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Sports and the Internet of Things: the Scoop & Score podcast

From elite soccer and football fields to youth athletes in public school gyms, wearable technology has come to sports bringing two big benefits of gathering data at the point of exercise: to gauge performance and coach back to the athlete in real time, and to prevent injury. I discussed the advent of the Internet of Things in sports on the Scoop and Score podcast with Andrew Kahn, sports journalist and writer, and Stephen Kahn, sports enthusiast and business analyst. [In full disclosure these two Kahn’s are also my brilliant nephews.] We recorded the podcast on July 14, 2015, the day

 

IoT in Healthcare, Take 2: Goldman Sachs weighs in

In this week’s posts on Health Populi, we’re diving into three big reports focused on digital health and the Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare: from the McKinsey Global Institute, Goldman Sachs, and Accenture. In this post, we dig into Goldman Sachs’ analysis, The Digital Revolution comes to US Healthcare, the investment firm’s fifth volume in their Internet of Things report series. Goldman Sachs’ definition of the Healthcare IoT is, “a device that is connected via the Internet and informs clinical decision making,” which bridges digital and physical worlds “to change physician and patient behavior.” The firm identifies three IoT

 

The Internet of Things in Health: McKinsey Sees $1.6 T Value

‘Tis the summer of big, smart reports covering the Internet of Things (IoT) impact on health and fitness. Just this month, three of these missives have come to my inbox, and they all contribute sound thinking about the topic. Today, tomorrow and Friday, I’ll cover each of these here in Health Populi. We begin with McKinsey Global Institute’s The Internet of Things: Mapping the Value Beyond the Hype. [In full disclosure, I was an outside adviser to the MGI team members who focused on the human/health and fitness aspects of this report, and thank MGI for the opportunity to provide

 

Bridging a Commercialization and Design Chasm, StartUp Health Allies With Aurora Health Care

Startup Health, the health/care entrepreneur development company which has helped launch over 100 health/tech companies since “starting up” in 2011, announced a collaboration with Aurora Health Care today. This is one of the first ventures of its kind, linking up health/tech entrepreneurs with a health care provider organization as a living lab, or in the words of Unity Stoakes, Startup Health Co-Founder, a “collaboratory.” I spoke with Unity before the announcement went public, and learned that Startup Health sought a partner with shared values focused on getting innovations into patient care that could transform the healthcare delivery system. “Every single

 

Nurses are consumers’ trusted partners-in-health

The two most trusted health professionals in the eyes of U.S. consumers are nurses and pharmacists, and both of these health workers will be key partners for people wanting to engage in health/care. That was my introductory message kicking off the annual conference of ANIA, the American Nursing Informatics Association, in Philadelphia on April 24, 2015. Meeting in the City of Brotherly Love gave ANIA the opportunity to theme the meeting a “Declaration of Nursing Informatics,” carrying that theme through the exhibition hall with a Benjamin Franklin lookalike walking the floor availing himself of attendees’ requests for selfie-taking with the

 

Health is where we live, work, and shop…at Walgreens

Alex Gourley, President of The Walgreen Company, addressed the capacity crowd at HIMSS15 in Chicago on 13th April 2015, saying his company’s goal is to “make good health easier.” Remember that HIMSS is the “Health Information and Management Systems Society” — in short, the mammoth health IT conference that this year has attracted over 41,000 health computerfolk from around the world. So what’s a nice pharmacy like you, Walgreens, doing in a Place like McCormick amidst 1,200+ health/tech vendors?  If you believe that health is a product of lifstyle behaviors at least as much as health “care” services (what our

 

“What If 1 Million Americans Asked for Medical Records on the Same Day?”

This was not a theoretical question Dr. Farzad Mostashari, former head of the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT in the Department of Health and Human Services, asked yesterday at the closing keynote of Day 1 of the Patient Engagement Forum. Dr. Mostashari issued a challenged to the community of mischief-makers in health/tech patient advocacy: tell everyone you know to contact their doctors — by phone, email, patient portal, or in-person, on one designated day which he called a “Day of Action.” Health IT journalist Neil Versel (disclosure: also a long-time friend in the field) covered this news

 

Doctors who write right: Gawande, Topol and Wachter put people at the center of health/care

There’s a trifecta of books written by three brilliant doctors that, together, provide a roadmap for the 21st century continuum of health care: The Patient Will See You Now by Eric Topol, MD; The Digital Doctor from Robert Wachter, MD; and, Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande. Each book’s take provides a lens, through the eyes of a hands-on healthcare provider, on healthcare delivery today (the good, the warts and all) and solutions based on their unique points-of-view. This triple-review will move, purposefully, from the digitally, technology optimistic “Gutenberg moment” for democratizing medicine per Dr. Topol, to the end-game importance of

 

Health is a growth industry at SXSW

Health is the hot topic at SXSW. While edgy new movies and hot music are the foundational elements of the annual South-by-Southwest festival, health and health care are the fast-growing themes at the meet-up, where the new-new, month-old beautiful JW Marriott Hotel by the Convention Center hosted most of the digital health track sessions. Digital health today goes well beyond mobile apps and genomic futures. Philips was a major presence this year at SXSW with its vision, shared by me, THINK-Health, and the HeathcareDIY team, of connected health where we live, work, play, pray and learn. In the case of

 

The blurring landscape of digital health: the Health 2.0 team puts it in focus

They’re the team that built a brand with the phrase “Health 2.0” before the world barely recognized v 1.0 in healthcare. This week, those folks that brought you the Health 2.0 Conference unveiled the Market Intel database of over 3,000 companies, trying to make sense out of a very blurry and fast-morphing market landscape. I spoke with Matthew Holt and Kim Krueger of Health 2.0 earlier this week to discuss just what’s in this mine of information, and what they intend to do with it. In full disclosure, I have been a colleague and friend of Matthew Holt since his

 

The phone is a gateway drug to health: what MyFitnessPal knows, and what Under Armour gets

65 million people know that food journaling works for losing weight, that it’s engaging to do on a well-designed app, and that health is social. MyFitnessPal (MFP) has the distinction of being a top health app used longer by more people and more effectively than probably any other mobile health tool. Under Armour, the athletic goods company, now has MFP under its corporate umbrella, along with Endomondo, another very popular motivating mobile health tool. You may know Under Armour as a company that manufactures and markets functional workout gear. But this deal is so not about the wearable. It’s about

 

Building the health ecosystem: new bedfellows coming together

2015 is already becoming a year where bedfellows of different stripes are joining together to build a health care ecosystem well beyond hospitals, doctors and health plans. Announcements launched last week at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and coming out this week at the J.P. Morgan Conference in San Francisco, the first two weeks of 2015 reveal that new entrants and legacy health stakeholders are crossing corporate and cultural chasms to (try and) solve challenges that prevent us from getting to that Holy Grail of The Triple Aim: improving health care outcomes, driving down per capita costs,

 

Health and wellness at CES 2015 – trend-weaving the big ideas

Health is where we live, work, play and pray — my and others’ mantra if we want to truly bend (down) the cost curve and improve medical outcomes. If we’re serious about achieving the Triple Aim — improving public health, lowering spending, and enhancing the patient/health consumer experience (which can drive activation and ongoing engagement) — then you see health everywhere at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. With this post, I’ll share with you the major themes I’m seeing at #CES2015 related to health, wellness, and DIYing medical care at home. The meta: from health care to self-care.

