine. (Note, the Harvard meeting unfortunately coincided with our Health Content08 conference)
No mention of GoogleHealth in this article, but tightened financial controls and focus on products that generate revenue could affect the status of GHealth within Google.
HealthDay partners with NewProNet, a producer of original syndicated news services for local broadcasters & online news sites, to launch HealthDay TV to supplement its news service.
SunTrust eClaim Revenue Gateway announced by SunTrust Banks. eClaim Revenue Gateway is a secure online platform for RCM–providing eligibility verification and claims submission and reconciliation.
SwiftMD announces launch of its Web and phone-based medical consultation & patient ed services. Focuses on providing urgent and non-critical consultation over the phone, internet, or bi-directional video. “There is a one-time registration fee for the set-up of a member’s secure and HIPAA compliant personal health record (PHR), a monthly membership fee and a consultation fee for each SwiftMD visit. SwiftMD doctors interact with members by phone or Internet, review members’ PHRs and diagnose non-critical illnesses or conditions.”
Former CEO WK Health names president of Zimmer’s reconstructive unit, which brings in most of its revenue (which was $3.9B in 2007).
New module in GE Healthcare’s Centricity Business revenue cycle management, Patient Protocol Manager, enables scheduling appts and integrates with billing system to help determine financial responsibility for charges. Includes a single data repository for clinical trial subjects.
Quintiles Transnational, a leading CRO that provides drug development, strategic partnering & commercialization for the pharma, biotech, and med device industries, acquires Targeted Molecular Diagnostics, a developer of biomarket technologies for oncology research.
DC-based Medicaid provider implements MEDecision analytical software that helps assess patients’ risk for certain diseases and recommends preventive care.
Healthline to serve as ad rep for UnitedHealth’s new myoptumhealth.com consumer portal. Healthline search will be used on the portal, too.
CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts writes on need to base provider payments on quality of outcomes, not fee-for-service. His comment that “as much as 0 percent of all healthcare spending could be eliminated without reducing quality” [if we can eliminate unnecessary tests and services]reminds me of the truism in advertising: “I know half my advertising expenditure is wasted, I just don’t know which half.”
Quosa, which already works with Elsevier’s SCOPUS, now can be used with EMBASE. Quosa is “a specialist software company…to life-science professionals” and facilitates reference management and literature management for project teams.
Harvard Medical resident, Brijesh P. Mehta and Nambi Nallasamy, a student at Harvard Medical School, have created MedicalPlexus “for the purpose of improving collaboration between colleagues, effectively disseminating medical knowledge, and, ultimately, improving patient care. We wanted a place where doctors are able to share valuable content easily.”
Eidetics, now a division of Quintiles Consulting, will use its data analytics app, Provenance, to mine clinical tirals with >2.5M patients for Quintiles. ““Part of what we do is to help clients design and execute clinical trials in a way that allows them to recruit more effectively and efficiently, target the right kind of patients, and measure the right endpoints.” That Provenance provides a panoramic view of complex data and utilizes advanced data mining techniques and Bayesian networks may well position Quintiles to take a leadership position within the world of adaptive clinical trials, says Kirk. To date, Quintiles has conducted 400 trials using electronic data capture.”
UnitedHealth launches myoptumhealth.com. “Run by UnitedHealth’s health-and-wellness services unit, OptumHealth, the site includes tools to check symptoms, a search engine for finding specific health or disease information and a repository where consumers can maintain their personal medical information.”
“Genstar Capital has agreed to acquire Long Term Care Group Inc. from Advent International and CCP Equity Partners. No financial terms were disclosed. LTCG is an Eden Prairie, Minn.-based provider of outsourced services to the long term care insurance industry and the geriatric care market. It will serve as the cornerstone of a new senior care services platform called UniVita.”
Hope Leman’s response to the question: “Is it a good idea or not to give Google your personal health information or data?”
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