Peeps – sorry for the radio silence. Will make it up to you with this: http://ht.ly/4EMV8

Hew (hyū) v.

 
1. To make or shape with or as if with an ax
2. To cut down with an ax

 

“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.” – Michaelangelo

An unfinished Michealangelo sculpture.

I just re-read this quote – I think it is a powerful metaphor for any innovator that is out there trying to change the world.They are the ones that can see the fully defined, fully articulated, and fully functional end product within the building blocks that others pass off as mere landscape material. I think this gift of vision – this ability to “see” what others cannot – and the doggedness to stick to the mindless chipping away until others can see it enough to give you the tools you need to finish it off.

We are privileged to be working on a HUGE project right now with a highly innovative company that sees the value of what we are doing and wants to be a part of changing health care. It has been fun to work with them to begin the process of “hewing” away and to literally see the game changing product we have always seen begin to take shape from the dust, the chipped stone, the dirty hands, and the bleeding fingers. The process of discovery and refinement is almost as fun as seeing how the end product will move people.

I am on an email list of Bill DeMarco’s, a reputable industry insider who has written and consulted extensively in the physician group and medical management space. He recently sent me a note about several physician aggregation events in New Jersey.

For some reason it struck a nerve with me . . . which led me to fire off the response below:

Bill,

I thought we already saw this movie?

My question for you . . . besides banding together in some megagroup – what are these physicians doing to actual change the delivery of medicine? ACO is just the latest buzzword excuse to aggregate physicians under a new moniker and a supposed new model.

I am highly suspect that these physicians are doing anything to change the relationship with their patients, to use enabling technology to create team based care, or actually be accountable for the outcomes they produce. What systems are they using to tie themselves together? What financial alignment do they have? What measures are they using to demonstrate superior outcomes? What about the patient experience – 7 minute visits that push pills as the “treatment” won’t get it done in the future.

I think your closing statement, “Representatives from Summit and Optimus were unavailable for comment” says it all.

Am I seeing this the wrong way? Is there anything new about this model this time around? Am I getting old enough to see these things cycle through?

PS – and no, I don’t mean a wolf. The sheep get nervous and band together waiting to get pounced on by wolves.

I don’t even think there is anything to say about this picture:

This is why our health care system as current constructed is a massive #FAIL. Obamacare does NOTHING to change this.

Relevant (rĕl’ə-vənt)

1. Having to do with the matter at hand; to the point

I read with amusement Susanna Fox’s redux review about the relevance of Health 2.0 in general and in changing patient’s behavior specifically.  Here questions reveals her bias in a very limited definition of Health 2.0 that I attempted to abolish originally in some of my bantering with Matthew Holt. I always saw Health 2.0 as a “movement” that would not be defined so much by its technology but rather enabled by it. As an “enabler”, the technology can help people do new things in new ways but I never believed technology in and of itself  had the power to truly change health, health behaviors, or health care delivery in and of itself.

That is why my definition of health 2.0 was always more expansive and contemplated an entire “movement” to the next generation health care “system”. This new system must include new delivery models, new financing mechanism, and the new tools and technology that bring all of this together in a simple, efficient, and affordable way.  Clearly this next generation of care would include technology, the new tools, but until we had a new delivery system that is financed in a new way we are going to continue to have the same behaviors across the patient, physician, provider, and payor continuum.

So Susanna, I don’t think your version of Health 2.0 (Tools and Technology) do much to get us to the behavior change you seek. In fact, getting to the root of behavior change requires almost a religious experience. Interestingly enough, the health care industry provides plenty of “religious” experiences including passing close to death, unbelievably poor customer experiences that invoke deep passions (ie, the birth of ePatient Dave), and promise of a far better world than we currently enjoy. So while the tools and technology show us what is possible, health care delivery and health finance are the catechismal doctrines we must reform first that actually incent the behavioral change we all seek.

So is Health 2.0 Relevant?  I think it depends on your definition!

Extirpating (ĕk’stər-pāt’) v.

1. To pull up by the roots.
2. To destroy totally; exterminate.
3. To remove by surgery.

I recently took a great road trip with my two boys. We rented one of the new Kia Soul’s which my boys recognized from a very funny commercial developed to highlight its hipster (hamster?) vibe. The commercial reminded me of the old Hamburger A or Hamburger B commercials from Wendys back in the late 80′s wherein this ludicrous contrast is set up to demarcate the dichotomy between two distinct choices.

This modern reinvention of that age old contrast struck me because it is something that I deal with everyday in explaining Crossover Health to people. It all stems from a pervasive misconception about the term “Health Insurance”

The challenge is that “Health Insurance” is a confused term which most people equate with both Health Care (care delivery) and Health Finance (how you pay for it). Our current employer based system (wherein your employer provides and in most cases pays for your insurance) as well as a third party insurance payment system (we have the insurance pay for us) creates all kinds of weird incentives but also results in no accountability in terms of cost, quality, or outcome. It is currently imploding before our eyes.

Our reaction, both opportunistic as well as obligatory, is to do something totally different by blowing up the current Health Insurance model and separating out Health Care from how you pay for it (Health Financing). We say that there is a better way to do BOTH – pay your physician directly for the care you need and then get smart about how you pay for it with the right insurance product. In fact, you should “self insure” with the highest deductible plan you can find and then take responsibility for your health for all the small stuff or hire someone to do that for you (like Crossover Personal Health Advisory Service). There is no reason to intermediate with a parasitic organizations that are taking your premium dollars and wasting it on overhead, fancy offices, mindless phone trees, and my all time favorite “this is not a bill” disinformation pamphlets.

As people begin to take this in (they always get how the practice model is a radically improvement), they immediately revert back to the combined “Health Insurance” concept.  Does Crossover Health want to replace my current “Health Insurance”? The answer is slightly nuanced, but a resounding YES!  I want to replace what you call “Health Insurance” with a direct “Health Care” product (Crossover Health) and a smarter Health Finance product (highest deductible you can get).

We believe there are large and significant opportunities to roll this into a single product that can be purchased by employers, families, and other organizations seeking fresh alternatives that can demonstrate not only trend bending improvements but trend busting outcomes.

It seems like everyone I talk to or interact with in the Health IT world is in full on HIMSS 12 preparation mode. I only attended my first HIMSS 2 years ago in Atlanta. So, I’m mostly a newbie at HIMSS. I sometimes long for the days when I just went to HIMSS with little real planning. I just went and enjoyed myself.

As you can imagine, HIMSS is a perfect place for me and my business. I’ve often told people that the core of my business is great content and advertisers. Turns out that every booth and every person at HIMSS is possibly both. For me, it’s like being a kid in a candy store. So, many exciting things to try (and you might even say you get sick after “eating” too many as the flavors all run together). To be quite honest, I love the entire experience. I was meant for the system overload that happens at HIMSS. I love large crowds of people and being overstimulated. I guess that’s why I love living in Las Vegas (which is also convenient for this year’s HIMSS).

HIMSS Attendee and Exhibitor Count
Enough about me. What can we expect at this fantastic affair called HIMSS 2012? Last year there were 30,000 attendees and I wouldn’t be surprised if this year it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 people attending HIMSS. During an #HITsm twitter chat about HIMSS, I said that there would be at least 1000 vendors exhibiting at HIMSS. If I remember right (I can’t find the tweet), one of the HIMSS staff corrected me and said there would be 1100 companies exhibiting at HIMSS this year.

