SCHWARTZ HEALTHCARE IT BLOG
Kudos to the North Carolina Medical Board for wanting to post doctors' malpractice information on its Web site. And thumbs down on the state’s physician association for opposing it, claiming it could be misleading.
The Better Business Bureau has long served a role in helping consumers make decisions about what vendors they should use. The public is intelligent enough to understand the context and weight for individual plans. Egotistical doctors don’t think so however.
Actual malpractice payment amounts or patient names aren’t disclosed, according to the article in the Raleigh News & Observer. The Web site would note that malpractice payments don't always suggest negligence, and that some specialties draw more lawsuits. North Carolina says that about four percent of the state’s doctors are on the malpractice list.
Doctors need to face the inevitable tide of quality and cost transparency. They are vendors like everyone else. North Carolina is the 23rd state to disclose medical practice information.
Tags: Egotistical+Doctors, Healthcare+PR, Medical+Malpractice+Disclosure, Medical+PR
By Shawn Whalen on July 2, 2008 10:43 AM
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CCHIT, the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology, will be certifying personal health records (PHRs) next year. Criteria will be proposed in April, 2009, along with a comment period. Certification will officially start in July 2009.
CCHIT’s certification of EMRs met with mixed reactions early on, with smaller vendors crying foul over the $20,000 fee. Since then, it’s become a somewhat important stamp of approval in large enterprise purchasing decisions. This will likely happen with PHR certification as well.
PHR vendors should watch criteria development and participate in the comment period to provide your view.
Continue reading "CCHIT on PHRs" »
Tags:
CCHIT,
CCHIT+Interoperability,
EHR,
EMR,
Healthcare+PR,
Medical+PR,
Personal+Health+Record,
PHR
By Shawn Whalen on June 28, 2008 12:45 PM
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And speaking of payor technology vendors, last week’s AHIP conference was considerably smaller than 2007. Our intrepid Account Executive Melissa Bruno provided a pictorial report:
Getting priorities straight - the busiest booth of the conference.
The second busiest booth of the conference.
Make sure your health plan covers Wii wrist sprains before visiting Portico’s booth.
This boat manufacturer was selling new technology paradigms. Fish love them.
Tags: AHIP, Healthcare+PR, Managed+Care+Technology, Medical+PR
By Shawn Whalen on June 26, 2008 12:54 PM
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It seems that health plans have a little money left after paying all those healthcare costs. The trend of health plans acquiring technology vendors continues. Care management vendor MEDecision is to be acquired by Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. HCSC paid $121 million and will keep MEDecision independent.
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and The Regence Group Blue are taking a minority ownership in TriZetto Group, which will be going private. Others include UnitedHealth’s Ingenix , Aetna’s ActiveHealth Management, and Independence Blue Cross’ AllOne Health Management Solutions.
As I’ve written before, payors will be the major players in pushing technology adoption in healthcare, be it provider side with EHRs or consumer side with PHRs.
Tags: EHR, EMR, Healthcare+PR, Managed+Care+Technology, MEDecision, Medical+PR, PHR
By Shawn Whalen on June 23, 2008 8:47 AM
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A survey by HealthNewsReview.org published in the current issue of PLoS Medicine shows that the media could do a better job at covering medical news.
An analysis of 500 stories on medical topics by U.S. consumer print and broadcast media showed that “journalists usually fail to discuss costs, the quality of the evidence, the existence of alternative options, and the absolute magnitude of potential benefits and harms.”
These observations may be right, but what do you expect from the media, particularly consumer outlets? Space and time is money, all information is dumbed down, long form pieces don’t sell ads and eyeballs, and there will never be this level of desired accuracy. That’s what blogs, Web sites and peer-reviewed academic journals are for.
Some findings:
Tags: Healthcare+PR, Medical+PR
By Shawn Whalen on June 20, 2008 12:27 PM
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