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Archive for the ‘Healthcare Publishing’ Category

Health Content: There’s an App for That in EHRs

Approximately 30,000 people convened in Atlanta last week for the HIMSS conference. HIMSS stands for Health Information Management Systems Society, and its annual event has become the meeting place for vendors and users of electronic medical and electronic health records systems (EMR/EHR). This year’s conference program had a major focus on the impact of the ARRA HITECH[1] funding and incentives for adoption of new EHR systems. One of the most common topics of discussion at the event was “meaningful use” of EHRs.

I’ll reveal my bias upfront. My background is in digital information services, and I’ve always viewed information management systems as tools for increasing the utility of the content that flows through these systems. An information system that doesn’t optimize the utility of the content in a way that adds efficiency to a process or leads to better outcomes is not all that compelling to a user.

With EHR systems, it has been long apparent to me that their value would be far higher to the clinicians who use them if the knowledge embedded in medical textbooks, scholarly research publications, and other reference sources were incorporated into the EHR systems at or near the point of care. Over the past 10-15 years, we’ve witnessed the gradual migration of information that had been stored in separate online reference systems to systems that physicians and other clinicians can access on their handheld devices or EHR/EMR screens. Epocrates for drug reference information on early PDA devices was a pioneer. Now, nearly all the reference and research content is digitized, but most of it hasn’t been incorporated into EHRs in a manner that maximizes its utility for clinicians. 

At this year’s HIMSS conference, there were myriad signs of accelerating convergence of EHR systems and health content. EHR vendors are eager to embed clinical information into their systems to demonstrate the value of incorporating accepted clinical guidelines, procedures, lab values, drug dosing suggestions, regulatory benchmarks and any other useful clinical reference content that would save the clinician’s time and lead to improved outcomes. Embedding the accepted rules and guidelines into an EHR system also provides the ability to customize recommendations based on the patient’s characteristics (sex, weight, other drugs being taken, allergies, and increasingly personal genome). The advantages of having the appropriate rules and guidelines embedded in the software are obvious. Just think TurboTax. [Note, I am focusing on clinical content in this post; benefits for administrative/performance improvement applications are equally compelling.]

Granted, medicine is more complex than the tax code. (It may be hard to believe anything is more complex than the tax code, even taking into account the state-wide variations, but it’s true!). Hospitals will continue to follow different procedures, guidelines will remain suggested guidelines to allow for individual variations, and new medical knowledge will be acquired daily. Nonetheless, the value of automating the practice of applying widely accepted medical rules and guidelines is immense-for practitioners and patients.

Medical publishers have been slow to adapt their content for usage in EHR/EMRs. Zynx Health, a Hearst Business company, was a leader in providing order set workflow systems that incorporate content. Their sister company, First DataBank, also proved the ground for transforming drug information to medication management systems. Based on my discussions at HIMSS, other medical publishers are accelerating their efforts to create clinical decision support systems from their collections of content that can be embedded in EHR/EMR systems. Elsevier, Thomson Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer, the big 3, have made great strides.

HIMSS is still a very technology-centric event with limited focus on health content and relatively few publishers exhibiting. Along with the big 3, a handful of other publishers, including EBSCO/DynaMed, PEPID, and several patient education publishers (ExitCare, Healthwise, Patientedu.com) were present. And, of course, MedTech, the publisher of Healthcare IT New and Healthcare Finance News, which also publishes the Exhibit Guide and the daily HIMSS10 Guide, was there. BNA, a publisher of regulatory information, had a booth, too.

However, I see 2010 as a turning point for health content publishers. They have to learn to adapt their information for inclusion in EHRs. A digital version of a reference work is no longer good enough. The content has to become an “app” that can be incorporated into electronic systems.[2] Standalone content that doesn’t plug in to a user’s system or get embedded into clinical decision support systems will be left on the sidelines. By the time HIMSS11 rolls around next year, expect to see more health content publishers among the exhibitors and more clinical decision applications that can be integrated into healthcare information systems on display. Soon it will be difficult to identify where the content ends and the technology begins.

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1 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) bill of 2009 (aka, the Stimulus Bill). For details see: http://healthit.hhs.gov/.
2 Official standards for Meaningful Use that include use of evidence-based order sets and other clinical decision support systems by 2012-2015 will fuel this trend. 

 

Today’s Health Content Headlines

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.

 

Headline Commentary Feb 14 - Feb 28

  • » GE Healthcare Unveils Future of Healthcare IT at HIMSS10 - MarketWatch

    GE’s press release for HIMSS. Includes debut of clinical knowledge platform that helps providers with quality improvement initiatives, expanded HIE services, a clinical portal and a patient health management system.

  • » Guidant Charged with Failure to Report Defibrillator Safety Problem

    FDA charges Guidant (a Boston Scientific company) with failure to report safety problems with some of its implantable defibrillators.

  • » AHRQ: Health IT could be disruptive while reducing rehospitalization rates, costs

    BU School of Medicine creates RED (Re-Engineered Discharge), a checklist that helps reduce readmissions. Other examples of application of health IT in this article.

  • » Eclipsys, Microsoft partnership looks to open platforms, interoperability | Healthcare IT News

    Eclipsys Sunrise Enterprise suite of health IT software applications to integrate with Microsoft’s Amalga UIS platform.

  • » FT.com / Media - Wolters Kluwer results disappoint

    Earnings in health and pharma division down sharply–from 29M Euros in 2008 to a loss of 79M Euros in 2009. WK says pharma communications, advertising and book sales biggest factors. McKinstry says they are changing portfolio of WKHealth to focus on “clinical decision support areas”.

  • » Athenahealth delays quarterly report - The Boston Globe

    Athenahealth to delay its Q4 SEC filing so that it can audit its revenue recognition practices. Has to do with how Athenahealth amortizes implementation fees that are deferred until implementation is completed; they are considering extending the period of amortization beyond the current 1 year.

  • » Technology Review: Briefings: Personalized Medicine

    MIT Technology Review feature series on personalized medicine. Haven’t taken good look at the articles yet, but will return to explore.

  • » Doctors group to focus on 1 hospital - The Boston Globe

    Important story about how Harvard Vanguard/Atrius physician group is making Beth Israel/Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) a priority hospital because of coordination of care between the two institutions.

  • » NEJM — Serving Two Masters — Conflicts of Interest in Academic Medicine

    Sponsorship and payments from device and pharma companies to fund research and for board representation introduce conflicts of interest for academic health centers. No news there, but some good insight into recent developments in this article.

  • » Mayo Clinic partners with GE, Intel for home-based monitoring study | Healthcare IT News

    Mayo, GE Healthcare & Intel partner on year-long study of effects of monitoring seniors & people w/ chronic illnesses with home monitoring devices.

  • » The Migration to Modular HIT Apps « Chilmark Research

    John Moore at Chilmark provides insightful analysis of today’s announced alliance between Microsoft Amalga and Eclipsys.

  • » Eclipsys and Microsoft form alliance in Health IT

    “”Blending Eclipsys’ leadership in physician adoption and sophisticated clinical and decision-support workflows with Microsoft’s leadership in interoperability, data extraction, authentication and context management will open up new choices and opportunities for healthcare organizations needing to make the most from their existing IT infrastructure.”- Peter Neupert, Corporate VP, HSG, Microsoft.

  • » Adopting electronic health records will cut costs - TheHill.com

    Google and Microsoft Health execs address benefits of health IT on healthcare in short article published in The Hill. Two key points: 1) focus on the patient and 2) focus on the performance improvement (”improved outcomes we want to achieve”) with health IT, not just IT for IT’s sake.