What does all this mean? Well, as my mother always told me: You can’t do everything. I’d always look at her shaking my head saying, “You’re right….but I’m sure going to try.” I think this describes my approach to HIMSS as well. Although, each year I am getting more selective on what I spend my time doing.

Press at HIMSS
I’m sure that many reading this are wondering how they can get some coverage on the Healthcare Scene blog network at HIMSS. Considering the 40 or so emails from PR people that I have filed away already, I’m going to have to apply a pretty strict filter.

What then are my filters?

First, if you’re an EHR company, then I’m probably interested in connecting with you in some form. Although, if you’re an EHR company that’s just seen me and has nothing new to say, then I’ll probably pass at this HIMSS. To be honest, I could probably fill my entire schedule with just EHR companies considering how many EHR companies there are out there. Plus, I think I’m going to bring around my flip video and do an EHR series called “5 Questions with EHR Companies.” I’ll see how many EHR companies I can get to answer the same 5 questions.

However, an entire week of just EHR talk would be a little rough. Plus, I asked on Twitter if I should look at things outside of EHR and they all said I should. I’m a man for the people, so I must listen. How then could another healthcare IT company get me interested in meeting with them at HIMSS?

The best way to get me interested in talking with your company is to provide something that will be interesting, unique and insightful to my readers. Remember that my main goals are great content and advertising. If you provide me with great content that my readers will love, then I’ll love you and likely write about that content.

I didn’t realize this when I started blogging, but I’m not like a lot of journalists. I don’t go to any conference with stories in mind. I’m not digging around HIMSS to try and find an ACO story for example. Instead, every person that I talk to I’m trying to discover what stories are being told at HIMSS that are worth telling. I’m always happy when people help me find interesting stories.

Social Media at HIMSS 12
Speaking of finding stories. One of the most interesting ways I use to find stories and connect with people is through social media and in particular Twitter (see this post I did on EMR and HIPAA about Twitter). I guarantee you that Twitter usage at HIMSS 12 is going to be off the charts. There is going to literally be no way to keep up. I love the idea that Cari McLean had of the HIMSS Social Media Center summarizing the most important tweets during HIMSS. Granted, that’s an almost impossible task to ask anyone to do.

Of course, the HIMSS related hashtags will be another great way to filter through the various HIMSS related tweets that are happening. Here are some of the ones I’m sure I’ll be using:
#HIMSS12 — official hashtag for the event
#HSMC — HIMSS Social Media Center
#HITX0 — HIT X.0: Beyond the Edge specialty program
#LFTF12 — Leading from the Future specialty program
#eCollab12 — eCollaborative Forum
Here’s a bunch more HIMSS related social media hashtags you might want to consider:

HIMSS Social Media Center
If you love social media like I do, then you’re also going to love the HIMSS Social Media Center. They’re doing a number of Meet the Bloggers sessions again and I’ve been invited to participate in the Health IT Edition of Meet the Bloggers at HIMSS. I’m on the panel along with: Brian Ahier (Moderator) Health IT Evangelist, Mid-Columbia Medical Center, Jennifer Dennard, Social Marketing Director at Billian’s HealthDATA/Porter Research/HITR.com, Neil Versel, Freelance Journalist and Blogger, Carissa Caramanis O’Brien, Social Media Community and Content Director, Aetna. Should make for a pretty interesting conversation. Plus, you know I always like to mix it up a bit.

New Media Meetup at HIMSS
More details coming soon. We’ll have to work on Neil Versel’s idea of starting a Twitter storm to get Biz Stone to come to the HIMSS meetup.

Dates of HIMSS
Be sure to check the dates of HIMSS. As Neil Versel noted, it’s a little different days than it’s been in the past. I personally like these dates better than the other ones.

There you have it. I thought I’d do a short post on HIMSS and I guess I had a lot more to say. I’d love to hear if you’re going to HIMSS. If you know of any events, sessions, parties, announcements, technologies etc. that I should know about at HIMSS, let me know.

And the most exciting part of HIMSS…seeing old friends and making new friends. I can’t wait.

No related posts.

One thing that I love about this industry is its willingness to collaborate, and I’m not just talking about collaborative care. I’m talking about healthcare IT’s propensity to brainstorm new ideas as the drop of a hat. Put two HIT folks – be they physician, vendor or blogger – in a room, and 20 minutes later you’re going to have a new idea related to care delivery, product development or possible partnership on your hands. It gets even more prolific when editorially minded marketing folks like me are added to the mix.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how even blogs can foster this sort of collaboration. Last month in “Finding an EMR Job Champion,” I chatted with Rich Wicker, HIMS Director at Shore Memorial Hospital in New Jersey, about how this industry can best align recent graduates of HIT certification programs with training and jobs. Some of you may have noticed several comments left on that post by Sean McPhillips, a man of many hats. He is currently an adjunct instructor at Cincinnati State – a community college in the HITECH College Consortia; project manager at the Kentucky Regional Extension Center; and creator of the HITECHWorkforce.com, a free resource to help students enter the HIT work environment.

In his comments, he advocates for a mentor-protégé program: “Students still need some more help finding jobs. What I think needs to happen is a “Mentor/Protégé” model. That is, pairing students with industry professionals who can mentor them into the industry. I’ve passively done that…to success. I think that will work.” He later followed up with the news that he hopes to work with HIMSS, which is developing a similar program, to get this model off the ground.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with McPhillips a bit more about his idea. I was eager to find out just how he plans to jumpstart it:

It seems as if you’ve been kicking this idea around for a while. How did it come about?
Being with the extension center, I’ve mentored a handful of people along the way, and I think there needs to be a more structured process so that students coming out of these [HITECH College Consortia] programs who want to be mentored have a place to go, they know how to get and stay engaged in the process. I think that there is with HIMSS, but I don’t think it’s really been tightly coupled with the workforce development program.

When I spoke with Helen Figge, Senior Director of Career Services at HIMSS, she was really excited to talk with me, and pointed me to HIMSS’ career development page to look around and see what they have out there. I’m thinking of how we can connect [what they’re already doing] into the workforce development program within the overall HITECH project structure, so that we can connect students who come out of these programs with their local HIMSS chapter, which could then pair them up with a mentor that’s in their region. That’s what’s really missing. That’s what’s really necessary to get people plugged into this profession – especially if they’re coming from outside of this profession.

HIMSS does not already have some sort of relationship with the college consortia?
They kind of do, but I don’t think it’s really tightly coupled. I think HIMSS recognizes this, so they’ve been developing their career development program. They’re near completion of a new, entry-level certification called the CSHIMS certification. That is something where you don’t need to have a whole lot of experience in health information technology, but you need to demonstrate some degree of knowledge in subject matter to obtain that certification. That might be a good way to help these students take the next step into the profession, when they’re looking to get a job. That could be part of the whole mentorship program concept.

Isn’t there a double-edged sword to it financially? Wouldn’t students have to become paying members of HIMSS, and then would they have to pay for certification? If they’re looking for jobs, finances might be tighter than usual.
That’s a great point. The question is, what are the costs associated with certification and becoming a member. There is a student membership discount. There’s a cost to certification, obviously, so these are things that are to be considered. That has not escaped me, so that’s going to be part of my brainstorming session. I’m going to meet up with them in Vegas when I go out to HIMSS.

One of the things I want to be able to do is make this attractive for people, particularly students, and if they have to lay out $500 or $1,000, and they’re already unemployed or they’re financially strapped, it becomes not just a double-edged sword, it becomes a disincentive.