 

Getting real about consumer demand for wearables: Accenture slows us down

Are you Feelin’ Groovy about wearables? Well slow down, you move too fast… …at least, according to Accenture’s latest survey into consumers’ perspectives on new technologies, published this week in conjunction with the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the largest annual convention in the U.S. featuring technology for people. At #CES2015, we’re seeing a rich trove of blinged-out, multi-sensor, shiny new wearable things at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show. Swarovski crystals are paired with Misfit Wearables, called the Swarovski Shine, shown here as a shiny new thing, indeed. Withings launched its Activite fitness tracking watch in new colors.

 

Trend-weaving the 2015 health care trends

‘Tis the season for annual health trendcasting, which is part of my own business model. Here’s a curated list of some of my favorite trend reports for health care in the new year, with my Hot Points in the conclusion, below, summarizing the most salient trends among them. TechCrunch’s Top 5 Healthcare Predictions for 2015: In this succinct forecast, Walmart grows its presence as a health plan, startups get more pharm-funding, hospitals channel peer-to-peer lending, Latinos emerge as a “most-desired” health care segment, and Amazon disrupts the medical supply chain. Experian 2015 Data Breach Forecast: Healthcare security breaches will be

 

Health IT Forecast for 2015 – Consumers Pushing for Healthcare Transformation

Doctors and hospitals live and work in a parallel universe than the consumers, patients and caregivers they serve, a prominent Chief Medical Information Officer told me last week. In one world, clinicians and health care providers continue to implement the electronic health records systems they’ve adopted over the past several years, respond to financial incentives for Meaningful Use, and re-engineering workflows to manage the business of healthcare under constrained reimbursement (read: lower payments from payors). In the other world, illustrated here by the graphic artist Sean Kane for the American Academy of Family Practice, people — patients, healthy consumers, newly insured folks,

 

Digital and mobile health: can doctors and consumers get on the same wavelength?

There’s growing interest among both consumers and clinicians in people DIY’ing healthcare. Consumers are even keener than their doctors about the self-care concept, PwC’s Health Research Institute has found. Doctors who are already in value-based payment mode — participating in accountable care organizations, at-risk for reimbursement, doing population health — are earlier adopters of digital health tools that enable patients to care for themselves outside of the health care setting. These providers are also working more on care teams, where physicians can work at their ‘highest and best use,’ complemented by nurse practitioners, physician assistants, diabetes educators, and other ancillary

 

Live from the 11th annual Connected Health Symposium – Keeping Telehealth Real

Dr. Joseph Kvedar has led the Center for Connected Health for as long as I’ve used the word “telehealth” in my work – over 20 years. After two decades, the Center and other pioneers in connected health have evidence proving the benefits, ROI (“hard” in terms of dollars, and “soft” in terms of patient and physician satisfaction), and technology efficacy for connecting health. The 11th Annual Connected Health Symposium is taking place as I write this post at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, bringing health providers, payers, plans and researchers together to share best practices, learnings and evidence supporting the

 

Walgreens+WebMD: reinventing retail pharmacy

With the goal of driving a digital health platform for well-informed, effective self-care, the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chain and prominent consumer-facing health information portal are allying to move from serving up pills and information to health “care.” Walgreens and WebMD launched their joint effort on 2nd October 2014, a few weeks after CVS/pharmacy re-branded as CVS Health. Welcome to the reinvention of the retail pharmacy. I spoke for a few minutes with David Schlanger, CEO, WebMD, and Alex Gourlay, President, Customer Experience and Daily Living, Walgreens, the day of the launch, to get early insights into the vision for

 

Activity tracking is consumers’ #1 demand for smartwatches

Of all the functions a smartwatch could play, it’s activity tracking that’s top of most consumers’ minds. GfK conducted a survey in August 2014 among 5,000 smartphone-owning consumers in five countries — China, Germany, South Korea, the UK, and the U.S. The market research firm found that 29% of people see “activity tracking” the most important function. Phone calls ranked second with 13% of consumers, telling time 11%, and 10% voted for basic apps and navigation system. 7% of consumers noted the smartwatch would be desirable for basic web search. In this survey, activity tracking included the broad definition covering

 

Health-wear – at Health 2.0, health met fashion, function and care

Wearables met health and medicine at the 8th annual Health 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, CA, last week. I had the real pleasure of shepherding a wearables panel of five innovators during the conference, in a well-attended session followed by an energetic Q&A. The organizations who demonstrated their tools and brainstormed the wearables market included, in alphabetical order, Atlas Wearables, Heartmath, MySugr, SunSprite and Withings. I hasten to add that among the five presenters, two were women: that 2 in 5 = 40% gender representation is, happily to my way of thinking about women’s roles in health-making, a very good

 

Crossing the digital health chasm between consumers and providers – talking with Dr. Eric Topol

More than twice as many patients than physicians are embracing consumers’ use of new digital technologies to self-diagnose medical conditions on their own. On the other hand, 91% of doctors are concerned about giving patients access to their detailed electronic health records, anticipating patients will feel anxious about the results; only 34% of consumers are concerned about anxiety-due-to-EHR-exposure. Welcome to the digital health chasm, that gap between what consumers want out of digital health, and what doctors believe patients can handle at this stage in EHR adoption in doctors’ offices and in patients’ lives. I have the video of Jack

 

Dr Eric Topol on the digital democratization of health care

Moore’s Law is coming to medicine. And it will look and feel a lot like Uber: with rich technology underpinning,  consumer-service oriented and friendly, and shaking up the professionals at the front line of the business (from taxi drivers to physicians). Eric Topol, physician and editor-in-chief at Medscape, told a standing-room-only audience at the kickoff of the 8th annual Health 2.0 Conference that the democratization of health care is coming based on consumers’ use of eight drivers: sensors, labs, imaging, physical exams, access to medical records, transparency of costs, and digital pills. Dr. Topol referred to the cover ot TIME

 

Health on the 2014 Gartner Hype Cycle

Remote health monitoring is in the Trough of Disillusionment. Wearables are at the Peak of Inflated Expectations, with Big Data leapfrogging wearables from the 2013 forecast — both descending toward the Disillusionment Trough. Mobile (remote) health monitoring, however, has fallen into that Trough of Disillusionment as RHM has been undergoing reality checks in the health care system especially for monitoring and patient self-management of heart disease (most notably heart failure) and diabetes. Welcome to the 2014 edition of the Gartner Hype Cycle, one of my most-trusted data sources for doing health industry forecasts in my advisory work. Compared with last year’s

 

Inflection point for telehealth in 2014

The supply side of telehealth has been readying itself for nearly a decade. The demand side appears to be aligning in 2014 for adoption to grow and sustain (some) solid business models. On the demand side, Towers Watson’s 2014 survey of large employers forecasts growth among companies that will offer telemedicine in 2015. Towers found that 37% of employers planned to offer telemedicine to workers as a lower-cost site of care; 34% more employers were considering telemedicine in 2016 or 2017.  The health benefits adviser calculates that employers could save over $6 billion if industry replaces virtual health consultations with

 