  • » Macmillan’s DynamicBooks Lets Professors Rewrite E-Textbooks - NYTimes.com

    Interesting. DyanamicBooks allow professors to customize textbooks with their own modifications. Prices will be lower for e-books, but print on demand versions will cost about the same as traditional print version. What about copyright for new version? It probably remains with Macmillan, which means professors don’t get to copyright their contributions?

  • » Obama Administration Details Healthy Food Financing Initiative

    Primarily via financing initiatives from Treasury, HHS, and Dept. of Agriculture will fund programs that improve the availability of fresh foods and more healthy alternative foods in communities that currently lack access to large grocery stores. These initiatives are closely tied to first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative that aims to decrease childhood obesity.

  • » The President’s Proposal puts American families and small business owners in control of their own health care. | The White House

    Obama’s healthcare proposal 2/22/10

  • » DeepDyve Offered to CalTech Alumni

    CalTech is partnering with DeepDyve to provide discounted access to DeepDyve’s article rental service to alumni. DeepDyve’s Gold plan, which allows rental access to an unlimited number of articles included in DeepDyve’s collection of scholarly journals and other literature that sits behind paywalls. I continue to be impressed with DeepDyve’s initiatives to increase access to scholarly research that has been walled off to non-academics or those who don’t have a corporate subscription to commercial collections.

  • » PatientsLikeMe Buys ReliefInsite to Help Patients Track Their Pain Online | Xconomy

    Missed this last week. PatientsLikeMe acquires ReliefInSite, based in Hungary. ReliefInSite helps patients track their pain levels; bus model relies on pharma and clinical researchers.

  • » Health Grades Inc. Q4 2009 Earnings Call Transcript — Seeking Alpha

    Transcript of Q4 2009 earnings call with Kerry Hicks and CFO Allen Dodge. Few tidbits: efforts to build risk management business line (Health Credit Solutions) have failed and Health Grades is winding down that business and focusing instead on ratings products. Advertising sales have grown nicely, esp. from AdSense and other networks. However, I still question how well the WrongDiagnosis.com product fits with HealthGrades.

  • » IMS Launches Integrated Regulatory Compliance Solution for Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Companies - MarketWatch

    IMS offers decision support service for regulatory compliance for Pharma and med device companies.

  • » Health data quality – a two-edged sword « Archetypical

    Some good points about quality of patient-reported data and implications for using data from patient community sites in research. I like the points about how some users enter dummy data just to test out a site and the importance of recognizing what data are missing. Both issues related to good data management.

  • » Ideal Medical Practices: NCQA explores patients as valuable resource for information to add to their unworkable metric set

    National Center for Quality Assurance (NCQA) paper on evolving standards for Patient-Centered Medical Home metrics.

  • » Pursuing Perfection: Raising the Bar for Health Care Performance - RWJF

    Summary of project funded by RWJF and carried out by IHI to study performance improvement initiatives in hospitals in the period 2001-2008. Link to report included.

  • » Grassley Probes WebMd Ties To Eli Lilly // Pharmalot

    Grassley questions Pharma sponsorship of content on WenMD

  • » Many seek a “just-in-time someone-like-me” but few post their own stories. | Pew Internet & American Life Project

    E-patients consult Web to find ratings on doctors and providers, but fewer post ratings themselves. Link to full report from Pew.

  • » Eclipsys posts good fourth quarter earnings, builds new EHR | Healthcare IT News

    Eclipsys beat expectations in Q4 2009, with earnings of $3.8 Million, up 15% YoY. Rev. up 5% YoY.

  • » Pharma Marketing Blog: Can Pharma Fill the HCP-to-Patient Social Media Vacuum?

    John Mack on the role Pharma can plan in providing information directly to consumers via social media.

  • » Researcher creates ‘Facebook for Scientists’ | VentureBeat

    Good overview of ResearchGATE, a social networking site for scientists that allows users to set degree of privacy and facilitates collaboration. Bus model: jobs board for scientists.

  • » Pathway Genomics Licenses Harvard Health Content for Personalized Genetic Test Reports

    Pathway Genomics, which provides genetic tests to consumers, licenses Staywell’s Harvard Health Content so that customers can access additional information about the conditions reported in the test results.

  • » Aneesh Chopra Invites You to Tell Us About Opportunities and Challenges facing HIT Implementation « Federal Advisory Committee Blog

    ONC’s Aneesh Chopra, who chairs the Implementation Workgroup, seeks feedback on how to build a starter-kit for EHR implementation. Specific categories of interest: Vocabularies; content exchange standards; communications exchange standards, and privacy.

  • » Serving the Underserved: Exchanging Information to Improve Rural Health Care | Mastering Data Management

    Story of how Louisiana has seen improvements in rural health care through implementation of health info exchange.

  • » Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-based Handbook for Nurses

    AHRQ

  • » Most Americans Think It’s Others Who Are Unhealthy - Yahoo! News

    Recent survey commissioned by Cleveland Clinic, GE Healthcare & Ochsner Health System indicates that 50% of Americans believe other people’s health “was going in the wrong direction” but only 17% said their own health was “going in the wrong direction”. 2000 people surveyed. Results are in line with my observations. Many people are in denial that their habits are unhealthy. Even when they get sick, they don’t believe their own health management was a factor.

  • » Rising Use of Medical Technologies Extending Americans’ Lives: MedlinePlus

    Consistent with research by Tomas Philipson, U. Chicago. Healthcare innovation and IT saves lives, but it comes with a high cost. We can keep innovating, but we can’t afford to keep paying for the innovations in the current system.

  • » CDC annual report, Health United States, 2009

    TOC and links to full report from CDC on trends in health statistics.

  • » Five Next Steps for a New National Program for Comparative-Effectiveness Research | Health Care Reform Center

    “Must read” article in NEJM on creating national program for CER.

  • » Sebelius Unveils New Report on Requested Premium Increases in States Across the Country

    HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius releases report that includes info on requested premium increases by health insurers across the country. Link to full report included.

  • » Contemporary Trends in Evidence-based Treatment for Acute Myocardial Infarction

    Description of study in Worcester, MA to implement evidence-based theraputic management guidelines for cardiac patients.

  • » MEDai and Shared Health(R) Partner to Offer Tennessee Robust Health Information Exchange Platform

    Shared Health Clinical Xchange, the largest HIE in Tennessee, has partnered with Elsevier’s MEDai to provide clinically-relevant HIE.

  • » Cholesterol drugs up diabetes risk slightly: study | Reuters

    Meta-analysis indicates that use of statins to control cholesterol is correlated with higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

  • » VA to study doctor’s reactions to e-alerts

    Veteran’s Admin to monitor how doctors respond to e-alerts sent via the agency’s computerized patient record system (CPRS). Currently, they only tract if doc acknowledges receipt of an alert, not whether the doc takes follow-up action.

  • » Teenagers Science Project Leads To Simple Concussion Test - Shots - Health News Blog : NPR - StumbleUpon

    Simple “hockey-puck on a stick” test easier to implement in real-world situations: “There are computer algorithms to measure reaction time, using game-like programs. But they’re not so good for use at the sidelines, and they involve licensing fees.”

  • » Health Care Reform and Comparative Effectiveness: Implications for Surgeons — Urbach and Morris 145 (2): 120 — Arch Surg
  • » Data-Driven, Patient-Centered Health Care: A #WhyPM Video | e-Patients.net

    Excellent presentation of text/audio content–and the info provided is excellent, too. Good points about data alone not being sufficient; data must be put in context and must be shared to be helpful. Read Susannah Fox’s comment to learn more about the people behind the voices in the video.

  • » NaviNet Multi-Payer Portal Selected for Initiative to Increase Healthcare Efficiencies and Reduce Costs | Business Wire

    NaviNet chosen as communications network in pilot intended to document benefits of provider-payer health info exchange in NJ.