I wonder if the vendors couldn’t get involved and offer scholarships.
It’s funny that you mention scholarships because that might be something the local HIMSS chapters can do. I know the Ohio HIMSS chapter used to do a $1,000 scholarship every year for students. So this might be something that the boards or the individual chapters could subsidize.

If you’re in the HITECH workforce development program, maybe HIMSS would be willing to waive membership for one year. That might be something they may be interested in doing.

This is part of the whole brainstorming session that I’m going to try to have over the next month or so. I’ll vet this through HIMSS over the next couple of weeks and hopefully we’ll come up with a good strategy by the end of February. And then we’ll start piloting it in the March timeframe.

I hope to run into McPhillips in Vegas to see how his chat with the HIMSS career development folks is coming along. It’s nice to know that one industry insider’s idea, and subsequent blog comments, might actually create job opportunity in the industry.

Related posts:

1. Finding an EMR Job Champion
2. Emdeon Gets in the Holiday Spirit with Donation of EHR Technology
3. EMR Job Seekers Get Their Big Break

I recently saw a tweet to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCLS) list of “Top 12 Legislative Issues of 2012.” It’s an interesting look into issues that state legislatures will be dealing with in 2012. Plus, it makes an interesting observation at the outset that state budgets have been cut so much in past years that lawmakers won’t have to focus all of their initial energy on budget shortfalls.

Most of the list is not surprising with managing the state budget and jobs are at the top of the list. However, there are a couple healthcare and health IT related sections in their list of top government issues as well.

One of the issues is Medicaid: Efficiencies and quality. It talks about how the tough economy is making the Medicaid budgets in states a real challenge and many are looking for cost containing actions. Plus, it points to ACO type reimbursement based on patients’ health outcomes, medical homes and streamlining services. The ACO part was quite interesting to me. I wonder how much of an effect lack of Medicaid budget will push forward a new model of healthcare.

The disturbing part of the report comes in the “Health: Reform in the states, health care exchanges, technology and benefits. Here’s the section on health IT, the EHR incentive money and HIEs.

HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGE: One focus for state legislatures in 2012 will be how to move health care providers, especially those participating in the Medicaid program, toward the adoption of certified electronic health records (EHRs). Essentially, instead of having a different health record at each doctor or provider you visit, an EHR will serve as one file that all of your doctors can see. EHRs, once fully implemented, are expected to provide doctors and health professionals with easier access to patient histories and data, resulting in cost-savings and better health outcomes by removing costly errors and duplications in services.

I love how this basically assumes that by having widespread adoption of EHR software, that we’ll then have one patient record that each doctor you visit can see instead of having a different health record at every doctor. Of course, those of us in the EHR world know that this is a far cry from the reality of EHR software today. In most cases you can’t even share a patient record with someone using the same EHR software as you let alone sharing a patient record with a doctor who is using a different EHR.

The sad part is that whoever wrote these legislative issues must have realized that there was some issue with EHR software exchanging information, because then they wrote the following about the state HIE initiatives.

In addition, states are responsible for building and implementing health information exchanges (HIEs) where those EHRs can be accessed by health care providers. HIEs function like an online file cabinet where your medical record is securely stored, and can be accessed by any doctor or health care professional you visit. By mid-year 2012, every state should have Medicaid EHR Incentive programs in place and will be working toward building an HIE by late 2014 or early 2015 as required by deadlines attached to federal cooperative agreements.

So, wait. If EHR software has created one file where any doctor can access our patient record, then why do we need “an online file cabinet” for our medical records? We know the answer is that we need the online filing cabinet because EHR software isn’t connected and there isn’t one patient record. Each doctor maintains their own patient record and that’s not going to change any time soon.

The above quote also implies that every state is working towards an HIE program per the federal program. I must admit that I haven’t gone through every state, but is every state working on an HIE? I certainly know there are a lot of states working on some sort of HIE project, but I didn’t think that every state had funding for HIE. I guess maybe the question is whether there is any state that doesn’t have some sort of HIE program in the works.

Reading issues described like this, you can understand how government passes legislation with limited understanding. Based on this resource, EHR software creates one patient record. Wouldn’t that be nice if it were the case?

Related posts:

1. How do ACOs Deal with Non-compliant Patient?
2. Watching the Leaves Fall and EMRs Install in North Carolina
3. What’s Next in Health Information Exchange (HIE)?

EMR and EHR Readers, have you already started breaking your New Year Resolutions? I know I have. My New Year resolution was a very unambitious I will exercise at least every other day, and I couldn’t hold on to that for a week. However, all is not lost. Even if you’re falling short on fulfilling your resolutions, you can still make a compelling video on some kinds of health IT related resolutions and maybe walk away with a decent cash prize. Don’t know what I’m talking about?

The Office of National Coordinator on Health IT is hosting a health IT challenge. Participants need to create a short (upto 2 mins) in length video that covers:
a) what your health resolution for 2012 is
b) how you will use IT to fulfill your resolution and
c) how you maintain your resolution using health IT tools.

Here are some examples listed on the ONCHIT website:

I will set up an online personal health record for myself (or another family member) so I can have all of my health information conveniently stored in one place.

I will ask my doctor for a copy of my own health records — electronically if available — and help him or her to identify any important information that may be missing or need to be corrected.

I will find an online community that helps me figure out the best ways to manage my health condition (depression, cancer, diabetes, etc.)

I will use an electronic pedometer to help me track my physical activity and will try to take 10,000 steps per day.

I will find an app on my smartphone to help me track my food intake so I can lose 10 pounds by my high school reunion.

I will sign up for a text reminder program on my cell phone to help me stop smoking or remind me to take my medications on time.

Please note that these are just suggestions, not listed topics. In fact ONCHIT encourages you to get creative and create your own HIT resolutions.

Of course, being as it is 2012, and well into Web 2.0fication of our lives, it’s not enough to make resolutions about improving our health. If you want to participate in the ONCHIT challenege, you’ll have to find ways to incorporate health IT into your resolution. I’ve worked pretty much my whole adult life, barring some exceptions, in the IT industry. But even so, I believe that IT can only solve some classes of problems, so I’m a bit wary when developers and programmers bring their hey-I-can-create-an-app-for-that attitudes whenever they’re confronted with any problems. That said, I do think some aspects of health IT can be useful. And I’m excited to see what creative things people will come up with.

No related posts.

Time for the next entry covering Shawn Riley’s list of 101 Tips to Make your EMR and EHR More Useful. I met someone at a conference who commented that they liked this series of posts. I hope you’re all enjoying the series as well. This is the second to last post in the series of EMR tips

10. Build performance dashboards, not just quality dashboards
Yes, Dashboards can work well for clinicians, but for support people as well. If you start measuring something and displaying the results of that measurement, then the measurement improves. Study after study has shown this.

9. Flexibility with physician devices is important, but you still need to standardize
I think this is a little bit of an evolving issue. However, it’s unreasonable to expect your IT staff to support every platform, every version, and every type of device out there. Tech innovation is moving way too fast and an attempt to go this route will lead to failure. Create some standards so you don’t have your IT staff spinning their wheels and cursing your name for a bad policy.

8. Do time studies
My gut reaction to this one is two fold. First, get the data. Don’t assume you know the data. Get as much data as possible and focusing on the time it takes to do things is one of the best places to get data since this is incredibly important for users. Second, don’t shy away from the truth. If your EHR software has doubled the time it takes to do something, don’t be afraid to find that out. It’s better to know that there’s a problem and try to fix it than to let the problem fester because you didn’t want to know the truth.