Hyperconnected Healthcare – The Need for Cyber-Resilience

The growth of data, small and Big, in health care motivates the industry’s stakeholders to adopt technologies that help store, manage and analyze data to drive knowledge and, ultimately, individual and public health. Healthcare is embracing cloud technology, mobile platforms, social networks, e-commerce, robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT), among a growing list of tech innovations. Each of these innovations, which enable productivity and economic growth, also present cybersecurity risks. The value of these risks is estimated to be as much as $3 trillion to the global economy, according to McKinsey’s calculations in the report Risk and Responsibility in

 

The VA is a telehealth leader

“Telehealth isn’t about seeing a provider by video: it’s about decision making,” Dr. Adam Darkins, leader of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Telehealth Programs, told the audience in his keynote address at the Government Health IT Conference in Washington, DC, on June 17, 2014. Dr. Darkins, trained as a neurosurgeon, realized earlier in his career “time and again,” he said, that he should have seen his patients more frequently in-between face-to-face visits. “A good decision downstream can make a lot of difference to someone’s longevity,” Dr. Darkins recognized. He’s worked with a team at the VA to build

 

Apple and Google and Samsung, Oh My!

Three of the world’s biggest technology companies – Apple, Google and Samsung — have made big announcements in the world of connected health in the past few weeks. A fourth is positioned to enter the fray. These major announcements illustrate the convergence of consumer technology, health, and wearables, with the potential for Big Data and population health impacts. Among the three tech giants, Samsung announced its consumer health/tech story first, on May 28, 2014, at its Digital Health Initiative meeting. Samsung unveiled the Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions platform, SAMI, along with the Simband prototype wristband that would enable users to

 

Health care at an inflection point: digital trends via Mary Meeker

When Mary Meeker talks, the digerati listen. Meeker is the digital industry analyst who’s a partner at KPCB, a venture capital company, in Silicon Valley. Each year she publishes a report on the state of the digital marketplace. Her 2014 paper, Internet Trends 2014 – Code Conference (dated May 28 2014)  is online, and as usual, it’s full of data points on both digital technology segments along with some vertical industry findings – in education, financial services, and health, among other segments. I’ve combed through the 164 pages of the PDF to trend-weave the health implications. When it comes to health, the

 

Wearable tech + the workplace: driving employee health

Employer wellness programs are growing in the U.S., bundled with consumer-directed plans and health savings accounts. A wellness company’s work with employee groups is demonstrating that workers who adopt mobile health technologies — especially “wearables” coupled with smartphone apps — helps change behavior and drive health outcomes. Results of one such program are summarized in Wearables at Work, a technical brief from Vitality, a joint venture of Humana and Discovery Ltd., published April 23, 2014. Vitality has been working in workplace wellness since 2005, first using pedometers to track workers’ workouts. In 2008, Vitality adopted the Polar heart rate monitor for

 

The digital health bubble – is it about to burst? #SXSW

That’s a useful and timely question, given the news that Castlight Health will launch its IPO with valuations north of $1 billion. Yes, “billions,” and according to a  MarketWatch analysis, “it’s a bargain at $1 billion.” So then – do we anticipate a bubble? asked Marc Monseau of the Mint Collective, the convener of our panel who brought together Robert Stern, a successful health-tech entrepreneur whose latest venture, @PointofCare, focuses on patient engagement; Marco Smit of Next Innovation Health Partners (parting from the Health 2.0 Conference family where he led Health 2.0 Advisors for several years); and me. Some key

 

Digital health is hot at South-by-Southwest #SXSH

Today kicked off the 2014 South-by-Southwest Festival (#SXSW) in Austin, TX, running until March 16 and featuring dozens of sessions, concerts, video, and fireside chats in music, film and interactive segments. I’ll be involved in an interactive session on Tuesday called “The Digital Health Bubble – Is It About to Burst?” This panel includes Marc Monseau (@MDMonseau) who is a pioneer in health and social media (building J&J’s early leadership in social health online); Marco Smit (@MrHealth20) who leads Health 2.0 Advisors and is a veteran strategist in several health/tech companies; and, Robert Stern, Founder/CEO of @PointofCare, a health IT platform that

 

Patient engagement and mobile health – design and timing matter

Thinking about personal health information technology – the wearable devices, remote health monitors, digital weight scales, and Bluetooth-enabled medical equipment scaled for the home – there are two glasses. One is half-full and the other, half-empty. The half-full glass is the proliferation of consumer-facing devices like Fitbit, Jawbone and Nike, which comprise the lion’s market share in the health wearables segment; the mass adoption of mobile phones and tablets; consumers’ multi-screen media behavior (as tracked by Nielsen); and consumers’ growing share of medical spending, now about 40% of annual spending (or something north of $8,000 for a family of four

 

The value of health IT – driving ROI takes a village

This is my second post for the #HIMSS14 Blog Carnival, written to coincide with the annual 2014 HIMSS Conference convening health IT leaders in Orlando, FL, 23-28 February 2014. I am gratified to be one of a dozen+ Social Media Ambassadors to the Conference. The first post, on why health IT ‘should’ matter to consumers, can be found here.  Investments in the digital health space reached nearly $2 billion in 2013, based on Rock Health’s look back at venture funding in the market. These financings covered $245 mm that went toward electronic health records and clinical workflow; $161 toward analytics

 

Connected Health – the technology is ready, providers on the cusp

The convergence of technology developments – such as the internet, mobile phone adoption, cloud computing, sensors, electronic health records – with societal evolution including consumerism, demand for transparency, and “flatter” organizations – enable the phenomenon of Connected Health. Connected Health by definition includes mobile health (mHealth), telehealth and telemedicine, as presented in the February 2014 issue of Health Affairs which is dedicated to this theme. Why Connected Health’s time is Now relates to those factors cited above, and the underlying challenge of managing health care costs. While all nations in the developed world are facing difficult health economies, the U.S. spends so

 

Health Care Everywhere at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show

When the head of the Consumer Electronics Association gives a shout-out to the growth of health products in his annual mega-show, attention must be paid. The #2014CES featured over 300 companies devoted to “digital health” as the CEA defines the term. But if you believe that health is where we live, work, play, and pray, then you can see health is almost everywhere at the CES, from connected home tech and smart refrigerators to autos that sense ‘sick’ air and headphones that amplify phone messages for people with hearing aids, along with pet activity tracking devices like the Petbit. If

 

Wear It Well – Fashion Mashes Up With Health At #CES2014

Madame Onassis got nothing on you, Rod Stewart complimented in his hit You Wear It Well in 1972. Now we can all wear it well, based on the fashion-meets-health-mashups at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show. Several events underline this observation at the CES this year: – Fitbit has signed up Tory Burch to put her mark accessorizing the company’s activity trackers – The CSR Bluetooth smart pendant was designed with the chic jeweler Cellini; the device can receive alerts from an iPhone (think: medication adherence, or a message from mom in Florida). This is featured in the first photo. –

 

4 in 10 Americans keen to buy an app or device for health/fitness: Accenture’s 2014 digital lifestyle survey