  • » Mind Hacks: The draft of the new ‘psychiatric bible’ is published

    Fascinating overview of changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)currently in draft form. Along with the info about specific disorders, I find the new approach toward categorizing disorders along a spectrum of severity very interesting. The degree to which someone has a disorder is considered, rather than placing each level of severity in a separate category. Aspergers as part of the autism spectrum is the example that is getting a lot of press.

  • » Advertising - G.E. Ad Campaign Aims to Put a Human Face on Its Role in Health Care - NYTimes.com

    GE producing TV ads for Healthymagination campaign during Olympics. Also sponsoring content online. Good to see someone beside Pharma sponsoring content!

  • » Beyond Meaningful Use

    Excellent lead article on need for automated data input (from devices, exchange from other systems, etc), better clinical decision support systems, and process change to make use of EHRs “meaningful” in improving health care.

  • » DeepDyve Does It Again: Fascinating Developments in Scholarly Publishing and Scientific Communication « Significant Science

    Hope Leman’s long, but very entertaining, comments about DeepDyve’s specialty search and article rental model for scholarly journals articles. Access to much of the scholarly journal content isn’t available to non-subscribers and even discovering the existence of this body of content is difficult, which means the publishers are not reaching growth markets. DeepDyve offers a solution with minimal risk to publishers, yet the buzz for DD hasn’t grown as much as Hope (or I) would have expected. Worth reading — and it’s worth checking out DeepDyve.

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    Headline Commentary Feb 1 - Feb 13

  • » HealthLeaders Interstudy offers PatientFinder Healthcare Analytics Tool to Pharma

    PatientFinder, which estimates # of insured patients in region that have specific diseases but are untreated, to be offered by HealthLeaders Interstudy. 

  • The Health Care Blog: Rating or Narrating, that is the question.

    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 questions vendor claims on HIEs | Healthcare IT News

    KLAS on current state of HIEs–vendors “pass around packets of information without necessarily taking ownership of what is in the packet”.

  • » PatientsLikeMe Growing as Pharma Customers Boost Focus on Patients | Xconomy

    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.

  • » Microsoft e-health research taps Xbox, mobile phones ( - Software - Industry Verticals )

    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.

  • » Microsoft looks at health potential of Xbox, apps | Health Tech - CNET News

    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.

  • » The opportunity in B2B social media » 16th letter » Blog Archive

    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%.

  • » Press Releases | Pfizer: the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company

    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.

  • » Procter & Gamble buys full stake in MDVIP - Business Courier of Cincinnati:

    P&G completes its acq. of MDVIP, a concierge medical practice based in Boca Raton, FL.

  • » CenterWatch: Content Feeds on Clinical Trials

    Nice. CenterWatch now provides feeds by therapeutic area, disease category, FDA approved drugs and more that can be added to a website–for Free!

  • » HealthBlawg: Medical Apologies: Do right and do well

    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….

  • » PatientSafe Solutions - Gets new funding

    Patient Safety and workflow solutions company raises $30M led by TPG Biotechnology Partners.

  • » Decisions, Decisions - Can Financial planning learn from healthcare?

    Why communicating absolute vs. relative probabilities is important in healthcare–and in fin’l planning.

  • » More on Calculators: Harvard Does the Math | The Decision Tree

    Harvard Med School’s Laboratory for Quantitative Medicine has created personalized risk assessment tools based on “binary biology”. Interesting.

  • » The Health Care Blog: Why Calculators Are the Future of Healthcare

    Thomas Goetz on nomograms, or clinical decision tools, that help calculate risk of specific diseases on a personalized basis.

  • » Weighing in on Amazon/Macmillan Pricing Debate « Pakman’s Blog: Disruption

    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.

  • » Patient 2.0 empowers patients, worries doctors : Covering Health

    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!

  • » FDA’s issues guidance on Bayesian statistical methods in medical device clinical trials

    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.

  • » Patient Driven Research

    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.

  • » Medicare and Medical Technology — The Growing Demand for Relevant Outcomes | Health Care Reform Center

    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.

  • » Have a Medical Question? Text a Group of Doctors - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

    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.

  • » http://www.jnj.com/connect/caring/patient-stories/reaching-moms-one-text-at-a-time/

    More on the Text4baby partnership btwn HHS, other fed agencies, industry (Pharma, telecom carriers) and insurance plans.

  • » HHS Coordinates Program to send Health Reminders via Text to Pregnant Women

    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.

  • » Doctor and Patient - When the Patient Can’t Afford the Care - NYTimes.com

    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.

  • » Pending lab tests are not in hospitalist discharge summaries | KevinMD.com

    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.

  • » A Doctor’s Take on Participatory Medicine, Health IT and the E-Patient: A Talk With Daniel Sands of Cisco Systems « Significant Science

    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).

  • » Harvard-Based Crowdsource Project Seeks New Diabetes Answers — & Questions | Epicenter | Wired.com

    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.

  • » Wolters Kluwer Health Unveils Facts & Comparisons® eAnswers Drug Information Reference | Press Releases @ Your Story

    WK Health updates Facts& Comparisons and rebrands it as (drumroll please…) Facts & Comparisons eAnswers. Drug info resource.

  • » A special report on social networking: A world of connections | The Economist

    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.

  • » The End of a Paper That Linked Autism to a Vaccine - Health Blog - WSJ

    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?

  • » The Twitter Train Has Left the Station - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

    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 Pours “Incredible” Computing Power into Antibody Drug Discovery With Adimab | Xconomy

    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.

  • » IBM to Acquire Initiate Systems — ARMONK, N.Y., Feb. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ –

    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 Continues To Add Sources at Rapid Rate

    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.

  • » Guerra On Healthcare: Meaningful Objections To Meaningful Use — Meaningful Use — InformationWeek

    Anthony Guerra provides commentary on inadequacies of MU guidelines and reimbursement requirements.

  • » Getting Personal - Personalized Medicine getting closer

    Good article that describes how quickly move toward personalized medicine–based on an individual’s genetic data–is occurring.

  • » U.S. Healthy Eating Trends Part 5: Nielsen Healthy Eating Index Debuts | Nielsen Wire

    Good idea, but it looks as though Nielsen chooses healthy foods based on manufacturer claims.

  • » » Rudiments of EBM concepts for librarians The Search Principle blog

    Cute: a Jeopardy quiz for the rudiments of EBM for medical librarians.

  • » Wait another year for patient safety data, GAO says — Federal Computer Week

    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.

  • » HealthTrans, a Pharmacy Benefit Manager, Completes a Private Equity Financing | Business Wire

    ABRY provides funding to HealthTrans to support organic growth and acquisitions.

  • » Glam Media On A Roll: Raises $50 Million In Private Equity At $750 Million Valuation

    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!

  • » The Problem with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review

    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.

  • » Patients Value Personal Recommendation Over Online Doctor Ratings - Better Health

    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.

  • » BBC News - Journal stem cell work ‘blocked’

    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.

  • » Calculating the Risks of Surgery - WSJ.com

    The main article (see previous entry) about risk calculators to help surgeions communicate risks of surgery to patients.

  • » Why Don’t More Hospitals Calculate the Risks of Surgery? - Health Blog - WSJ

    Addresses issue of why hospitals don’t track and use data to help them reduce risk in surgery. Mentions NSQUIP from ACS.

  • » eCliniqua Healogica to Exit Difficult Market for Online Trial Matchmakers

    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.

  • » iChange Names Stuart MacFarlane as CEO | Business Wire

    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.

  • » Graphic display of Tweets by Disease/condition

    Great display of information on # tweets by disease type/condition.

  • » How e-prescribing stops doctor shopping | ZDNet Healthcare | ZDNet.com

    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.