7. Make sure IT shadows the clinicians
I’d probably take this one step further. If your IT doesn’t want to shadow the clinician, then you might want to find other IT. There’s no way that IT can help to design the proper system for the clinicians if they don’t understand the daily processes that the clinician has to do. Clinicians need to be willing to let IT in on what they do as well. It takes two to Tango and this is certainly true when you’re talking about implementing an EHR. It’s not nearly as pretty if they aren’t dancing together.

6. Use predicative analytics
I’m definitely not an expert on predicative analytics and its application, so I’ll just give you Shawn’s summary:
Predictive analytics are old hat in most industries. However, health care hasn’t put PA in a real forefront of the clinical practice. If you want your physicians (especially in a ED / UC) to be able to prepare for trends due to environment or time, make sure to have PA built into your EMR and easily available for all providers.

If you want to see my analysis of the other 101 EMR and EHR tips, I’ll be updating this page with my 101 EMR and EHR tips analysis. So, click on that link to see the other EMR tips.

Related posts:

1. 101 Tips to Make Your EMR and EHR More Useful – EHR Tips 81-85
2. 101 Tips to Make Your EMR and EHR More Useful – EHR Tips 61-65
3. 101 Tips to Make Your EMR and EHR More Useful – EHR Tips 41-45

As most of you know, I’m attending the Digital Health Summit at CES this year. As happens at most conferences, it’s hard to blog about the happenings at the conference while attending the conference. Particularly with all the CES traffic issues (it’s a literal zoo) and the packed CES Press Room. Although, I must admit that I haven’t found too many things all that impressive. More on that later.

For today, I thought I’d give you a little picture view of what I call the Garden of Eden booth that United Health Group has at CES (click twice to see full size image):

They seriously have grass on the ground and a wood path through their booth. Plus, they have some of the only benches at CES (many really enjoyed those including myself). They’re also doing the pedometer promotion they did last year at CES and that they did at mHealth Summit, but this time you record your findings through the OptumizeMe app. I better win the iPad for all the walking I’m doing at CES. At least this time we’re not up against the exercise demo lady in the booth across from United Health Group. That was totally unfair (No, I’m not bitter).

Also, I’m surprised how few people know about SOPA. So I thought I’d do my small part to get the word out to more people. SOPA is an abomination that they’re trying to push through Congress. Here’s the tweet I sent out recently about it:

Join me & change your profile picture to protest SOPA: BlackoutSOPA.org #BlackoutSOPA #vegastech #HITsm

— John Lynn (@techguy) January 12, 2012

As you can see I’ve put the STOP SOPA badge on my Twitter icon and will be doing it on some other places, likely including the blog logo above. I’m good with legislation that actually works to stop copyright infringement, but SOPA does nothing to stop it and does a lot to really screw up the internet as we know it today. I hope others will join me in helping to stop SOPA. This weekend I’ll see if I can do a full post on why SOPA is bad if people are interested.

No related posts.

Recently I found some written instructions I had prepared several years ago to help my parents program their VCR. It took me three pages to write out the steps to record a program.  Where applicable each step included a hand drawn representation of the button the VCR (and/or the remote) to ensure clarity and understanding.

The first page explained how to bring up the menu to record a program in the future. The second provided further details and discussed potential troubleshooting strategies. The third included the final steps and introduced the steps for recording a program currently being viewed.  Even with these detailed instructions mistakes were made and recordings were missed. We will never know if the error was occurred in the programming stage or if show never actually aired.

I believe I also wrote out similar instructions for my grandmother. As she was even less inclined to adapt she opted to use her own technique. My grandmother would start recording a program hours in advance of its airing before leaving her home by putting the television on the desired channel and pressing the record button on the VCR. It may have required hours of rewinding but it worked for her. Since this time technology has evolved and we now “one touch” programming through the use of on-screen guides that list program dates and times. However, I’m pretty sure if my grandmother were alive today she would use her old system – start recording on the PVR when she went out rather than using the on-screen guide.

In 1988 Donald Norman wrote about this issue in “The Psychology of Everyday Design“. He made reference to digital watches and microwave ovens as well as VCRs as examples of devices that were difficult to operate. Yet they were supposed to be for an average person to use on a daily basis. Why were they so difficult to use? One theory suggests that the skill set required to design such devices doesn’t necessarily translate in a way that is evident to someone who does not have a similar background or training. What is apparent to one is not necessarily so to others. A lack of applying design principles (human-computer interaction) or examining how the device works in real use (e.g. usability testing) were provided as possible reasons. One resolution was to utilize technical writers, those skilled in interpreting complex electronic interfaces using plain language written material  Some things are made to be obvious or intuitive – you use the sharp edge of the knife to cut. Others have developed over time with common usage – it is universally understood that turning the knob is a necessary step in opening a door.

Human behaviour is like running water. It always finds the path of least resistance. But can we ‘afford’ this type of affordance in health care?

In a previous post I presented an analysis of the tweets from the Health Care Social Media Canada (#hcsmca) Twitter community.  By using a network analysis tool (NodeXL) I was able to determine that two Twitter identities (@infoway and @jasonboies) were participating but perhaps not in a connected way. When community members are “off to the side” it may be an indication of lurking behaviour (reading messages but not posting). However, since tweets were present from these Twitter accounts this label may not be applicable. A similar concept, labeled “legitimate peripheral participation” (described more thoroughly here) in which novices engage in a community of learners in limited fashion may be a more accurate descriptor of the phenomenon captured in the data set. In order to understand the findings from this network analysis a more thoroughly examination of the tweets containing referenced to the two outliers was required. To facilitate this process I used a tool called ITCA (Internet Community Text Analyzer) developed by Dr.Anatoliy Gruzd at Dalhousie University.

Using the Excel spreadsheet created by NodeXL from the network analysis I exported it into .cvs format, which was then imported into the ITCA tool. The dates of the tweets included Thursday November 24th, Friday November 25^th and Saturday November 26^th. There were 953 unique messages and 243 posters in this sample. The top ten posters (Image 1) is essentially in alignment with the network analysis, which was ordered by eigenvector centrality. In other words importance is, in part, reflected by the number of tweets.

Image 1: Top Ten Posters in #hcsmca Twitter community

The ‘local concepts’ (characters, words, terms and concepts) were extracted by looking for patterns frequently used in the data set. The ITCA tool revealed that there were 9812 unique terms. Image 2 shows the thirty most frequent terms and the number of times the term appear in the data set. The tag cloud formation shown in Image 2 also provides a visual representation of frequency (the larger the word the more times it appears). An individual term can be removed by clicking on the red X or explored further by clicking on its hypertext link, which reveals all instances by which has been tweeted.

Image 2: Top 30 Results of Local Concept Extractor (click to enlarge)

Using this tool I was able to search for the tweets associated with @Infoway. The results indicated that the two tweets were related to an upcoming HL7 (health level seven, a concept related to standardization in health information technology) certification. A hand search of the .cvs file indicated that one tweet on Friday November 25^th, 2011 was directly from @infoway. The other was a re-tweet of this tweet by @alexanderberler on the same day. The second tweet was also recorded because @mentions were included in the data set obtained using NodeXL. Image 3 shows the @alexanderberler RT.

Image 3: @alexanderberler Re-tweet of @infoway tweet (click to enlarge)

A search of jasonboies revealed twelve tweets. Image 4 shows the total number of times in which tweets contained this Twitter identity in this data set.