Wearable technology is the new fashion accessory, Accenture observes in its 2014 survey report, Racing Toward a Complete Digital Lifestyle: Digital Consumers Crave More. In parallel with the supply-side growth of wearable technology that is seen this week at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show, Accenture brings a sanguine story to the supply side of the equation, finding consumers “craving more” than one function from a digital device. Over one-half of consumers surveyed in six countries favored vehicle navigation, home safety/security monitors, health monitor, home comfort and control, fitness monitors, and personal safety monitors. Nearly one half (46%) liked smartwatches, and

 

Health is everywhere – seeing health in JWT’s Top 100 Trends for 2014

Of 100 broad-based trends to expect in 2014, most relate in some way to health. I’ve reviewed every one of the 100 forecast points in JWT’s 100 Things to Watch in 2014 report, and it seems Health is Everywhere. Let me point out many, which I’ve allocated to health-ified buckets (note that JWT organizes the list of 100 by alphabet, from “A” to “Z,” so they are not in any prioritized or strategic order). The most direct-health impacting bucket of trends are those in health tech. These include E-cigarette regulation (#35), Glassware (#42), Haptic technology (#46), Needle-free vaccines (#64), Oculus Rift (#65), OTT TV (#66), Telediagnostics

 

mHealth will join the health ecosystem – prelude to the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show

The rise of digital health at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show signals the hockey-stick growth of consumer-facing health devices for fitness and, increasingly, more medical applications in the hands of people, patients, and caregivers. This year at #CES2014, while the 40% growth of the CES digital health footprint will get the headlines, the underlying story will go beyond wristbands and step-tracking generating data from an N of 1 to tools that generate data to bolster shared-decision making between people and the health system, and eventually support population health. For example: – Aetna is partnering with J&J to deploy their Care4Today

 

Data altruism: people more likely to share personal health data for the sake of others and to save money

While about 53% of people globally are willing to share various types of personal data overall, the kind of data willing-to-be-shared varies by type of information — and what country we’re from. When asked how likely they would be to anonymously share information if it could lead to improvements or innovations in that technology, Americans are less likely to be willing to share any type of personal data — except for gender. When it comes to sharing several specific types of health information, fewer Americans are likely to want to share it as Intel found in their survey published in the company’s Healthcare

 

Investing in technology that lowers health costs – the growing role of mobile

At the Venture+ Forum at the 2013 Mobile Health Summit yesterday, Lisa Suennen, Managing Director of Psilos Ventures was asked what she and her venture capital fund look for in choosing new investments for their health care portfolio. She succinctly said, “technologies that lower costs.” With nearly $1 in $5 of the U.S. economy attributable to health spending, Lisa’s got a point. Technology in U.S. health care has been mostly additive and expense-inducing, not reducing: fax machines and printers, for example, continue to proliferate in health care settings as part of “networking,” and once you add a new clinical technology

 

Gamification in health – make the person the quarterback

Games are part of peoples’ lives in the 20-teens. Gamification has been used in military and business training and now is a growing method to help change peoples’ behavior across a variety of issues — health, among them. But it’s not all “fun and games” when it comes to succeeding in applying gaming methods in health, according to Gaming to Engage the Healthcare Consumer, a report from ICF International. ICF’s roots are in the defense industry, and the team that wrote this paper together have decades of experience in military applications. These learnings can be quite useful when translated into the

 

Self-service health – how consumers can help solve the primary care shortage

Self-service – people DIYing health care — can help solve the primary care shortage in America, based on the findings of 23 studies published this week. If health information technologies (health IT) were “fully implemented” in 30% of doctors’ offices, demand for physicians would fall by 4 to 9%, according to The Impact of Health Information Technology and e-Health On the Future Demand for Physician Services, published in the November 2013 issue of Health Affairs. Weiner, Yeh and Blumenthal did a meta-analysis of the literature on health IT and its potential to improve productivity and extend physician services and found

 

Mobile health apps – opportunity for patients and doctors to co-create the evidence

There are thousands of downloadable apps that people can use that touch on health. But among the 40,000+ mobile health apps available in iTunes, which most effectively drive health and efficient care? To answer that question, the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics analyzed 43,689 health, fitness and medical apps in the Apple iTunes store as of June 2013. These split into what IMS categorized as 23,682 “genuine” health care apps, and 20,007 falling into miscellaneous categories such as product-specific apps, fashion and beauty, fertility, veterinary, and apps with “gimmicks” (IMS’s word) with no obvious health benefit. Among the 23,682 so-called

 

For Medtech, Design is the New Plastics (advice to The Graduate)

Return on innovation in medical technology is on the decline. Med tech needed a GPS for its role in the health ecosystem, and lost its way as it focused on a few wrong priorities. In a $349 billion market, there has been much to lose…and will be to gain. The new world for medical technology and how the industry can turn around is the subject of P2C’s report, Medtech companies prepare for an innovation makeover, published in October 2013 by the PwC Health Research Institute (HRI). The problem has been an addiction to incremental improvements on existing products: think about the analog in

 

Health care and survey taking at the Big Box Store

Where can you shop the health and beauty aisles, pick up some groceries and a prescription, get a flu vaccine, and weigh in on Obamacare and what digital health tools you like? Why, at one of several thousand retail stores where you can find a SoloHealth kiosk. As of yesterday afternoon, over 32 million encounters were recorded on SoloHealth kiosks, based on an app I saw on the company CEO Bart Foster’s smartphone. Kiosks are locatted around the United States in retailers including Walmart and Sam’s Clubs, along with major grocery chains like Schnuck’s and Publix, and the CVS pharmacy

 

Defining Mobile Health – the blur between health and health care

Mobilising Healthcare, a new report from Juniper Research, segments the mobile health sector into “healthcare” and “health & fitness” segments. The research summary notes that fitness is a relatively new market compared with health “care,” which has been around for eons. Fitness, the analysts say, “is exempt from government intervention.” Mobile healthcare (“mHealth”) applications explored include SMS health messaging, remote health provision such as cardiac monitoring, electronic health records and personal health records. In mFitness, Juniper looks into mobile tech for athletes and fitness conscious people, and activity tracking including heart function, distance, respiration, and perspiration, among other parameters. mHealth

 

People not up-close-and-personal about personalized medicine…yet

Only 1 in 4 U.S. adults over 30 know what “personalized medicine” (PM) really is, and only 8% of people feel very knowledgeable about the concept based on Consumer Perspectives on Personalized Medicine from GfK, published online in August 2013. GfK surveyed 602 online adults 30 years and over between February and March 2013 drawn from the company’s KnowledgePanel sample of U.S. adults. Only 4% of people who have heard of personalized medicine describe it accurately as “medicine based on genome/genetic make up.” About one-half of people (52%) defined PM as medical care, treatment, or medicine geared toward individual needs. The poll

 

In the US health care cost game, doctors have seen the enemy – and it’s not them

When it comes to who’s most responsible for reducing the cost of health care in America, most doctors put the onus on trial lawyers, health insurance companies, pharma and medical device manufacturers, hospitals, and even patients. But physicians themselves ? Not so much responsibility – only 36% of doctors polled said doctors should assume major responsibility in reducing health care costs. And, in particular, most U.S. physicians have no enthusiasm for reducing health care costs by changing payment models, like penalizing providers for hospital re-admissions or paying a group of doctors a fixed, bundled price for managing population health. Limiting

 