  • » Promoting Healthy Skepticism in the News: Helping Journalists Get It Right — Woloshin et al. 101 (23): 1596 — JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute

    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.

  • » Physician Wellness Services targets burned out/problem docs : MedCity News

    Reports on programs that provide behavioral counseling to MDs that have depression, substance abuse and stress problems.

  •  

    Needed: Guided Navigation for Health Information Search

    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 23-Jan 31

  • » Endeca founders steering search firm toward ‘business intelligence’ market - The Boston Globe

    Good article on Endeca, a widely used search engine on shopping sites. Endeca’s “guided navigation” (also referred to as “faceted search”) works very well on structured information. Could it be adapted for less-formally structured info?

  • » McKesson and HP to Help Physician Practices Speed Electronic Health Record Adoption for Better, Safer Patient Care

    McKesson & HP partner to provide EHR s/w and hardware for physician practices.

  • » Workplace Wellness Programs

    Article questions the role of employers in sponsoring wellness programs that tie participation to financial incentives such as reduced premiums.

  • » New Smartphone Application Rewards Physicians with CME Credit for Online Medical Research

    Interesting. Wolters Kluwer has set up a system whereby doctors will receive CME credit for clinical research done via their mobile phone.

  • » Patients 2.0 - Time on e-Patient Movement

    Time covers e-Patient Dave’s story and writes about e-patient movement under the moniker “patient 2.0″. Provides a somewhat jaded view of non-medical specialist patients’ ability to understand medical info and make judgements. Suggests “rapid-learning” program for e-patients.

  • » Update: Siemens Brings HealthVault to Europe « Chilmark Research

    Very thorough review of MSFT-Siemens deal to introduce MS HealthVault to German market and make it the system through which patients are provided medical info. HL7 is more widely used in Europe and Infobutton apps will likely catch on more quickly.

  • » Elsevier incorporates additional citation metrics into Scopus

    Els adds SNIP and SJR to Scopus to provide more complete citation metrics.

  • » Doctors Question Ads on Health Web Site

    Julie Deardorff of Chicago Tribune writes about my recent blog on the AAFP’s FamilyDoctor.org site’s advertising high salt foods. Quotes me, AAFP VP Publishing, and Dr. John Spangler.

  • » Learning to Love Healthcare Spending?

    Prof. Robert Fogel, U. Chicago, contends that healthcare costs are high because consumers demand the high-cost extras and innovation.

  • » ONC Reconsiders National Health Data Exchange

    Good interview with David Blumenthal, Director, ONC, on meaningful use of EHRs and plans for national health data exchange.

  • » Breakout of Grant Programs from ONC

    John Halamka’s brief description of the breakout of grant funding plans by ONC.

  • » Whole Foods Employees to Get Deeper Discount If They Meet Health Incentives

    Whole Foods to offer up to an additional 10% discount for employees who meet wellness measures that include nicotine use, cholesteral, and BMI targets.

  • » Healthcare System: Biggest Market for Apple’s Tablet?

    good piece on why healthcare sector could be big market for Apple’s forthcoming tablet. The fact that iPhones are popular among MDs is one big reason.

  • » Publishers Flirt With Amazon Kindle Despite Business Model …

    Good short piece on why publishers are distributing content via Kindles even though there are business considerations.

  • » Elsevier submission to Office of Science and Technology Policy public …

    Filing to Office of Science and Technology Policy from Elsevier regarding proposed regulations to offer more open access to scholarly publishing that is funded by US tax dollars.

  • » Checklists and Decision Trees Vs. Spontaneity and Imagination

    Kent Bottles brings together topics from current books by Atul Gawande, Timothy Goetz, and an article by Jerome Groopman to consider the merits of checklists and use of decision trees in medicine. He also covers behavioral economics and choice and mentions the Thaler-Sunstein approach to offering nudges (libertarian paternalism) to guide healthful behavior. Conclusion: medicine and health are complicated. Seems to me that since computers are useful for dealing with complex calculations (even under stress) that it makes sense to use automated checklists and decision support systems to guide complex processes. Provided we can avoid GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) situations.

  • » Thomson Reuters Acquires ProfSoft

    Thomson Healthcare acquires ProfSoft-Health, a Needham, MA-based healthcare data analytics company. ““ProfSoft’s solutions will enhance the clinical performance measurement capabilities we provide to our healthcare payer customers,” said Jon Newpol, executive vice president of the Healthcare & Science business of Thomson Reuters.”

  • » Conde Nast looks for new ways to leverage its brands

    Interesting article on how Conde Nast is seeking to leverage brand value of Gourmet, Domino, and Cookie (defunct magazines) as well as current titles Wired and Lucky. Compares CN to Meredith, whose Better Homes & Gardens has used its brand to provide quality seals to products. CN-selected content (tested by Gourmet kitchens?) is one idea they should consider, IMO.

  • » Health Business Blog ” Blog Archive ” Podcast interview with Dr. Robert …

    David Williams interviews Bob Wachter of UCSF. Haven’t listened to it yet, but I have no doubt that it is a worthwhile use of time.

  • » DTC Device Marketing Meets Social Media

    IUD manufacturer, Mirena (part of Bayer Pharmaceutical) has been using home parties, a la Tupperware, to spread word about benefits of Mirena IUD. FDC has sent warning letter to Bayer.

  • » Felix Salmon on NYTimes paywall plans

    Good analysis of what the implications are of NY Times stated plans to allow inbound links to have access for free, but to charge metered access to direct users after an initial allotment of free pageviews.

  • » Everyday Health files for $100M IPO

    Everyday Health, the consumer health portal owned by Waterfront Media, files for $100M IPO. Positive sign for consumer health publishers. Everyday is one of the largest consumer health portals that relies on online advertising for most of its revenue.

  • » Doctor Quits Brigham to Speak for Pay

    Brigham and Women’s and Harvard Med School Professor Lawrence DeBuske decides to keep paid speaking role and gives up practicing & teaching. New limitations on accepting pay for for delivering canned presentations played role. Dr. DeBuske apparently gives several talks on behalf of multiple pharma companies each week.

  • » Feature: The Power and Potential of Personal Health Records - RWJF

    Home page of Jan 2010 report from RWJF on PHRs.

  • » eHealth ” John W. Sharp on eHealth and Health IT ” Major Robert Wood …

    John Sharp’s overview of Robt Wood Johnson Foundation’s new report on PHRs.

  • » ZocDoc Launches in San Francisco

    ZocDoc, a online directory of doctors that has focused on NY and DC, is expanding to cover SF. Note, a key differentiator of ZocDoc (from the slew of other doctor ratings sites) is its integration with practice management systems for scheduling appointments so that users can find doctors with available appts. ZocDoc says they have integrated with close to 1400 PMS companies. Note, ZocDoc also encourages patient reviews of doctors, but only from ZocDoc users. Reviews of doctors remains a sticky wicket for all of the doc review sites.

  • » Why Dr. Vanier’s Appointment as CEO of Navigenics is Good Thing

    Commentary on why it is a positive sign that an MD is now leading Navigenics, a personalized genomics company.

  • » Health Sites - Some Are More Equal Than Others

    Susannah Fox from Pew Internet started the conversation with her post about Google Health OneBox that lists results from Mayo Clinic, WebMD, ADAM, and MedlinePlus in a special position at top of search results. Great discussion in the comments ensued, including a couple from me.

  • » Twitter awareness/engagement ratio: a pillory or a pedestal for pharma …

    Andrew Spong’s analysis of Twitter followers/followings of pharma companies.

  • » Maryland Hospital Adopts MedeAnalytics Performace Improvement Solution

    Brief article describing MedeAnalytics revenue cycle management solution being adopted by St. Joseph’s Hospital in Maryland.