Image 4: Incidents of jasonboies

Tweets with jasonboies appear to have taken place from Friday November 25^th (four in early evening UTC) to Saturday November 26^th (eight in late evening UTC). This time frame is outside the weekly hcsmca tweet chat, which took place in the evening on Thursday November 24^th (the weekly tweet chat is held every Wednesday at 1:00 pm EST except for the last week of the month in which it is held on Thursday evenings).

Based on this preliminary analysis it would appear as though connecting with other members of the hcsmca community is a phenomenon beyond just using the hashtag in your tweet. These findings may indicate that being engaged means participating with others in the real time chat.

Perhaps more importantly this analysis demonstrates the need to examine not only the pattern of tweets as yielded using network analysis tools but also to examine the content. In addition, these findings should be interpreted with the aid of survey data and interview findings obtained directly from members of hcsmca community. For example, a survey could determine which participants are tweeting as part of their work, which may affect which time of the day they use Twitter. Interviews would provide even richer detail allowing us to understand what exactly prompts someone to both tweet and re-tweet material in the hcsmca community.

Recommended reading

Daniel, B. K. (2010). Handbook of research on methods and techniques for studying virtual communities: paradigms and phenomena. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.

Feldman, R., & Sanger, J. (2007). The text mining handbook: advanced approaches in analyzing unstructured data. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

In the ethnography, “Situated Learning” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) it was observed that learning a trade or profession such as a tailor or midwifery was best supported by engaging in this activity within the actual community in which it was taking place. In this context the learner, as an apprentice, can be exposed to others with varied skill levels within that particular job or trade from which they can learn. Initially they may engage in some limited tasks such as maintaining inventories of equipment or tools and ordering supplies. Over time and with more exposure to the task their role will evolve and increase in responsibility. For this to take place they must learn from others with more experience. Some members of this particular community may have expert status whereas others may be at more of an intermediary level. At the beginning those new to the community participate only on a peripheral level. As novices they have yet to learn the terms, concepts and practices that would allow them to engage in the profession in a meaningful way. For example, someone new to programming may subscribe to a mailing list or follow a newsgroup that discusses the computer language they want to learn. These groups are often composed of individuals with varying levels (novices, intermediaries, experts) of skill level forming what has been termed “communities of practice”. This legitimate peripheral participation or “lurking” is an acceptable and supported behaviour amongst many well established online communities. After reading the messages for a period of time novices may feel more comfortable and post questions of their own. This may lead to some form of debate amongst other participants in which new knowledge is co-created. Novices may contribute in other ways by sharing information related to issues they have already encountered. For example, the novice programmer may have been advised before participating in the message forum that using an integrated development environment (IDE) will aid their learning of how to program. Over time the community shares their experiences and members of all levels engage and learn from and with each other. This phenomena has been documented amongst mailing lists and newsgroups.

But what about the newer forms of social media such as Twitter?

Founded by social media expert and plain language writer Colleen Young (@colleen_young) the Health Care Social Media in Canada (hcsmca) Twitter-based community was designed as a means by which Canadians with an interest in social media within a health care context could exchange information. By posting tweets using the acronym, “hcsmca” those wanting to share and learn more about this topic area can follow the posts. Each week the community meets for a live tweet-up in which messages are exchanged in real time providing for a more conversational tone to the exchange. I have participated in this community almost since its inception. Over this time I have wondered about the types of connections that were being formed, what information is being shared and learned and how effective Twitter is as forms of information dissemination in this context.

To explore this further I examined the network relationships in the hcsmca community with NodeXL (http://nodexl.codeplex.com/). Using the import tool I limited the results to 100 people for this initial exploration. I requested edges (or connections) for each of these Twitter scenarios: “follows” relationship (an individual and their followers), “replies-to relationship in tweet” (a reply to an individual tweet), “mentions relationship in tweet” (a tweet that mentions a user) and a “tweet that is not a reply-to or mention” (a posted message or tweet). NodeXL calculates a variety of statistics related to network analysis. By using filters you can refine the resulting graph in form that provides meaning.

Image I provides one static representation of a many possible layouts of the results. The NodeXL tool allows for more dynamic views (e.g. colour coded relationships between users such as “follows”, “replies-to relationship in tweet” and depictions of the other metrics mentioned above). It also provides for the ability to re-position the location of each user. Image I (below) demonstrates one instance of these options.

Image I: Network analysis of #hcsmca community – November 26th, 2011

To better view the relationships I limited the out degree (people with the most connections) to seven. I then arranged the display from left to right by eigenvector centrality (a measure of importance in the network). Community leader Colleen Young, who often moderates the weekly tweet chats is positioned at the far left as she has the highest eigenvector centrality in this group. @DoctorFullerton is next, @nursefriendly and @ehealthmusings follow and so on. What may be of most interest are the two outliers positioned on the far right: @infoway and @jasonboies. They were represented in the graph because they had an out degree value greater than seven. However, I am curious as to why they had no connections to the remaining members in this particular snapshot of the #hcsmca community tweets. Does this indicate some form of lurking? How can this behaviour be explained?

In order to understand this further a content analysis of the tweets will be conducted. In the next installment I will explore the contents of these tweets using Netlytic (http://netlytic.org/), an Internet Community Text Analyzer.

Reference

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge [England] ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Recommended Reading

Hansen, D. L., Schneiderman, B., & Smith, M. A. (2010).  Analyzing social media networks with NodeXL: insights from a connected world. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

Valente, T. W. (2010).  Social networks and health: models, methods, and applications. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Thanks to @marc_smith for his assistance.

Accidents happen. Often when we are tired, overwhelmed with too much information and too much to do we make mistakes. Many of us work long hours, interacting with complex machinery and in noisy environments. Few of us, however, are required to work 36 or more hours in a row, with little or no sleep. Physicians do this on a regular basis and patient safety is at risk as a result.

Why does this happen? Many years ago I asked a senior staff physician who worked in a large metropolitan hospital this question. He told me there were three reasons: (1). A physician needs to learn how to make decisions no matter how they feel physically (2). We are short-staffed and (3). It was done to us before therefore it will also be done to those who come after us.  I’ve since heard another reason: the more hours you work the more opportunity you have to learn new things. I don’t know how effective this latter strategy is for physicians-in-training. Or whether it is used as a fear tactic. For example, someone might be told: “if you don’t treat enough cases of X you will not have enough knowledge to pass the board exam in your specialty”.

This clip (1:23 minutes) from the television show “ER” in which Dr. Elizabeth Corday explains at a weekly M&M (Morbidity and Mortality) meeting reasons why and ways in which the system could be changed.

Her concluding marks are quite poignant.  I don’t think the situation is much different now then it was when this show aired in 1998. Or when I asked a physician ten years previous to that. But I do think her point is valid. Who would want to fly in a plane in which an air traffic controller co-coordinating its take-off and landing had worked 36 hours in a row without sleep?

But I think the real question is whether you would want to fly in plane with a pilot who had worked 36 hours without sleep. However that would never happen. Pilots (and the airline industry) know that if they had people flying jets for many hours in a row they would likely make a mistake. The plane could crash and many lives would be lost. Including the pilot. Not quite the same scenario for a physician. Maybe the rules regarding work hours would change if their lives and not just those of the patient were also in danger. For this to be achieved we need more collaboration between everyone involved in providing care.