Driving innovation in health through the use of open data: Health Datapalooza, Year 4

In the $3 trillion economy that is American health care, the role of information technology is central to transforming this huge piece of U.S. fiscal activity. This week convened the fourth annual Health Datapalooza (HDP) in Washington DC, with the underlying theme, “health engagement is the blockbuster drug of the 21st century” (quoting Leonard Kish). This meeting of over 2,000 registrants – huge growth from the first year’s 400 attendees — is organized by the Health Data Consortium (HDC) , whose CEO Dwayne Spradlin kicked off remarks on Day 2 of HDP4. He described the HDC, a public-private collaboration led

 

The physician-consumer health IT chasm: most doctors lagging in online patient support tools

In the long-run, health information technology (HIT) will improve the quality of health care, according to 73% of U.S. physicians. However, about the same number (7 in 10 physicians) believe that the ROI on health IT is inflated and that implementing EHRs will cost more, not less. Still, market forces from health insurance plans, payers and consumers are driving health IT adoption, according to Deloitte’s survey report, Physician adoption of health information technology: implications for medical practice leaders and business partners. Electronic health records (EHR) adoption and meeting meaningful use (MU) Stage 1 criteria appears strongly related to the size

 

FDA goes DTP(atient)

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) launched its new website for and about patients, the Patient Network, with the tagline, “Bringing your voice to drug and device approval and safety.” With this move, the FDA moves toward social health, someplace where at least one-third of U.S. consumers already opine, shop, share personal info, crowdsource cures, and support each other on all-matters-health-and-illness. The objective of the Patient Network is, “to help FDA help patients have a bigger voice.” Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the Commissioner of the FDA, talks about the concept here. The rationale? “When patients better understand the intricacies of how

 

The value of big data in health care = $450 billion

  Exploiting Big Data in industry is Big News these days, and nowhere is the potential for leveraging the concept greater than in health care. McKinsey & Company estimates that harnessing big data across five dimensions of health care could yield nearly one-half trillion dollars’ worth of value in The ‘big data’ revolution in healthcare. The chart summarizes McKinsey’s calculations on the value of Big Data in health care at its maximum. Before digging into the value potential, just what is Big Data in health care? Statistics and information are generated in the health care system about patients: say, during visits

 

U.S. Health Costs vs. The World: Is It Still The Prices, and Are We Still Stupid?

Comparing health care prices in the U.S. with those in other developed countries is an exercise in sticker shock. The cost of a hospital day in the U.S. was, on average, $4,287 in 2012. It was $853 in France, a nation often lauded for its excellent health system and patient outcomes but with a health system that’s financially strapped. A routine office visit to a doctor cost an average of $95 in the U.S. in 2012. The same visit was priced at $30 in Canada and $30 in France, as well. A hip replacement cost $40,364 on average in the

 

Arianna and Lupe and Deepak and Sanjay – will the cool factor drive mobile health adoption?

Digital health is attracting the likes of Bill Clinton, Lupe Fiasco, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Arianna Huffington, and numerous famous athletes who rep a growing array of activity trackers, wearable sensors, and mobile health apps. Will this diverse cadre of popular celebs drive consumer adoption of mobile health? Can a “cool factor” motivate people to try out mobile health tools that, over time, help people sustain healthy behaviors? Mobile and digital health is a fast-growing, good-news segment in the U.S. macroeconomy. The industry attracted more venture capital in 2012 than other health sectors, based on Rock Health’s analysis of the year-in-review. Digital health

 

Do doctors want patients to have full access their own medical information? It depends.

Only one-third of U.S. physicians believe that patients should have “full access” to their electronic health records, according to Patient Access to Electronic Health Records What Does the Doctor Order?, a survey conducted by Accenture, released at HIMSS13 in March 2013. Two-thirds of doctors in the U.S. are open to patients having “limited access” to their EHRs. However, the extent to which doctors believe in full EHR access for patients depends on the type of health information contained in the record. Accenture surveyed 3,700 physicians in eight countries: Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Singapore, Spain and the United States, and found the doctors’

 

Health at SXSW13 vs. HIMSS13: the Yin, the Yang, and the Blur

I endured what very few people could (or would) do in the past ten days: I traveled to New Orleans to the annual conference of HIMSS, the Health Information Management Systems Society, which features hundreds of suppliers to the health care information technology industry. I returned home to kiss my family hello and goodbye, and a day later flew to Austin for the annual South-by-Southwest conference for music, movie and digital folks. The health track at SXSW has grown over the past five years, and provides a start contrast to “health care” as embodied at HIMSS, and “health” translated through

 

Bill Clinton’s public health, cost-bending message thrills health IT folks at HIMSS

In 2010, the folks who supported health care reform were massacred by the polls, Bill Clinton told a rapt audience of thousands at HIMSS13 yesterday. In 2012, the folks who were against health care reform were similarly rejected. President Clinton gave the keynote speech at the annual HIMSS conference on March 6, 2013, and by the spillover, standing-room-only crowd in the largest hall at the New Orleans Convention Center, Clinton was a rock star. Proof: with still nearly an hour to go before his 1 pm speech, the auditorium was already full with only a few seats left in the

 

Eric Topol creatively destroys medicine at #HIMSS13

Wearing his Walking Gallery jacket painted by (im)patient advocate, Regina Holliday, Dr. Eric Topol evangelized the benefits of digital medicine and consumer empowerment in health care, largely summarizing his epic (pun intended – wait for Hot Point, below) book, The Creative Destruction of Medicine. A founder of the West Wireless Health Institute (now known as West Health), Dr. Topol is a physician and researcher at Scripps and was recently named as editor at Medscape. A new piece of Topol Trivia for me is that GQ magazine called him a rock star of science. Dr. Topol is one of the more

 

Patients globally would embrace Jetsons-style health care…but will health providers?

Patients are getting comfortable with remote health care – that is, receiving care from a health provider at a distance via, say, telehealth or via a Skype-type of set-up. Furthermore, 70% of people globally saying they would trust an automated device to provide a diagnosis that would help them determine whether or note they needed to see a doctor. Based on the findings from Cisco‘s survey summarized in the Cisco Connected Customer Experience Report – Healthcare, published March 4, 2013, just-in-time for the annual 2013 HIMSS conference, a majority patients the world over are embracing health care delivered via communications

 

The future of sensors in health care – passive, designed, integrated

Here’s Ann R., who is a patient in the not-too-distance-future, when passive sensors will be embedded in her everyday life. The infographic illustrates a disruption in health care for people, where data are collected on us (with our permission) that can help us improve our own self-care, and help our clinicians know more about us outside of their offices, exam rooms and institutions. In Making Sense of Sensors: How New Technologies Can Change Patient Care, my paper for the California HealthCare Foundation, I set out to organize the many types of sensors proliferating the health care landscape, and identify key

 

Digital health investment: greenhousing innovation and the accelerator

Traditional venture capital in health care is so 2010: welcome to The Greenhouse Effect: How Accelerators Are Seeding Digital Health Innovation, explained in a new report from California HealthCare Foundation written by Aaron Apodaca. Aaron clearly explains the growing interest in and influence of health accelerators, which grew out of the first era of the Internet (read: dot-com bust v 1.0) and the founding of the Y Combinator, an internet incubator that made relatively small investments in exchange for equity positions in start-ups. Health accelerators emerged around 2011, first with Rock Health in San Francisco, which was quickly followed by