  • » Obama Admin posting new sources of gov data including Medicare data

    Great news for data geeks and data content enthusiasts! Following up on their promise to add transparency to the federal government, Obama admin posts new data sources from all cabinet departments. I’m going to go download the Medicare data set now.

  • » BBC News - Tim Berners-Lee unveils government data project

    Info on work Tim Berners-Lee is doing for UK govenment to make sources of gov’t data more available and meaningful.

  • » Quantros Hires International Bus Dev VP

    “Syed Tirmizi, MD, a longtime clinician and medical informatics leader at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, joined Quantros today as Vice President of International Business Development and Government Relations. Tirmizi helped lead the VA into its position as a pioneer in the use of electronic medical records (EMR) for point of care service delivery, enabling meaningful use of data to further patient safety and quality initiatives.”

  • » Pfizer nearly doubles amount spent on e-detailing

    “Pfizer increased its spending on online professional promotion by more than 90% last year, according to a study, a sign the drugmaker is emphasizing alternatives to live sales reps for detailing certain products.” Study by SDI.

  • » NEJM article on benefits of salt reduction in cardiovascular disease

    TOC and abstract of just published study on significant benefits of reducing sodium intake for improving cardiovascular disease. See my notes in item below (third item) on same subject.

  •  

    Headline Commentary Jan 1 - Jan 22

  • » Press Ganey Hires Philip Marshall as SVP, Clinical Products

    “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 on Benefits of Salt Reduction

    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!

  • » Brown’s Senate Win Creates Health Reform Dilemma

    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.

  • » University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center Selects Thornberry …

    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.

  • » Turning Data into Dollars

    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 Torrey on Doctor Ratings Websites

    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 endorsed by ACPM

    Nuval, a Boston-area company that provides numeric ratings that reflect nutritional value of foods, gets official endorsement from American College of Preventive Medicine.

  • » How We Read Scholarly Papers Will be Different in 2010

    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.

  • » Critical look at CME from Canadian Physician

    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.

  • » Health Futures Digest on ePatients and healthcare social media

    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.

  • » The Relentless Rise of Digital Worker: Innovation

    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.

  • » iSpecimen Inc. - Home

    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.

  • » Interactive Data on the Block

    Pearson FT is apparently shopping Interactive Data.

  • » Patient Safety Net Weakened by Recession

    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 Partners with CiteULike

    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.

  • » Is Online Info Good for Patients

    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.

  • » Are Enhanced eBooks the CD-ROM Era All Over Again

    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 Eliminating Trade Show Exhibits from Their Marketing Mix

    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.

  • » Sermo Poll Indicates Physicians Favor Cash-Only Payment and Admire Mayo-Arizona for Dropping Medicare

    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.”

  • » Physician Rating Sites Add Flag for Doctors Who Require Patients to Sign Gag Orders

    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.

  • » Find Reliable Health Information 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 Buys Diagnostic Hybrids for $130 Million in Cash

    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.

  • » Chilmark Research’s Analysis of Mediconnect Acquisition of PassportMD

    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 Diagnostics Introduces Molecular Blood Test for Aiding Colorectal …

    Quest offers new test for early detection of colorectal cancer.

  • » Athenahealth names Timothy Adams CFO

    Adams replaces Carl Byers, athena’s initial CFO, who last June said he wanted to live abroad.

  • » Cegedim Dendrite Acquires SK&A

    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.

  • » TransUnion acquires MedData, a healthcare transactions processing company, from Agdata

    Credit rating firm TransUnion has acquired MedData LLC, a Charlotte, N.C.-based health care transactions processing firm, for an undisclosed sum.

  • » pfizer sponsoring Stanford’s continuing ed programs

    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”….

  • » Allscripts results reflect ARRA stimulus

    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.

  • » Zynx Health partners with Meditech to Ensure Meaningful Use

    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 Healthcare Solutions gets funding from Technology Crossover Ventures

    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 hires new EVP Product Management from Kaiser

    Quantros, a health IT company that helps hospitals with patient safety and risk assessment, names Gerard Livaudais, MD, MPH, as EVP Product Management.

  • » Nielsen results from global study on what content types users would pay for

    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.

  • » athenaClinicals given high marks in KLAS report

    athenahealth’s athenaClinicals was rated highly in recent KLAS ambulatory EMR report on confidence that athenaClinicals will meet meaningful use criteria.

  • » FT.com / Media - Cultivating patience a virtue for Informa

    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.

  • » Practice Fusion receives $5m of $7.1 round

    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 wins grant to study safety of drugs and devices post-marketing

    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 joins the smart device game

    Adidas introduce miCoach at CES. Similar to Nike’s popular Nike+.

  • » David Worlock’s 2010 outlook

    Good commonsense views on what will and will not change in 2010.

  • » Top five disruptive biotec ideas to watch in coming decade

    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”).

  • » The Next Health Care Revolution, From Dr. Google : ScienceInsider

    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.

  • » UCSF offers incentive pay to residents to meet patient satisfaction goals

    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.

  • » Thomson Reuters Names Dr. Raymond Fabius Chief Medical Officer

    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.”

  • » American Hospital Association Expands Its Surgical Information Systems …

    AHA endorses Surgical Info Systems for its scheduling, reporting and analytics modules.

  • » ADAM introduces new K-12 e-learning tool Inside Out

    Inside Out provides interactive training on the human body for K-12 market.

  • » Beta of Cell Press’s Article of the Future

    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.

  • » HHS Delivers Nation’s First Health Security Strategy

    Brian Ahier summarizes Sec’y HHS Sebelius’ Health Security program.

  • » Review of NuVal, a nutrition rating company

    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?

  • » VA and Kaiser unveil project for EHR data exchange

    Kaiser and VA (Veteran’s Affairs) will use NHIN to exchange patient data (with permission) in pilot program in San Diego area.

  • » NEJM: What Physicians Can Learn from Online Rating Sites

    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.

  • » Glen Tullman, CEO Allscripts, top 10 trends for 2010

    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).

  • » Ingenix research on wellness programs

    Nice article from Ingenix analytics on employer wellness programs.

  • » New CEO named at ADAM

    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?

  • » FORA.tv - The End of Medicine

    Commonwealth Club program on medicine. Video.

  • » TabSafe, a new medical device manages medication adherence

    TabSafe, an Indiannapolis company, showcases its medication management system at CES.

  • » AdvancedMD Acquires PracticeOne

    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 gets additional funding

    “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 partners with eClinicalWorks

    “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.

  • » NHIN Work Group Calls for National Electronic Physician Directory

    As my colleague Russell Perkins said, “betcha thought there already was one”.

  • » Building A National Health Information Network: NaviNet Founders Brad …

    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.

  • » AHRQ consumer comparative effectiveness report on anti-depressants

    Dr. Carolyn Clancy, director of AHRQ, describes new report for consumers on anti-depressants. Includes link to full report.

  • » Atul Gawande on NPR Morning Edition 1/04/10

    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!).

  • » Univita Health acquires Atenda Healthcare Solutions

    “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 report on communications needs of SMBs

    Infotrends broad multi-client study on changing communications needs of small-to-medium sized businesses. TOC and list of tables only. Complete study >$10K

  • » Partners Healthcare forms Clinical Decision Support Consortium

    HIMSS writes up new CDSC created by Blackford Middleton at Partners Healthcare.

  • » Caritas Christi Healthcare switches from eClinicalWorks to athenahealth

    Caritas hospital group in Boston expands their relationship with athenahealth to include athenaClinicals. They already used athena’s revenue cycle management (RCM) s/w.

  • » NACHRI to use Quantros quality reporting system in efforts to improve healthcare delivery

    “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.”