A couple of great posts from other bloggers on the peer review process, journal publishing and the open access movement:

• Peers, review your actions by Michael Taylor on September 29th, 2011

• Access to scientific publications should be a fundamental right by petermr on September 30th, 2011

I’m excited that others are sharing their thoughts on this issue. I’ve written about this before (see “Access to peer reviewed journals“ ). Petermr’s piece specifically advocates for patients (among other groups) to have access to this information and uses the Human Rights code as a foundation to make the argument. Brilliant work!

It should be noted that JMIR has adopted two unique methods for open access publishing. The fast track fee provides the option of paying a fee for a three week turnaround. I believe the money is used to compensate the reviewers for their time. There is also an Open Peer Review Articles process, which allows JMIR users to review articles who have yet to undergo peer review. Abstracts for these articles are posted at the site so please take a look if you are interested in engaging in this process.

Update: Monday October 3rd, 2011

I recently found out about a repository, arXiv that has been used for pre-publication papers in the sciences since 1991. It was started in physics and later expanded to include other fields such as computer science, mathematics and astronomy. Although the papers posted are not peer reviewed moderators do review the submissions to ensure they are relevant topic-wise. We should consider this unique model to disseminate information when considering changes to the current system.

Deb Matthews, Minister of Health and Long–Term Care Webchat Transcript: Ontario Liberal Party plan for health care

Tuesday September 20, 2011 8:00 pm

Note: This transcript is also available on Facebook. Each comment or question is followed by a time stamp indicating when it was posted. Inclusion of this transcript is for informational purposes only. No endorsement intended.

Ontario Liberal Party: Hello everyone and thank you for joining us tonight on Facebook. Tonight we’re joined by Deb Matthews, Minister of Health and Long–Term Care, to talk about the Ontario Liberal plan to keep building the healthiest province to grow up in and grow old in. 8:01

Deb Matthews: Welcome to tonight’s webchat! So glad you could all join us. Please start submitting your questions – we’ll try to get to as many as possible tonight but it probably won’t be possible to get them all. Looking forward to the conversation! 8:02

Comment From Guest:  Good evening Ms. Matthews, thank you for providing a forum to ask questions and open discussions for all Ontarians. 8:02

Comment From Philip: Can you confirm that, if re-elected, the Liberals will continue to support the First Link program and roll it out across the province? 8:03

Deb Matthews: Thanks for the First Link question. I can tell you that we enthusiastically support First Link! It’s making a real difference for people with Alzheimer’s and their families — and will continue to do so! 8:04

Comment From Jacquie Micallef:   Good Evening – The 8-week unpaid caregiver leave is a step in the right direction, however we (Alzheimer  Societies in Ontario) hear from caregivers that flexible respite is critical to their health and wellbeing. If re-elected, how will Liberals give caregivers the break from caregiving that they need? 8:05

Deb Matthews: The 8-week job guarantee for caregivers is an important part of our strategy to keep people home, where they want to be, as long as possible. i’m glad you support it, and i look forward to working with you to find other ways to support caregivers.8:06

Deb Matthews: As you know, tomorrow is World Alzheimer’s Day. I want to take this opportunity to say “thank you” to everyone committed to improving the lives of people with Alzheimer’s Disease. 8:07

Comment From Natrice Rese: Thank you for this chance to ask questions, can you elaborate more on the coming PSW Registry and how it will protect our elderly and vulnerable please, as their protection is paramount. 8:07

Comment From OntarioPSWAssoc: We would like to know what you plan on doing about the PSW issue in this province? 8:07

Comment From OntarioPSWAssoc: Minister Matthews; Societies most vulnerable are dependent upon PSWs everyday. How do you plan to standardize the PSW profession? 8:08

Deb Matthews: I’m very excited about the PSW registry, and I know PSWs are too! I’m also excited that we’re committed to 3 Million more hours of PSW homecare – three times the number of hours the NDP is committed to! 8:10

Comment From Paula Schuck: How will the McGuinty government meet the needs of the coming demographic shift. The sheer number of seniors that will be diagnosed with dementia and alzheimers as well as other health issues in the coming decades is staggering. What are we doing to meet this co 8:10

Comment From Paula Schuck: Families like ours have been sitting on a waitlist for special services at home for three years. What will be dine to clear up the wait-list?. No respite money right now for far too many struggling families. 8:11

Deb Matthews: Thanks for joining us, Paula! Embracing the demographic shift is exactly what we’re doing. There are many parts to our strategy, outlined to some degree in our Party platform, but the foundation is building community supports to allow people to stay home as long as possible, instead of moving to LTC before they need to. 8:13

Comment From Jacquie Micallef: Thank you so much for the recognition of World Alzheimer Day. This chat is very timely! 8:13

Deb Matthews: Another piece is that we’ll refocus a portion of our province’s research investments to support the prevention, treatment and possible cure of conditions such as Alzheimer’s and related dementias. 8:14

Comment From Patricia: I keep hearing about what the Conservatives will cut — and I am growing tired of this talk. Instead, I want to hear what you and the Liberals will build. 8:15

Deb Matthews: Our plan is to strengthen local decision making through the LHINs. We have seen great examples of how communities are working together to get better results for patients and better value for health care dollars. 8:16

Deb Matthews: No matter how good the bureaucrats in Toronto are, they’ll just never be able to pull communities together the way local decision-makers are. People in Thunder Bay will make better decisions about health care in  Thunder Bay than people in Toronto can! 8:17

Comment From Guest: What is the Liberal plan for Local Health Integration Networks, as compared to the Conservative plan to eliminate them, to reduce administrative health care costs and increase funds for direct care? 8:17

Comment From Patricia: LHINs? I’m not familiar with that. 8:18

Ontario Liberal Party:  “Local Health Integration Networks”: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/transformation/lhin/lhin_mn.html 8:19

Deb Matthews: Patricia, I urge you to take a look at our platform. We set out a challenge to make Ontario the healthiest  place in North America to grow up and grow old. Part of that is a goal to reduce child obesity by 20% in 5 years, and to develop an Active Aging Strategy. It’s time to focus on wellness!! 8:20

Ontario Liberal Party: The Ontario Liberal plan: http://www.ontarioliberal.ca/OurPlan/Platform.aspx 8:20

Comment From Ritika Goel: Hello Ms. Matthews. I’m representing an organization of young health providers concerned with the state of publicly-funded healthcare in Canada called Students for Medicare. We are interested in hearing how the Liberal party would put a stop to and prevent the further emergence of for-profit facilities in Ontario. 8:21

Comment From StudentsforMedicare: Hello Ms. Mathews, Our organization is interested in knowing how the Liberal party will do to prevent and curb the proliferation of private, for-profit clinics in Ontario to uphold the Canada Health Act. 8:21

Comment From Dan Raza: A few months ago, the government passed a law prohibiting extra, out-of-pocket billing as a measure to prevent creeping privatization. On behalf of physicians that want to continue to practice in a pro-medicare system, thank you! What plans to do you have to enforce it? 8:23

Deb Matthews: Protecting universal health care in Ontario is a sacred trust, as far as I’m concerned. We’ve passed The Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act, and we’re enforcing it. Last year, we collected over $600,000 for patients who had paid illegal fees. Sad to say, both the NDP and PCs voted against the CFMA 8:24

Deb Matthews: Thanks Dan, Ritika and The Students for Medicare, for standing up for universal health care! 8:25

Ontario Liberal Party:  Thank you everyone for your questions. We are trying to get to as many of them as possible before 9:00. 8:27

Comment From Guest: Tim Hudak has promised to shut down eHealth Ontario. What are your plans for eHealth Ontario? 8:28

