September 2006

Aisle Nine: Cheap Healthcare?

Wal-Mart is an American business trend setter, so news about their new low premium, high deductible healthcare plan has been making waves. As reported in the Wall Street Journal today, the Value Plan has a monthly premium as low as $11, a high deductible of $1,000, and three doctor visits and generic drug prescriptions a year. Critics contend the plan cuts corporate costs for healthcare benefits and discourages unhealthy employee prospects.

CDH and HSA plans are still in the infancy of adoption; time will tell how popular they will become.  There is no doubt employers will offer such plans to stem the tide of rising premiums. Young and healthy consumers will clearly benefit; the rest are likely to be ill-served by high deductible plans.  This creates a built-in limit to the viability of such offerings. But whatever the case, options that lower costs should be embraced.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on September 28, 2006 at 12:39 PM
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An Unsustainable Path

While Senate Finance Committee testimony usually isn't the most riveting reading, Dr. John C. Goodman's warnings about heatlhcare spending, health savings accounts (HSAs) and consumer directed healthcare (CDH) were interesting.

Testimony before the Senate Finance Committee; Subcommittee on Health Care

Dr. John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis 

September 26, 2006  

An Unsustainable Path

Government at all levels in the United States currently spends about 7.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on health care, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid.  Yet Christian Hagist and Laurence J. Kotlikoff have shown that if benefits expand at the rate of the past 30 years and if the population ages the way demographers predict, government health care spending will equal one-third of national income by mid-century, when today's college students reach the retirement age.[1]  If that is not immediately alarming, note that one-third of GDP is about equal to all government spending for all purposes today.  If private spending on health care keeps up with public spending, the nation will devote about two-thirds of national income to health care by mid-century - an amount roughly equal to the total consumption of all goods and services today. 

So in the public sphere, health care is on a course to crowd out every other government program - from education and roads and bridges to Social Security and national defense.  And for the economy as a whole, health care is on a course to crowd out every other form of consumption, including food, clothing, housing, etc. 

Clearly we are on an impossible path.  And the longer we stay on it, the more painful it will be to get off of it.  Yet it is impossible to get off of it unless someone is forced to choose between health care and other uses of money.  The question is:  who will that someone be? 

Continue reading "An Unsustainable Path" »

Posted by Shawn Whalen on September 26, 2006 at 5:37 PM
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Doctor, Doctor Give Me Some News

VHA’s Dr. Robert Kolodner, developer of the VA’s EMR system, has been tapped to replace Dr. David Brailer to head the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONCHIT).  Brailer resigned in April. Kolodner will likely last through the change in Presidential administration. 

Kolodner brings considerable healthcare IT experience to the post given his role in developing the VA’s Decentralized Hospital Computer Program, which preceded the EMR system which is technically the nation’s largest integrated health system (though many EMR vendors call it antiquated at this point.)

Said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt in  statement: ““Kolodner joins us at a time when we are making steady progress in advancing the president’s health IT initiative, and his experience in patient care, health IT, and government will be invaluable to those efforts.”

I think it’s about time a replacement was found for Brailer, even if “interim” (technically Kolodner is on loan from the VA).  It shouldn’t be too surprising though, given the position has been one of big hat, no cattle since Bush’s paltry funding of the office. Perhaps the new administration will bolster the priority in ‘08, but likely not. The private sector will continue to inch along in the various RHIO experiments and eventually form an NHIN, but I think it will be a decade past Bush’s desired date.

For Dr. Kolodner’s full bio, follow the link.

Continue reading "Doctor, Doctor Give Me Some News" »

Posted by Shawn Whalen on September 21, 2006 at 8:00 AM
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Connecting Communities

Though surveys sponsored by IT vendors are sometimes suspect in the media’s eyes, a McKesson-sponsored Harris Interactive poll made an interesting point in hospitals being a driver of EMR adoption among medical practices.  In a survey of primary care physicians and specialists, more than seven in 10 respondents who plan to implement EHRs said they would be receptive to working with a local hospital to leverage its IT infrastructure and buying power. Given hospitals have been investing more and longer in technology, local physicians in medical groups would take advantage of such resources for connections among providers, insurers and patients.

The survey showed that three-quarters of the nation's physicians plan to adopt EHRs for their practices, with 91% planning to do so within three years. Eighty percent of respondents ranked "coordination of care across care settings" as the No. 1 benefit of an EHR, while 52% indicated that the system will save their practice money in the long run.

According to McKesson, the EHR survey was conducted in June, 2006. The goal was to explore physician attitudes toward working with local hospitals to deploy EHRs in support of a goal set by President Bush for the majority of Americans to have EHRs by 2014. The findings in the survey coincide with ongoing efforts to convert the nation's paper health records into digital format as a way to improve patient safety and curb skyrocketing healthcare costs.

The government recently took two major steps to accelerate EHR adoption. First, the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) established an industry-wide benchmark for EHR-certified products. Second, final regulations issued last month by the Department of Health and Human Services for e-prescribing and EHRs set the stage for greater collaboration between hospitals and physicians by allowing for the donation of e-prescribing and EHR technology.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on September 19, 2006 at 10:22 AM
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Why EHR? Survey Answers.

According to the Medical Records Institute and Health Data Management there are positive trends in the future for EHR adoption.  In a study recently released by the two organizations, the top reasons cited for adopting EHRs include:

• Efficiency and convenience (82%)

• Increased revenue/lower costs (60%)

• Patient/physician satisfaction (52.6%)

• Half of all physicians are currently, or plan to within a year, allow remote access to the EHR

• About a third have drug reference guides and clinical guides in their EHR

• Less than 20% plan to integrate RFID technology into their EHR

• Less than 10% provide the EHR generated progress note to their patients

Posted by Shawn Whalen on September 12, 2006 at 4:06 PM
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Measure for Measure

Part Five in a Continuing Series on Healthcare IT Public Relations

A frequent question I’m asked from healthcare marketers is how to measure their public relations.  Whether PR is done in-house or through an outsourced agency, there should be objective metrics in place to measure success.  You should sit down with your PR team at the beginning of the engagement or campaign and set aggressive yet realistic goals and metrics by which to measure them. Examples of possible metrics include the following:

• Article Categorizations. What is the ideal goal and mix of coverage type? Company, product, customer case study, trend piece? Technology, vertical, business, local media? Determine your desire mix and align PR strategies to make it happen.

• Quarterly Increase in Media Coverage.  The trend should always be upward in your media coverage from quarter to quarter.

• Exposures. Tracking exposures, otherwise known as print circulation or broadcast viewer ship.

• Advertising Equivalencies. Another metric is advertising equivalencies, or how much the article would have cost had it been an ad. This usually shows PR to be more cost effective.

• Share of Voice Tracking: In trend stories, what degree of coverage does your company receive? Is the company or its customer a dominant voice, or a passing mention? These can be examined through a percentage grade or a tiered approach.

• Percentage of Message: What degree of your messaging is included in coverage? Is the company correctly represented? Is the positioning of your company relative to competitors favorable?

• Media Awareness Grid: This chart tracks growth in media mindshare on a quarterly basis using an objective scale of one (never heard of you) to five (always writes about you). The goal is to identify key reporters and grow the quality of the relationship per the scale.

• Analyze and Compare Against Competitors. The goal is to increase your company coverage beyond that of competitors.

There are of course other metrics beyond these examples. Whatever you use, hold your PR team or agency accountable.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on September 5, 2006 at 11:10 AM
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