June 2007

Aspiring PR

Decision support vendor Asparity made a smart PR move last month in issuing a survey and reporting the findings that employees who used decision support during the 2007 enrollment season made different -- and more cost-effective -- health care choices that better met their needs than employees who did not use decision support. While there is a certain amount of obvious "duh" factor in this, the breakdown of findings is nonetheless interesting:

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Posted by Shawn Whalen on June 26, 2007 at 11:00 AM
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Where Quality is Nice, But Profit a Must

"It's a healthcare company with car issues," proclaimed TIME Magazine last month in a story about Chrysler. It's no secret that among the top factors hurting the Big Three automakers (and many of the Fortune 1000) is healthcare costs. Its crippling effect has contributed to foreign leadership in many sectors of U.S. commerce. It has also led to many corporate initiatives such as the Leapfrog Group to address the issue.

Healthcare quality and cost concerns are the hot button issues for consumers, business and politicos.  But it's the cost issue that clearly is the problem and motivation.  If we're lucky, better quality will be byproduct of cost savings.

The successful healthcare IT vendors make sure their provider and payor prospects understand how their solutions reduce costs. Sure the press release headlines are about quality - who doesn't want to make patients healthier?

But in the sales environment it's all about cost reduction. Hospitals get systems to increase efficiency and revenue. Medical groups to reduce the number of FTEs and the DAR with payors. The health plans want claims systems to keep as much reimbursement from docs as possible. Companies want employees paying more premium and getting well quickly to reduce absenteeism (read costs).

Is CDH an answer? The consumer directed healthcare panacea shifts risk, responsibility and costs onto consumers who may or may not come out ahead (or healthier, for that matter.)  It is simply too soon to see categorical results on the CDH experiment; some surveys look gloomy (see my previous post on the Towers Perrin survey.)  Tools to educate consumers are few but are increasing. Hospitals and doctors need a sea-change in their perspective on revealing costs. Anemic HSA adoption will grow slowly over the decade. 

But more than any of this in making CDH work is consumers caring enough to begin with. They won't until forced to pay a larger portion of their medical and drug bills.

I certainly don't have the answers, but it seems that unfortunately government will have to step in and run a variation on national healthcare.  Sure, the doubters' lobbyists are legion. They cite pure cost as an excuse - if the issue is important enough to the right people, it can be paid for (like Iraq.)  If skeptics claim such a program can't be logistically run, look at other huge programs such as social security. My uncle gets his social security check like clockwork every month.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on June 19, 2007 at 2:59 PM
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Ring the Bells

I wanted to take a rare moment for a self-congratulatory note about Schwartz Communications' award winning night yesterday. Schwartz swept the Publicity Club Bell Ringer Awards (the "Golden Globes" of the PR industry,) garnering 22 awards. Many of these were for healthcare. Details follow.

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Posted by Shawn Whalen on June 13, 2007 at 2:58 PM
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CDHP Self Sabotage?

Like other past experiments in the world of managed care, the much-hyped consumer directed health plan (CDHP) and it many flavors could very well flame out due to lack of interest.  So says Towers Perrin in a recent survey.
 
Not surprisingly, the survey found that employees' views of CDHPs reflect how well their employers explain the plans, rather than the plans' specific features. In 2007, about 25 percent to 30 percent of companies offered employees a CDHP option; 2008 will see half of them offer a CDHP option.

Only 50 percent of those in CDHPs were satisfied with their coverage against the risk of major healthcare costs, versus 65 percent of those in traditional plans. Forty-four percent of those in CDHPs were satisfied that they had access to affordable healthcare, versus 63 percent in traditional plans. Forty-four percent of those in CDHPs felt they could find quality doctors and hospitals, versus 63 percent in traditional health plans.

How should you as a healthcare IT marketer respond?  I would highlight the benefits of your technology to enabling effective and intelligent use of CDHP. Play off the findings, illustrate how you address the perceived weaknesses of CDH. For example, if you are a decision support vendor, can you help educate consumers to the best choice of doctor, hospital or drug?  It will be a team effort on the part of payors, employers, providers and patients to truly make CDH a mainstream reality.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on June 12, 2007 at 11:34 AM
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Brailer Goes VC

Ex-Government healthcare IT czar Dr. David Brailer will be chairman of the new Health Evolution Partners, a private equity fund that will invest up to $700 million in "solutions that advance the quality, efficiency and consumer orientation of health care."

The press release goes on to say that Health Evolution will support promising health care ventures that challenge traditional models of delivering clinical services, including the way they are organized, financed and oriented toward patients. Among its targets will be companies working in disease management, chronic care improvement and pharmaceutical management, as well as telemedicine, remote and in-home patient monitoring and predictive genomics.

Venture capitalists haven't had the soaring success in healthcare IT that they've had in other technology sectors, but that may change given all the national attention on improving healthcare quality by technology.  VC rock star John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins has put some big investments into Purkinje, a HCIT vendor.  Merger and acquisition activity has been the exit for VCs the last several years. Recent IPOs have been lukewarm.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on June 8, 2007 at 10:51 AM
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No News, No Problem

Since our first complimentary public relations Webinar was quite popular, Schwartz Communications is offering another next Tuesday, June 12, 2:00 pm.  Register here .

"No News, No Problem: Maintaining Healthcare Media Momentum" will demystify the PR process, explain what it takes to keep the media dialogue (and coverage) alive when news is slow, and offer real-world examples of success.

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Posted by Shawn Whalen on June 6, 2007 at 2:52 PM
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CCHIT Happens

For those healthcare IT vendors burning to speak out on this sometimes controversial topic, a final comment period on the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology's (CCHIT) proposed certification criteria and test scripts for inpatient electronic health records (EHRs) runs through June 19. Comments will only be accepted on changes made to a previous version of the criteria.  

The commission's board will approve final documents at a June 25 meeting, and then CCHIT will start accepting applications for certification under the new criteria Aug. 1. Earlier this month CCHIT announced that it had certified 30 additional electronic health record systems for ambulatory care under the 2006 criteria. CCHIT now has certified a total of 81 ambulatory EHR products.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on June 3, 2007 at 2:23 PM
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