  • » Stakeholders have mixed reviews of Meaningful Use requirements

    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.

  • » Google on Future of Advertising

    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.

  • » Problems with wellness incentives in health reform

    Article in NEJM questions equity of wellness program incentives in health reform package.

  • » Medical Milestones of the Noughties-BBC

    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.

  • » Can Apple Tablet save Magazines?

    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.

  • » Joe Esposito: Let’s Hear it for Reckless Enthusiasm

    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.

  • » The Decade in Management Ideas –HBR

    Like this list, esp. the top 3.

  • » Companies look outsdie for innovative solutions

    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.

  • » Wall Street Journal — comments from insiders and analysts on Murdoch acquisition

    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 medical journal received payments from Medtronic

    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.

  • » Hospitals Cut Costs with Business Intelligence Software

    Mitch Wagner’s last article for InformationWeek w/ 2 examples of hospitals with successful implementation of business intelligence (document management, integration, analytics, dashboards) software.

  • » Matt Holt in WaPo on health care wishes

    Nice post that focuses on improving access to healthcare data–by all stakeholders.

  • » URAC introduces new resource for choosing health insurance

    “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.”

  • » AllTheContent Exclusive Provider for Pharma Channel

    Interesting news about licensing deal between AllTheContent, a Geneva, Switz based content syndicator, and Pharma Channel, which provides info to pharmacies in Europe.

  • » Understanding HL7 via video

    Nice video explanation of HL7 and how the standard facilitates sharing info between various IT systems in hospitals.

  •  

    Headline Commentary Dec 14-31

  • » Lebhar-Friedman sells Healthcare Pubs to Quandrant Health

    Quadrant HealthCom, publisher of The Female Patient, announced Tuesday that it has acquired Dowden Professional Publications from Lebhar-Friedman.With the deal, Quadrant takes control of four medical journals and an events group. The journals are: OBG Management, Current Psychiatry, The Journal of Family Practice and Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

  • » Personalized Medicine is About Data

    Thomas Goetz, exec editor of Wired, on why personalized medicine is really about personal data.

  • » Tracking Vital Signs with a SmartPhone

    Mentions Polka, an iPhone app, that allows remote monitoring.

  • » Interview with John Gomez of Eclipsys

    Really good interview, where Gomez talks frankly about outdated tech in hospitals/health IT (e.g., MUMPS) and talks about making CPOE easier to reap benefits of healthcare data-analytics.

  • » iGuard.org drug safety system registers 2 million users

    From press release: “iGuard is a free, personal drug safety monitoring service that now provides 2 million consumers and caregivers with timely, personalized information about drug-drug interactions, drug-disease interactions, medication safety warnings, breaking safety news and medication recalls that may affect their health. In return, patients provide feedback on their medications to help researchers learn how to treat diseases better and minimize medication side effects. In 2009 alone, iGuard users have contributed toward 92 medical research studies – helping to develop new drugs for such diseases as multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and diabetes.”

  • » HealthGrades (HGRD) Provides 2010 Guidance

    HealthGrades announces new org structure and provides improved guidance for 2010. I just have to add that this may be the most poorly written press release I have ever seen.

  • » Healthy Humans Receives 2009 Life Sciences Start-up Company of Year from Eastern Technology Council

    Healthy Humans (www.healthyhumans.com), an online wellness solutions company, received the 2009 Life Sciences Startup Company of the Year award from the Eastern Technology Council. The award, sponsored by the University of Sciences in Philadelphia, recognizes the company’s business and technology achievements. Healthy Humans provides online wellness programs that address the underlying causes of chronic disease and encourage prevention through personalized solutions and self-care methodologies. The company’s proprietary portal technology combines state-of-the-art medical protocols with evidence-based therapies. Note, Healthy Humans was highlighted as a Health Content08 Innovator at our HC08 conference.

  • » CVS names Per Lofberg CEO of PBM Unit

    CVS’ underperforming PBM unit names Lofberg new CEO. Lofberg is currently CEO of Generation Health, a genetic PBM.

  • » Cerner acquisition to expand its employer health centers | Healthcare …

    Cerner acquires IMC Health Care, a provider of on-site health clinics for employers. Cerner established its own subsidiary to handle its self-insured and health & wellness needs. With acq. of IMC, Cerner is expanding to serve other self-insured employers.

  • » Scholars Seek Better Metrics

    Choronicle of Higher Ed describes some alternatives to impact factors. I agree that empirical data should be used in measuring importance, but a single # is not likely to be sufficient. Wouldn’t that strengthen the “Britney effect”?

  • » Consumer Healthcare trends from PWC

    Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on PWC’s new report on 10 top trends in healthcare in 2010. Link to full report included.

  • » Are Medical Conferences Becoming Obsolete?

    At least one doctor thinks they are. Dr. Wes Fisher writes that the rise of social media and the cost of travel (and reduction of sponsorship by pharma and device companies) spells the end of the medical conference business. I think he’s right that there will be a reduction in live events, but I don’t expect them to disappear.

  • » RFA-HS-10-005: ARRA-AHRQ Recovery Act 2009 Limited Competition …

    More on HHS grant for designing db for comparative effective research.

  • » HHS to Build Comprehensive Claims Database to Support CER

    HHS has an RFP for study on how to build claims db that will include payer records beyond CMS data. DB will be used for comparative effectiveness research (CER).

  • » The Ebook Reader site

    Nice comparison table of existing e-book readers.

  • » Thomson Reuters Healthcare Gets in the HIE Game

    Health Data Management reports that Thomson Reuters Healthcare (Ann Arbor) is entering the HIE market with a data analytics platform.

  • » Electronic Laboratory Notebooks Enter Mainstream Informatics

    Good article that describes how electronic laboratory notebooks (ELN) could become the foundation for effective data management in R&D enterprises.

  • » KLAS Releases 20 Best Software Vendors for 2009 (Healthcare)

    Healthcare IT News briefly reviews the top 20 list from KLAS.

  • » Pfizer Adds New Type of Tablet to Sales Calls - WSJ.com

    Pfizer is equipping detailers with tablet computers that limit what samples can be provided to physicians based on their specialty and record the amount and type of samples. Doctors have to sign for receipt. It’s astonishing that sampels given to doctors in the past were not recorded!

  • » AdWeek Names Nike Fit Digital Campaign of the Decade

    A must-read for every publisher to gain an understanding of the convergence of publishing, marketing/advertising and the blurring of the roles between publishers and vendors. Nike’s online campaign was much more than advertising, it included tools for fitness programs and for exchanging data. Or as AdWeek says, “a product experience”. Traditional publications and ads can’t deliver a “product experience” in print of online.

  • » A.D.A.M. Launches Consumer Site for Medical Images

    A.D.A.M., long-known for its collection of anatomy images for medical education, launches an e-commerce enabled website that sells individual images. Prices seem to depend on the image and use. An graphic with multiple images related to carpal tunnel is priced at $39.95 for use in PPT; a simple image of the eye related to radial keratomy appears to be free, but site asked user to indicate how the image will be used.

  • » Top analyst blogs ” Technobabble 2.0

    Health Content Advisors ranks #136 out of 400 top blogs on IT. Interesting that my writings about health content, which is inextricably connected to health IT, rates so highly. It’s an honor to be placed in the immediate neighborhood of top analysts from top IT research firms, considering that my blog is secondary to the consulting work I do. Must be my analytical nature!

  • » LWW partners with ProtoMED to Build Student Version of PMS and RCM Solutions

    Very interesting. “December 14, 2009 — Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), a leading international publisher for healthcare professionals and students, and part of Wolters Kluwer Health, has partnered with ProtoMED Medical Management Corporation (PMMC) to build a student version of its ProtoMED medical practice management software and its ProtoCHART electronic medical record (EMR) software.”

  • » Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson, Eminent Economist, Dead at 94

    Nice tribute to Paul Samuelson in the Boston Globe. Samuelson taught at MIT since 1940 and every student of economics has been touched by Dr. Samuelson. I honor him as a fellow U. Chicago alum, but also for negotiating one of the best textbook contracts ever.

  • » Legal Battle over E-Book Rights to Older Books

    NY Times highlights the conundrum of Wm Styron’s estate where Random House and Styron’s family both claim ownership of e-book rights. I was involved in licensing books for an early e-book reader (SoftBook Press) in the late ’90s and met with all of the major NY & Boston publishing houses, including Random House. At that time, the majority of recent contracts with authors included incomplete clauses that essentially wrote that the publisher had rights to new electronic formats for the content licensed in the contract with terms to be negotiated. It was a terrible situation where rights were tied up but terms and conditions weren’t defined. It seems as though these same publishers have done very little in the past decade to update the terms of contracts that existed at that time, at least with terms that are fair to authors. As in the B2B publishing world,B2C publishers (and authors and agents) have to recognize that the digital version of the work is now the primary work.

  •  

    Open Data Will Be All the Rage in 2010

    Despite a dismal year for the media industry, there is one major trend we can all look forward to in 2010: Open Data.

    Open data is more than a trend; it represents a shift in worldview about using research, business intelligence, and outcomes data. Tim Berners-Lee’s talk at TED in early 2009 promoted the power of raw data and described why we need to improve interoperability because “data are relationships” and analysis across larger collections of data help make “the world run better”.

    At InfoCommerce Group we’ve always understood the importance of data and data management. Our roots go back to pre-Web 1.0 days when large print directories and buyers guides like the Thomas Register were being digitized. We’ve always understood that all digital content can be viewed as data whose value is increased when organized, categorized, sorted, modeled, analyzed, integrated, archived, updated–and shared.

    In the healthcare industry, where I focus most of my attention, the possibilities for making the world run better by exploiting research, outcomes, and administrative data are enormous. Yet, the healthcare sector lags other industries by more than a decade in data management, data access and interoperability. (See: HISTalk interview with John Gomez, EVP/CTO Eclipsys, for frank talk on this issue.)

    Support from HITECH funding surely will accelerate development of systems that enable data exchange and analysis in the healthcare industry. There are a lot of perceptions, attitudes and organizational changes that needs to occur, too; but there is no excuse for healthcare to continue to lag so far behind other industries in employing technology to improve performance.

    Note, I just discovered a post by Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP, Product Management at Google, titled, “The Meaning of Open”. It’s a long post and I haven’t digested it yet, but will leave you with an outtake from the post [emphasis mine]:

    “Open will win. It will win on the Internet and will then cascade across many walks of life: The future of government is transparency. The future of commerce is information symmetry. The future of culture is freedom. The future of science and medicine is collaboration. The future of entertainment is participation. Each of these futures depends on an open Internet.”

    The impact of open data will reverberate throughout the publishing industry and is certain to be felt very strongly in the scholarly publishing sector, which currently dominates the distribution of medical research information.  While it doesn’t spell disaster for this sector, it will impact traditional business models and relationships between researchers and publishers in a big way.

    Happy holidays to everyone and best wishes for a brighter 2010!

     

    Headline Commentary Dec 6-13

  • » Patient Satisfaction Surveys, Patient Experience | PatientImpact

    Press Ganey acquires Patient Impact, announced 12/6/09. Patient Impact to become the unit specializing in physician practice & outpatient surveys. More details to come. Note, Patient Impact was a Health Content Innovator and presented at our Health Content08 conference: http://www.infocommercegroup.com/healthcontent/index.html

  • » Gary Schwitzer on how TV news over-promotes medical research via teasers

    Headline says it all. Gary dissects an actual memo used with TV journalists that promotes tying recent medical research to exaggerated claims of short-term benefits–and the specifically recommends against mentioning research labs or clinical work.

  • » IOM report on Redesigning Continuting Education in Health Professions

    No doubt CME needs a redesign to change the current heavy subsidies by Pharma.

  • » MIT’s Media Lab elevates transparency

    Article on the new building extension of MIT’s media lab designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. Contrasts Maki’s style of open space with lots of glass to original IM Pei buildling with limited windows. Interesting metaphor for move of technology from “black box” to enabling and thriving on “transparency”.

  • » New cancer treatment costs $30,000 a month

    Article questions the affordability of new cancer drug, Folotyn, produced by Allos Therapeutics. Allos says price is in line with other specialty treatments and so far health insurers have agreed to cover it to treat aggressive tumors. Shines light on problem of high cost of developing drugs, but doesn’t offer any solutions.

  • » The arrogance of preventive medicine — Sackett 167 (4): 363 …

    An indictment of doctors and drug companies that promote drug interventions for preventive care. Uses example of hormone drug replacement for women.

  • » A Guide to Magazines That Have Ceased Publication - Advertising Age …

    Ad Age lists top magazines that have ceased publishing in 2009.

  • » Drug Industry Spends $20B/yr on Marketing

    References CBO study (with link) that describes the allocation of marketing $$ to detailing, CME support, DTC and a measly $400 M in professional journals. Journals publishers need to reinvent themselves as a vehicle for reaching doctors/clinicians.

  • » Breast Cancer Screening: Research and Guidelines - HealthLibrary

    EBSCO’s DynaMed write-up on breast cancer screening. I don’t find their analysis and coverage very helpful.

  • » December 2009 conference: Partnering For Cures; int with Michael Milken

    Conversation between Milken and Pfizer CEO Kindler

  • » Medical Device Companies Slow to Adopt Social Media

    Reports of small survey of device manufacturers; results show that social media isn’t yet part of the marketing mix for device companies.

  • » Microsoft announces Amalga and HealthVault adopted by Golden Living

    John Moore writes a brief post about MSFT’s announcement of long-term care provider Golden Living’s adoption of Amalga & HealthVault.

  • » ICD-10 a Win for Physicians, Care Management, and Patient-centered Medical Home

    Some commentary on benefits of move to ICD10 codes.

  • » CBI, an Advanstar healthcare conference, announces Mark McClellan as keynoter

    McClellan, former CMS adminstrator, MD, and PhD economist, will keynote Advanstar’s Center for Business Intelligence (CBI)’s Annual Strategic Medicare Policy Summit.

  • » Pharma’s missed opportunity: phone apps

    Good overview with links to other stories about Pharma’s slowness in developing mobile apps.

  • » Wolters’ subscription renewals resilient | Industry Summits | Reuters

    Nancy McKinstry interview: journals renewals are strong even with price increases; hospitals are spending more capital in 2009 than 2008 in anticipation of ARRA funds to come in 2010.

  • » Some company called ebizMBA lists 20 most popular online health info sites

    Note, this is the first I’ve heard of ebizMBA, who writes on their site that ebizMBA is “an eBusiness knowledgebase that helps you find the webs best ansers to your online business questions on topics ranging from online marketing and analytics to website development and venture capital”. To their credit, they offer some indication of the parameters they use to measure popularity.

  • » Humana expands its relationship with CVS MinuteClinic

    Humana will establish MinuteClinic for its own employees and will encourage all members to use MinuteClinic for basic screening tests for cholesterol, blood pressure, bmi–and will couple basic screenings with its own LifeSynch health coaching.

  • » Ovid announces Universal Search

    Ovid to announce Universal Search, which allows clients to search across Ovid and client’s other internal databases in single search. Nice development.

  • » Consumer Aggregator Panel from Health 2.0 2009

    WebMD, HealthVault (MSFT) and GoogleHealth comprise the panel moderated by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn. About 50 minutes long. Worth a look.