Deb Matthews: Anyone who works in health care knows that we need to continue to transform it unless we want to move to two-tier health care, which Ontario Libs certainly don’t!! A vital part of that transformation is moving forward with eHealth. We’ve now got about half of Ontarians with EHRs – shutting down eHealth would be just dumb! 8:29

Ontario Liberal Party: “EHRs”: electronic health records 8:31

Comment From Laura O’Grady: Then why do we rely on population-based research for decision making? (i.e. one study in Windsor, for example, informs the policy around screening for the whole province because it is considered “evidence-based”) 8:32

Deb Matthews:  Sustainability of universal health care requires reliance on evidence. The Excellent Care for All Act reinforces that principle. Of course, there will always be debates about how strong that evidence is, so we need to keep investing in better research. 8:33

Deb Matthews: I urge you all to participate in the Ontario Health Study! It will give us extraordinary data!!8:33

Ontario Liberal Party: https://ontariohealthstudy.ca 8:34

Comment From Don Seymour:  Deb, can you talk about how your will improve services for persons with mental illness? 8:35

Deb Matthews:  Thanks for joining us, Don! Our Mental Health and Addictions Strategy is already being implemented. It’s a 10 year strategy, starts with kids, and backed up by a $257M commitment in our last budget. 8:36

Deb Matthews: I was very disappointed that neither the PCs nor the NDP even mention mental health in their platforms. For us, it’s a high priority. 8:37

Comment From Natrice Rese: Can you tell us more about in home dr. visits? Many elderly and infirm, special needs in our population do not get seen by professionals when they have crisis 8:39

Deb Matthews: Bringing back House Calls is part of our strategy to help people stay home longer. It’s proving to be very popular with seniors and the families that support them. It’s more than just doctors, it will include nurses, OTs and other health care professionals. Also telemedicine and on-line support! 8:41

Deb Matthews: The Libs are the only party that is facing the demographic challenge seriously. Our health care system wasn’t designed for the demographic reality of tomorrow — we need to fix that! 8:43

Comment From Nicole: What about support for Community Health Centres? They service vulnerable and marginalized populations and provide great interdisciplinary service for the community….and are often undersupported in funding. 8:44

Deb Matthews: We are thrilled to have supported the greatest expansion of CHCs ever! We’re in the middle of doubling sites from 53 to 101. Delighted with the announcement of new CHCs just a few weeks ago! Also,  increased funding for CHCs by 108% — that’s $152M! 8:45

Comment From Nicole: That’s fantastic news! 8:48

Comment From J: Will you support OHIP to fund IVF procedures?8:49

Comment From Josee L: 1 in six couples suffer with infertility. My husband and I being included in that statistic. If elected, will you support IVF funding for Ontario families struggling with infertility?8:50

Comment From J: We also suffer from infertility. 8:50

Deb Matthews:  I know how important it is that we support Ontarians as they build their families. That’s why we established the Expert Panel on Adoption and Infertility. We’re moving on their recommendation re: educating both public and providers. And we’re watching the Quebec experience very carefully and doing the research in Ontario to be better able to make the decision here. At this time, we’re not moving with OHIP funding of IVF, but we’re not closing the door, either. 8:53

Comment From Zach: What role does preventative care play in the Liberal health care plan? 8:55

Deb Matthews:  Now that we’ve come such a long way in rebuilding our health care system – cut wait times in half, got 94%  of Ontarians with primary care, and rebuilding infrastructure – it’s possible to focus on prevention. We know that 1/4 of our health care spending is spent on preventable illness. So making Ontario the healthiest place in North America is our next goal!!8:59

Comment From Laura O’Grady: The system was designed for acute care. Now we have chronic complex disease. This should be part of  focus for change. 9:00

Deb Matthews:  You are so right! People with chronic, complex needs deserve special care.That’s why we’ll provide a Health Care Coordinator to facilitate care between specialists and family doctors, hospitals, and the community to assist seniors who’ve been hospitalized within the previous 12 months. 9:02

Deb Matthews: Thank you so much for all your questions and comments! I wish we had more time to get through everything. Please make health care an issue in this election and ask your local candidates to support  better health care for all! Hope you’ll all vote Liberal so we can do this again!! 9:03

Ontario Liberal Party: Thank you for joining us Deb.

If you don’t yet, make sure you follow her on twitter: @Deb_Matthews

We hope we’ll see you on Facebook again for our next webchat. Stay tuned for details in the next coming days.

President Obama speaks to the nation about healthcare reform (AP photo)

Tonight, President Obama spoke to the nation about his plans for healthcare reform. He outlined how he plans to reform the current system and how he plans to pay for it including cutting over $100 billion worth of subsidies to insurance companies as part of Medicare.

Few key points:

• Wants to create an independent group of doctors and experts to eliminate waste in Medicare on an annual basis. (Obama gave credit to the Republicans for coming up with this plan–”Medpac“)
• 2/3rds of the costs will come from cutting waste from the current system.
• 97-98% of uninsured would be covered by his plan.
• Open to tax increases on families with a combined income of $1 million or individuals making $500k or more per year–”millionaire’s tax“
• Medicare beneficiaries would not see any decline in benefits. “Here’s the thing I want to emphasize,” he said “It is not going to reduce Medicare benefits. What it is going to do is change how the benefits are delivered, so they are more efficient.”
• The public option will match up with what is available to congress. Read Matt Miller in the NYT today on this one. Miller doesn’t believe that this is a good measure.
• Wants to free doctors to make decisions based on evidence based medicine, not fee schedules. “Doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule right now.”

He also touched upon the need to increase health IT and move way a fee for service system to a team-based approach to deliver healthcare.

Full Video:

Full Text: Obama’s Remarks on Health Care

(without question/answer session)

Following is a text of the prepared remarks by President Obama before his White House news conference on Wednesday, as released by the White House.

Good evening. Before I take your questions, I want to talk for a few minutes about the progress we’re making on health insurance reform and where it fits into our broader economic strategy.

Six months ago, I took office amid the worst recession in half a century. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month and our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

As a result of the action we took in those first weeks, we have been able to pull our economy back from the brink. We took steps to stabilize our financial institutions and our housing market. And we passed a Recovery Act that has already saved jobs and created new ones; delivered billions in tax relief to families and small businesses; and extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have been laid off.

Of course, we still have a long way to go. And the Recovery Act will continue to save and create more jobs over the next two years – just like it was designed to do. I realize this is little comfort to those Americans who are currently out of work, and I’ll be honest with you – new hiring is always one of the last things to bounce back after a recession.

And the fact is, even before this crisis hit, we had an economy that was creating a good deal of wealth for folks at the very top, but not a lot of good-paying jobs for the rest of America. It’s an economy that simply wasn’t ready to compete in the 21st century – one where we’ve been slow to invest in the clean energy technologies that have created new jobs and industries in other countries; where we’ve watched our graduation rates lag behind too much of the world; and where we spend much more on health care than any other nation but aren’t any healthier for it.

That is why I’ve said that even as we rescue this economy from a full-blown crisis, we must rebuild it stronger than before. And health insurance reform is central to that effort.

This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance. Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage if they become too sick, or lose their job, or change their job. It’s about every small business that has been forced to lay off employees or cut back on their coverage because it became too expensive. And it’s about the fact that the biggest driving force behind our federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost of Medicare and Medicaid.

So let me be clear: if we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control our deficit. If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket. If we do not act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day. These are the consequences of inaction. These are the stakes of the debate we’re having right now.