 

The Accountable Care Community opportunity

“ACOs most assuredly will not…deliver the disruptive innovation that the U.S. health-care system urgently needs,” wrote Clay Christensen, godfather of disruptive innovation, et. al., in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal of February18, 2013. In the opinion piece, Christensen and colleagues make the argument that Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) as initially conceived won’t address several key underlying forces that keep the U.S. health care industry in stasis: Physicians’ behavior will have to change to drive cost-reduction. Clinicians will need “re-education,” the authors say, adopting evidence-based medicine and operating in lower-cost milieus. Patients’ behavior will have to change. This requires

 

Required reading: TIME Magazine’s Bitter Pill Cover Story

Today’s Health Populi is devoted to Steven Brill and his colleagues at TIME magazine whose special report, Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us, is required reading for every health citizen in the United States. Among many lightbulb moments for readers, key findings from the piece are: Local hospitals are beloved charities to people who live in their market – Brill calls these institutions “Non-Profit Profitmakers). They’re the single most politically powerful player in most Congressional districts The poor and less affluent more often pay the high chargemaster (“retail list”) price for health products and services vs. the wealthy

 

Health consumers don’t understand overtreatment, and their role in driving health costs

Overuse of health care is defined as the delivery of health care services for which the risks outweigh the benefits, according to a study into the utilization of ambulatory care health services published in the January 28, 2013, issue of JAMA Internal Medicine (the new title for the Archives of Internal Medicine). “Trends in the Overuse of Ambulatory Health Care Services in the United States” found that, of the estimated $700 billion that is wasted annually in U.S. health care, overuse comprises about $280 billion – over one-third of waste — equal to over 10% of total health spending in

 

Physician workflow: barrier to consumer health engagement?

This week, I had a conversation with a physician whom I consider quite patient-engaged, who uses an EHR, and who works with one of the most wired health organizations in the United States. I complained to her that my user-generated data from my Bodymedia armband, Fitbit, Withings scale, among other #QuantifiedSelf devices, can’t find their way through the cloud to my doctors’ electronic health records or my patient portal. Her reaction was surprising to me. She was not so keen on the idea, saying, “It’s the physician workflow” that’s the problem. The wordle on workflow comes from Dr. Chuck Webster

 

Formally tracking health data changes health behavior and drives social health

Most of us keep track of some aspect of our health. Half of all people who track do so “in their heads,” not on paper, Excel spreadsheet, or via digital platform. Furthermore, 36% update their health tracking data at least once a day; but 16% update at most twice a month, and 9% update less than once monthly. Tracking for Health from the Pew Internet & American Life Project paints a portrait of U.S. adults who, on one hand are quantifying themselves but largely aren’t taking advantage of automated and convenient ways of doing so. Overall, 69% of U.S. adults track

 

Battle of the (wrist)Bands at the Digital Health Summit, 2013 CES

One of the fastest-growing segments at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week is digital health. And within that segment, there’s a battle brewing for what technology companies seem to think is the most valuable part of real estate on the human body: the wrist. I counted at least fifty products as I cruised aisles 26000-27000 in the South Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center that had wristbands, usually black, plastic or rubbery, and often able to click in and out of the band for use in-hand, in pocket, or in a few cases, on a

 

We are all health deputies in the #digitalhealth era: live from the 2013 Consumer Electronic Show

Reed Tuckson of UnitedHealthGroup was the first panelist to speak at the kickoff of the Digital Health Summit, the fastest-growing aspct of the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (#2013CES). Tuckson implored the spillover audience to all, “self-deputize as national service agents in health,” recognizing that technology developers in the room at this show that’s focused on developers building Shiny New Digital Things have much to bring to health. As Andrew Thompson of Proteus Medical (the “invisible pill” company) said, “we can’t bend the health care cost curve; we have to break it.” This pioneering panel was all about offering new-new technologies

 

One-third of U.S. consumers plan to buy a new fitness tech in 2013, but most buyers are already healthy

Over one-third of U.S. consumers plan to buy a new fitness technology in the next year, especially women. They’ll buy these at mass merchants (females in particular, shopping at Target and Walmart), sporting goods retailers (more male buyers here), online and at electronics stores like Best Buy. These potential buyers consider themselves in good or excellent physical health. They’ll see the latest applications on retail store shelves in pedometers, calorie trackers, fitness video games, digital weight scales, and heart rate monitors that will be launched this week at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In advance of the

 

Physicians’ growing use of the Internet: where trust and value drive information search

“The Internet will have a profound effect on the practice and business of medicine. Physicians, eager to provide high-quality care and forced by competition to offer online services, will introduce e-mail and patient-friendly Web sites to improve administrative services and manage common medical conditions. Patients will identify more helath information online and will take more responsibility for their care. The doctor/patient relationship will be altered. Some aspects of electronic communication will enhance the bond, and others will threaten it. Patients will have access to vast information sources of variable validity. Many physician organizations are preparing for the electronic transformation, but

 

Mobile is the new black in health care

Mobile technology will change the delivery of health care, according to 2 in 3 health IT execs polled in the 2nd Annual HIMSS Mobile Technology Survey, sponsored by Qualcomm Life. Only 2% of health IT management says mobile won’t impact the delivery of health care in the future. This week finds the mHealth Summit convening in Washington, DC, hosting some 3,000 interested stakeholders looking at the intersection of mobile devices and platforms and health and health care. The 2012 theme is Connecting the Mobile Health Ecosystem, and the exhibitor area of the Summit speaks to the broadening of that ecosystem, including

 

The state of health informatics: positive ROI, but a shortage of talent and comprehensive data

While most players in health care see potential ROI through investing in health informatics, there’s a supply-side problem in the market in two ways: a labor shortage of health IT talent, and a dearth of clean and comprehensive data needed for specific objectives. Even with sufficient budgets, health care providers, plans, and pharma companies say, these two limiting factors prevent fully realizing the promise of health data. Deloitte and AMIA polled health providers, plans and life science companies on the state of informatics in health care, the results of which are summarized in The 2012 Deloitte-AMIA Health Informatics Industry Maturity Survey.