  • » Informa Backs Off From Springer Bid

    Not surprising to hear that Informa has decided against going forward with bid for Springer. Debt levels of Springer make the deal hard to digest and current Springer owners PE firms Candover and Cinven want a sale to conclude quickly. If PE company acquires Springer, perhaps they would sell off pieces.

  • » Gartner/AMR Deal and the Future of Indusry Analyst Research

    Very good analysis of trends in IT research. Essentially says that high priced IT research reports are becoming commoditized and used for lead gen that is paid for by vendors. Analysts can still make money consulting, firms can put on events, and carry out customized research. Totally in line with my writings and demonstrated in the content value pyramid in my Publishing for e-Patients preso (on Slideshare/janicemc). Like comment about individual analysts becoming branded more so than firms. Agree there, too.

  • » VC Investments in Healthcare outpace IT for First Time

    Dow Jones Venturesource reports Q2 2009 VC investments by industry. Healthcare the best performer and it outpaces IT for first time on record.

  • » David Eddy Lecture on Future of Evidence-Based Medicine at ICSI

    Kent Bottles provides excellent summary of recent lecture by David Eddy, MD (the “founder” of EBM) who has consistently challenged the robustness of existing methods of clinical decision guidelines. Dr. Eddy believes the future requires more complex models that consider a larger number of factors and interactions that in effect provide more personalized medical treatment. Eddy’s own company, Archimedes, builds “virtual patients” that can be used for complex modeling of probable outcomes. I don’t know enough about Archimedes to judge its efficacy, but I think Eddy has the right approach. We know that more data are available about patients and outcomes and will accelerating adoption of EHRs, the amount of data will expand rapidly. Along with the improved data sources, there is clearly a need for more complex models to analyze the data and test the benefits of medical treatments.

  • » Healthcare Reform’s Impact on Pharma Sales

    Good article with data and charts on changes in pharma sales & marketing over time and expected effects of health reform on pharma sales techniques.

  • » Guide to Health Savings Accounts

    Comprehensive article on HSAs and high-deductible health plans.

  • » amednews: Do EMRs cut liability risk? Insurers want evidence before …

    Perspective on whether use of EMRs reduce liability for physicians. Focuses on discounts offered by insurance cos to doctors and practices that use EMRs.

  • » Henry Schein and Butler Animal Health to Merge

    Schein will merge its animal health business with Butler; Schein to own 50.1%.

  • » Elsevier relaunches Embase

    Press releases doesn’t provide many details; I will look at Elsevier site soon. Embase is an index to biomedical research; relaunching as standalone product seems old-world.

  • » Shopping for Healthcare - NY times

    Good article that mentiones pricedoc.com, healthcarebluebook.com, and outofpocket.com, sites that provide info on prices for various procedures or office visits by doctor.

  • » Health Care Savings May Start in the Cafeteria

    Story about Full Yield, a wellness program for employers that provides its own food & nutrition programs. Story describes how Safeway, IBM, Pitney Bowes and others have saved money on health care costs via wellness programs. Major issue, however, is that these are companies that self-insure.

  • » Failing hospital: NHS rating system should be scrapped, says inspection …

    Another story that critiques overly simple health care rating schemes. IMO, ratings needs to be based on analysis of outcomes, using real data, not observations from a third-party, which are subject to error.

  • » Switch to Electronic Records Getting Mixed Reviews at Hospitals and …

    A one-sided critique of the shortcomings of EHR/EMR systems from Huffington Post. Whereas I agree that there are shortcomings, a more balanced report would have more credibility. Still, it offers some good basic info on what the feds are trying to do with ARRA funding.

  • » Gary Schwitzer: more on USPTF’s mammogram guidelines

    Excellent post and comments. I just added my own comment (7th in list).

  • » PE Eyes Siemens Hearing Aid Unit

    Article mentions strong interest in healthcare sector by PE. Do PE professionals smell, taste and feel an opportunity in healthcare, too?

  • » The Emotional Epidemiology of H1N1

    Good commentary on public reaction to public health announcements and EBM. More “infodemiology”, that is, providing trustworthy information and monitoring public response to epidemics, is needed.

  • » Statistical Learning as the Ultimate Agile Development Tool

    Excellent video presentation by Peter Norvig of Google. Data, semantics, search and much more.

  • » Reports Rate Ambulatory EHR Software

    IDC Health Insights report on EHR vendors ($4,500)

  • » Careers in Scientific Writing

    Interesting article and site (which I just discovered) about opportunities in scientific/medical writing and journalism. Site focuses on female scientists.

  • » Survey of Where Doctors Find Medical or Rx Information

    Sponsored by Google, survey lists most popular resources used to find medical info. Surprise! Search engine/Google is at the top, followed by peer-reviewed journals. No category for online clinical information resources, such as UpToDate, MDConsult, DynaMed, as far as I can see. If no breakout were given on survey, Search Engine category may incorporate these resources too.

  • » WATCH MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE - HERE

    Money-Driven Medicine site with free streaming version of the movie. Nice example of offering free streaming with promo for the paid DVD.

  • » Researchers Urge FDA to Create Drug Monitoring Database

    FDA would need legislative action to approve new db, but given the ability to track more data from electronic records and online user-input, federal db makes sense.

  • » FACTBOX-Informa takeover of Springer risky but appealing | Industries …

    More on Informa bid for Springer from FT, which quotes analyts.

  • » Futurity.org – Learning powered by search engines

    Study of search behavior indicates that online search is often used to confirm or refute one’s internal knowledge. Hm, sounds rather Bayesian to me.

  • » Informa Eyes Deal for Springer

    With over 2.1B Euros in debt (8X EBITA), Springer is a loaded target. Bids are expected to be under 400M Euros. But bigger question is: is there sustained value in publishers of scholarly research, an sector that is being disrupted by new models of scholarly communication and research?

  • » Gary Schwitzer on fallout from USPTF’s mammogram guidelines

    Good review of press related to new mammogram guidelines. Interesting that so many who say they want EBM, object when they don’t like the data. “Don’t like” often means they stand to lose business or stature.

  • » Zynx Health partners with Keane’s EHR

    Zynx Health’s order sets will be integrated with Keane’s Optimum EHR system thru this partership. Another example of embedding EBM info into EHRs.

  • » ISPUB - Opening the non-open access medical journals: Internet-based …

    Article describes how students are sharing for-fee medical articles in a Napster-type environment.

  • » Promoting Healthy Skeptism in the News: Helping Journalists Get it Right

    “It” in this case, is the information in medical journal articles. Really good article about what could be done to help add context to each medical journal article that reports on new research so that journalists, patients, and even doctors can better understand the implications.

  • » Mass. hospitals make headway on patient infections

    With pressure from patient groups and regulators, hospitals have make significant progress in reducing hospital-acquired patient infections. Checklists and focus on solving the problem (using best practices from other institutions as one means) are noted as key to changing the procedures and culture at hospitals.

  • » Study Shows EHRs Make Little Difference in Cost/Quality

    Study performed by Prof. Ashish Jha at HSPH and Catherine DesRoches at MGH indicates that using EHRs makes little difference in outcomes. This article goes on to point out that researchers also focus on the importance of changing processes & culture in hospitals to benefit from positive effects of using EMRs/EHRs. I’d add that hospitals and hospital systems that incorporate clinical information systems (order sets, point-of-care CDS) are more likely tho demonstrate improved outcomes. At this stage, not enough evidence-based content has been incorporated into EMR/EHRs.

  • » Dr weighs in on Gina Kolata’s article on drugs used to prevent breast cancer

    MD who wrote this post suggests that Kolata’s article is biased toward the big pharma position, since her only sources were from pharma.