 

Innovating health at the point-of-care: just-in-time evidence-based information

When the phrase “health care innovation” is considered, most people think about technologies like digital imaging, breakthroughs in cancer treatment, and robotic surgery. But before clinicians order or prescribe the use of any of those choices, there’s a cognitive process that gets them to that decision. It’s a cerebral mash-up of information, learned knowledge, and that special art of medicine embodied in the provider’s experience with patients, well-honed over time. How can innovation improve this process? “Healthcare innovation can be defined as the introduction of a new concept, idea, service, process, or product aimed at improving treatment, diagnosis, education, outreach, prevention and

 

The new bio-terrorism? Medical device hacking

A time-and-technology challenged FDA, proliferation of software-controlled medical devices in and outside of hospitals, and growth of hackers have resulted in medical technology that’s riddled with malware. Furthermore, lack of security built into the devices makes them ripe for hacking and malfeasance. Scenario: a famous figure (say, a politician with an implantable defibrillator or young rock star with an insulin pump) becomes targeted by a hacker, who industriously virtually works his way into the ICD’s software and delivers the man a shock so strong it’s akin to electrocution. Got the picture? Welcome to the dark side of health IT and

 

Elsevier’s ClinicalKey Hits the Road – a mobile healthcare search tour

There are many definitions of mobile health, and Elsevier is adding another to the list. The world’s largest medical publisher has taken its new clinical search tool, ClinicalKey, on the road. Coined the ClinicalKey Experience Tour, Elsevier is coming to a medical center near you to enable clinicians, medical librarians, and health care administrators to give ClinicalKey a spin in their hospital’s parking lot. The challenge: the amount of new medical information doubles every 5 years, while 4 in 5 physicians say they have less than five hours a month to keep up with this, according to a DoctorDirectory survey. At the same time, health care providers feel hard-pressed

 

Wired health: living by numbers – a review of the event

Wired magazine, longtime evangelist for all-things-tech, has played a growing role in serving up health-tech content over the past several years, especially through the work of Thomas Goetz. This month, Wired featured an informative section on living by numbers — the theme of a new Wired conference held 15-16 October 2012 in New York City. This feels like the week of digital health on the east coast of the U.S.: several major meetings have convened that highlight the role of technology — especially, the Internet, mobile platforms, and Big Data — on health. Among the meetings were the NYeC Digital Health conference, Digital

 

From fragmentation and sensors to health care in your pocket – Health 2.0, Day 1

The first day of the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco kicked off with a video illustrating the global reach of the Health 2.0 concept, from NY and Boston to Mumbai, Madrid, London, Tokyo and other points abroad. Technology is making the health world flatter and smarter…and sometimes, increasing problematic fragmentation, which is a theme that kept pinching me through the first day’s discussions and demonstrations. Joe Flowers, health futurist, offered a cogent, crisp forecast in the morning, noting that health care is changing, undergoing fundamental economic changes that change everything about it. These are driving us to what may

 

What Jerry the Bear means for Health 2.0

A teddy bear in the arms of a child with diabetes can change health care. At least, Jerry the Bear can. Yesterday kicked off the sixth autumn mega-version of the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Co-founded by Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya, a long-time health analyst and physician, respectively, this meeting features new-new tools, apps and devices aimed at improving individual and population health, as well as health processes and workflows for physicians, hospitals, pharma, and other stakeholders in the health care ecosystem – even health lawyers, who met on October 7 to discuss up-to-the-minute  e-health law issues. Yesterday was

 

Target gets into the Quantified Self biz: could this be the mainstreaming of self-monitoring?

Target, the beloved retail channel for many design-minded value-conscious consumers, has opted in to mobile health through its purchase of SMARTCOACH mobile health coaching devices. SMARTCOACH is part of a growing category of wearable devices that monitor health behaviors like walking and calories consumed. What differentiates SMARTCOACH is the “coach” element, which provides real-time feedback throughout the day. Most other devices in the market simply track and record data. And it’s feedback loops that more experts say are key to sustaining health behavior change. Target will bring the device into stores for purchase in the fall. Like some other wearable

 

Employees will bear more health costs to 2017 – certainty in an uncertain future

Amidst uncertainties and wild cards about health care’s future in the U.S., there’s one certainty forecasters and marketers should incorporate into their scenarios: consumers will bear more costs and more responsibility for decision making. The 2012 Deloitte Survey of U.S. Employers finds them, mostly, planning to subsidize health benefits for workers over the next few years, while placing greater financial and clinical burdens on the insured and moving more quickly toward high-deductible health plans and consumer-directed plans. In addition, wellness, prevention and targeted population health programs will be adopted by most employers staying in the health care game, shown in

 

Said the EHR to the doctor, “you like me, you really like me!”

Over one-half of office-based physicians in the U.S. had adopted an electronic health record (EHR) in 2011. Among theese adopters, 85% were satisfied: 38% “very,” and 47% “somewhat.” Those are pretty good reviews considering so many came to EHRs based on the government’s HITECH incentive and not motivated purely out of intrinsic personal passion to adopt digital medical records systems. This update comes from the July 2012 Data Brief from the National Center for Health Statistic, Physician Adoption of Electronic Health Records Systems: United States. 2011. The report details survey findings from 5,232 office-based physicians who completed the mailed questionnaire in

 

Lab tests and knowing our numbers can inspire patient engagement

One-half of the members of Kaiser Permanente use the plans’ personal health record system, MyHealthManager. The most-used function of MyHealthManager is accessing lab results, according to KP. Now that Quest, the lab and health information company, has launched the mobile phone app, Gazelle, more health citizens will have access to lab test results. This could be a health-activating opportunity inspiring patient engagement. While Gazelle is a fully functional personal health record (PHR), it’s the connection to lab test results that’s the lightbulb moment. PHRs have been available to health consumers for over a decade. There are millions of users of

 

Converging for health care: how collaborating is breaking down silos to achieve the Triple Aim

  On Tuesday, 9 July 2012, health industry stakeholders are convening in Philadelphia for the first CONVERGE conference, seeking to ignite conversation across siloed organizations to solve seemingly intractable problems in health care, together. Why “converge?” Because suppliers, providers, payers, health plans, and consumers have been fragmented for far too long based on arcane incentives that cause the U.S. health system to be stuck in a Rube Goldbergian knot of inefficiency, ineffectiveness and fragmentation of access….not to mention cost increases leading us to devote nearly one-fifth of national GDP on health care at a cost of nearly $3 trillion…and going up.

 

Patients in emerging countries value mHealth, but sustaining mHealth behaviors is tough

Half of patients globally expect that mobile health will improve health care. These health citizens expect that mobile health will help them manage their overall health, chronic conditions, how they manage their medications and measure and share their vital health information. Welcome to the new mobile health world, a picture captured in PwC’s report, Emerging mHealth: Paths for growth, published in June 2012 and written by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Patients’ views on mHealth are bullish, and while most doctors and payors share that vision, they also expect mHealth to come into focus more slowly, recognizing the institutional, cultural and

 

The Online Couch: how the Internet and mobile are changing mental and behavioral health care

Therapy is now a click away, whether on a computer, a smartphone or a tablet. Drs. Freud, Ellis and Beck, heads-up: the Internet is the new couch of psychiatry. That is, at least for people with mild to moderate depression and those with anxiety, as I report in my latest paper for the California HealthCare Foundation, The Online Couch: Mental Health Care on the Web. Many factors are aligning that make therapy online an effective extension of face-to-face therapy for the right patients at the right time in the U.S.: An undersupply of psychologists, psychiatrists, and other therapists, especially in rural and

 

Improving health care through Big Data: a meeting of the minds at SAS

Some 500 data analytics gurus representing the health care ecosystem including hospitals, physician practices, life science companies, academia and consulting came together on the lush campus of SAS in Cary, North Carolina, this week to discuss how Big Data could solve health care’s Triple Aim, as coined by keynote speaker Dr. Donald Berwick: improve the care experience, improve health outcomes, and reduce costs. Before Dr. Berwick, appointed as President Obama’s first head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School, godfather of the theory of disruptive innovation in business, spokee about his journey

 

It’s the prices and the technology, stupid: why U.S. health costs are higher than anywhere in the world

The price of physician services, proliferation of clinical technology and the cost of obesity are the key drivers of higher health spending in the U.S., according to The Commonwealth Fund‘s latest analysis in their Issues of International Health Policy titled, Explaining High Health Care Spending in the United States: An International Comparison of Supply, Utilization, Prices, and Quality, published in May 2012. The U.S. devotes 17.4% of the national economy to health spending, amounting to about $8,000 per person. The UK devotes about 10%, Germany 11.6%, France, 11.8%, Australia 8.7%, and Japan, 8.5%. On the physician pay front, primary care

 

Wellness Ignited! Edelman panel talks about how to build a health culture in the U.S.

Dr. Andrew Weil, the iconic guru of all-things-health, was joined by a panel of health stakeholders at this morning’s Edelman salon discussing Wellness Ignited – Now and Next. Representatives from the American Heart Association, Columbia University, Walgreens, Google, Harvard Business School, and urban media mavens Quincy Jones III and Shawn Ullman, who lead Feel Rich, a health media organization, were joined by Nancy Turett, Edelman’s Chief Strategist of Health & Society, in the mix. Each participant offered a statement about what they do related to health and wellness, encapsulating a trend identified by Jennifer Pfahler, EVP of Edelman. Trend 1: Integrative

 

Job #1 in data analytics for health care: get the data, and make sure you can trust it

The ability to get the data is the #1 obstacle that will slow the adoption of data analytics in health care, according to IBM’s report, The value of analytics in healthcare: from insights to outcomes. Healthcare “high performers,” as IBM calls them, use data analytics for guiding future strategy, product research and development, and sales and marketing functions. 90% of healthcare CIOs told IBM that developing “insight and intelligence” were key focuses of their organizations over the next 3 to 5 years. Underneath this macro objective are 3 business goals that data analytics addresses in healthcare: to improve clinical effectiveness

 

Under 10% of people manage health via mobile: a reality check on remote health monitoring from HIMSS

With mobile health consumer market projections for ranging from $7 billion to $43 billion, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, a casual reader might think that a plethora of health citizens are tracking their health, weight, food intake, exercise, and other observations of daily living by smartphones and tablets. But as the chart shows, health self-trackers number around 1 in 20 U.S. adults, according to a survey conducted for HIMSS Analytics and sponsored by Qualcomm Life. HIMSS Analytics’ report, A New Prescription for Chronic Disease: remote monitoring devices, was published in conjunction with the annual HIMSS conference which highlights the latest health information technology

 

HIMSS 2012 in retrospect – from patient engagement to Big Data. Viva Las Vegas or Tumbling Dice?

The record attendance at HIMSS12, in terms of both attendees (numbering some 38,000) and exhibitors, illustrated just how hot health information technology has become in the 20 years since I first began attending this meeting — when it was only a few thousand hospital computer geeks and materials managers picking up pocket protectors and calculators from vendors. At this year’s conference, the major concerns were when Stage 2 meaningful use details would be revealed. HIMSS communications leadership in the press room thought it would be Tuesday, then Wednesday. Finally, it was Thursday the 23rd of February when Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health IT at the Department

 

Happy birthday, dear Watson: what the 1st anniversary means for health care today, and in future

IBM is celebrating the first birthday of Watson this week. I had the opportunity to brainstorm some of the short- and long-term meanings of Watson in health care this week at HIMSS 2012 in Las Vegas. When most people think of Watson, an image of the Jeopardy! game featuring the technology versus the legendary player Ken Jennings comes to mind. However, Watson has the potential to play a transformational role in health care, globally – for population health, and for the patient N=1. Watson is a supercomputer’s supercomputer: underneath the formidable hood are dozens of programs that enable Watson to

 

Trust in doctors breeds trust in health IT – context-setting for patient engagement, HIMSS 2012

While the vast majority of people find value in electronic health records (EHRs) — both those whose doctors currently use them and those patients whose personal health information still resides in paper-based systems — most remain concerned about their patient rights, privacy and security of that data.  Making IT Meaningful: How Consumers Value and Trust Health IT, a report based on a survey from the National Partnership for Women & Families (NPWF) published in February 2012, weaves the story of an American public, keen to have their PHI digitized, but deeply concerned about their rights to access and protect that

 

Connected Health: countries’ vary in their health IT connectedness, but US patients are ready, willing and welcoming EHRs

How electronically connnected and communicative are nations’ health information infrastructures? Accenture has answered that question in its report, Making the Case for Connected Health. Accenture built a “connected health maturity index,” analyzing a nation’s level of health information exchange among users along with their level of health IT adoption among specialists and primary care doctors. Adoption was defined across four HIT functions: administrative tools, electronic patient notes, electronic alerts/reminders, and computerized decision support systems. Health information exchange was defined across seven connectivity dimensions: electronic communications, e-notifications, e-referrals, e-access to clinical data about patients who see a different provider, e-prescribing, and

 

iPads and health care – health IT managers slow down physicians’ clinical adoption

Doctors are using iPads in huge numbers for personal life project management. 80% of doctors are excited about using them in clinical practice. But when it comes to clinical applications, don’t confuse physicians’ desire for mobility with their current use of iPads in everyday practice. What’s surprising is the “why” behind that phenomenon. It’s not a lack of desire; to a large extent, it’s a hospital-based system that’s not listening to physician demand for seamless mobility that fits with real-life workflow. This was the light-bulb-over-the-head finding of Gregg Malkary of Spyglass Consulting. Gregg recently complete 100 in-depth interviews with switched-on doctors to

 

The state of health IT in America: thinking about the Bipartisan Policy Center report on health IT

There are few issue areas within the Beltway of Washington, DC, that have enjoyed more support across the political aisle than health care information technology. In 2004, George Bush asserted that every American would/should have an electronic medical record by 2014. Since then, Democrats and Republicans alike have supported the broad concept of wiring the U.S. health information infrastructure. With the injection of ARRA stimulus funds earmarked in the HITECH Act to promote health providers’ adoption of electronic health records, we’re now on the road to Americans getting access to their health information electronically. It won’t be all or even

 

On the road to retail health: healthcareDIY and primary care, everywhere

At the ConvUrgent Care Symposium in Orlando, attendees from the worlds of clinics, ambulatory care, hospital beds, pharmacies, medical devices, life sciences, health information, health IT, health plans, academic medical centers and professional medical societies came together to share and learn about the morphing landscape of retail health. The topline message: primary care is everywhere, and based on the response to my keynote talk this morning, every stakeholder segment gets it. My mantra, courtesy of the U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin: don’t look at health in isolation, that is, where the doctor and hospital are. Health happens wherever the person

 

US doctors less sanguine about the benefits of health IT

To doctors working in eight countries around the globe, the biggest benefit of health IT is better access to quality data for clinical access, followed by reducing medical errors, improving coordination of care across care settings, and improving cross-organizational workflow. However, except for the issue of health IT’s potential to improve cross-organizational working processes, American doctors have lower expectations about these benefits than their peers who work in the 7 other nations polled in a global study from Accenture‘s Eight-Country Survey of Doctors Shows Agreement on Top Healthcare Information Technology Benefits, But a Generational Divide Exists. Accenture polled over 3,700 doctors working in