I realize that with all the charges and criticisms being thrown around in Washington, many Americans may be wondering, “What’s in this for me? How does my family stand to benefit from health insurance reform?”

Tonight I want to answer those questions. Because even though Congress is still working through a few key issues, we already have agreement on the following areas:

If you already have health insurance, the reform we’re proposing will provide you with more security and more stability. It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it. It will prevent insurance companies from dropping your coverage if you get too sick. It will give you the security of knowing that if you lose your job, move, or change your job, you will still be able to have coverage. It will limit the amount your insurance company can force you to pay for your medical costs out of your own pocket. And it will cover preventive care like check-ups and mammograms that save lives and money.

If you don’t have health insurance, or are a small business looking to cover your employees, you’ll be able to choose a quality, affordable health plan through a health insurance exchange – a marketplace that promotes choice and competition Finally, no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition.

I have also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade – and I mean it. In the past eight years, we saw the enactment of two tax cuts, primarily for the wealthiest Americans, and a Medicare prescription program, none of which were paid for. This is partly why I inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit.

That will not happen with health insurance reform. It will be paid for. Already, we have estimated that two-thirds of the cost of reform can be paid for by reallocating money that is simply being wasted in federal health care programs. This includes over one hundred billion dollars in unwarranted subsidies that go to insurance companies as part of Medicare – subsidies that do nothing to improve care for our seniors. And I’m pleased that Congress has already embraced these proposals. While they are currently working through proposals to finance the remaining costs, I continue to insist that health reform not be paid for on the backs of middle-class families.

In addition to making sure that this plan doesn’t add to the deficit in the short-term, the bill I sign must also slow the growth of health care costs in the long run. Our proposals would change incentives so that doctors and nurses are free to give patients the best care, not just the most expensive care. That’s why the nation’s largest organizations representing doctors and nurses have embraced our plan.

We also want to create an independent group of doctors and medical experts who are empowered to eliminate waste and inefficiency in Medicare on an annual basis – a proposal that could save even more money and ensure the long-term financial health of Medicare. Overall, our proposals will improve the quality of care for our seniors and save them thousands of dollars on prescription drugs, which is why the AARP has endorsed our reform efforts.

Not all of the cost savings measures I just mentioned were contained in Congress’s draft legislation, but we are now seeing broad agreement thanks to the work that was done over the last few days. So even though we still have a few issues to work out, what’s remarkable at this point is not how far we have left to go – it’s how far we have already come.

I understand how easy it is for this town to become consumed in the game of politics – to turn every issue into running tally of who’s up and who’s down. I’ve heard that one Republican strategist told his party that even though they may want to compromise, it’s better politics to “go for the kill.” Another Republican Senator said that defeating health reform is about “breaking” me.

So let me be clear: This isn’t about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every Member of Congress. This debate is about the letters I read when I sit in the Oval Office every day, and the stories I hear at town hall meetings. This is about the woman in Colorado who paid $700 a month to her insurance company only to find out that they wouldn’t pay a dime for her cancer treatment – who had to use up her retirement funds to save her own life. This is about the middle-class college graduate from Maryland whose health insurance expired when he changed jobs, and woke up from emergency surgery with $10,000 in debt. This is about every family, every business, and every taxpayer who continues to shoulder the burden of a problem that Washington has failed to solve for decades.

This debate is not a game for these Americans, and they cannot afford to wait for reform any longer. They are counting on us to get this done. They are looking to us for leadership. And we must not let them down. We will pass reform that lowers cost, promotes choice, and provides coverage that every American can count on. And we will do it this year. And with that, I’ll take your questions.

The ONC policy committee on meaningful use has published an updated matrix on the subject. It can be found here.

Someone in the GOP needs to learn how to use Microsoft Visio, or the Democrats need to come up with a better plan for improving our healthcare system.

Republicans imagination of the Democratic Healthcare plan

If you believe this nightmare chart created by Congressman Kevin Brady’s office (R-Texas 8th District), then you’ll need a PHD in obfuscation to figure out what the Democrats are planning. More likely, however, is that Brady is painting an overly bleak picture of what a government plan might look like.

Jokes aside, as this battle continues to play out, both sides are sticking to their guns; however, the Obama administration believes it has the trump card: 60 votes. Bloomberg News is reporting that “Obama Open to Partisan Vote on Health-Care Overhaul.”

We’ll follow how this plays out, and keep you apprised of any interesting happenings.

UPDATE July 22, 2009:

Corrected Visualization of the Democratic Healthcare plan (PDF)

A graphic designer, Robert Palmer, took it upon himself to “correct” the republican nightmare chart and made it significantly easier to understand. The updated chart, along with a PDF can be found on Mr. Palmer’s Flickr page. He also penned a note to Representative Boehner:

Dear Rep. Boehner,

Recently, you released a chart purportedly describing the organization of the House Democrats’ health plan. I think Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree that the problem is very complicated, no matter how you visualize it.

By releasing your chart, instead of meaningfully educating the public, you willfully obfuscated an already complicated proposal. There is no simple proposal to solve this problem. You instead chose to shout “12! 16! 37! 9! 24!” while we were trying to count something.

So, to try and do my duty both to the country and to information design (a profession and skill you have loudly shat upon), I have taken it upon myself to untangle your delightful chart. A few notes:

- I have removed the label referring to “federal website guidelines” as those are not a specific requirement of the Health and Human Services department. They are part of the U.S. Code. I should know: I have to follow them.

- I have relabeled the “Veterans Administration” to the “Department of Veterans’ Affairs.” The name change took effect in 1989.

- In the one change I made specifically for clarity, I omitted the line connecting the IRS and Health and Human Services department labeled “Individual Tax Return Information.”

In the future, please remember that you have a duty to inform the public, and not willfully confuse your constituents.

Sincerely,

Robert Palmer
Resident,
California 53rd District

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) has responded to the Office of the National Coordinator’s recently released Meaningful Use matrix [pdf]–and responded with a vengeance.

The bottom line: “CCHIT recommends that meaningful use measures be either simplified for 2011, or postponed until 2013.”

CCHIT Annotations to the ONC's Meaningful Use Matrix (PDF)

Its recommendation was formed by comparing the CCHIT 2008 criteria against the meaningful use matrix prepared by the National Coordinator’s Workgroup on Meaningful Use and finding that while many of the 22 proposed objectives are fully supported by the current certification, at least 8 have minor to major gaps with the CCHIT 08 criteria.

Why Postpone?

The commission argues that “the lag between a decision to invest in EHR technology and its full, meaningful use in a provider organization is 1 to 2 years at best, and more typically, 3 to 5 years,” and for this reason it recommends postponing the 2011 measures until 2013. It isn’t that some EHRs do not currently meet the standards drafted for 2011 (MTBC’s EMR does), it’s that CCHIT criteria does not currently cover or test for all of the proposed 2011 measures. Additionally, CCHIT does not believe that the marketplace is fully ready to support some of the reporting standards outlined in the draft.

CCHIT has prepared an annotated response to the ONC’s matrix which highlights the actual points in contention for 2011. CCHIT’s letter to the ONC further clarifies CCHIT position on the topic.

As always, we will continue to cover this story as new developments arise and as key shareholders continue to weigh in with comments and responses.

Why don’t you let us know what you think? Should the 2011 measures be postponed until 2013?

When you buy a car, the manufacturer usually offers some kind of warranty on your purchase e.g. bumper-to-bumper coverage for 50,000 miles or 5 years, whichever comes first. Or coverage for 100,000 miles for the power train and 50,000 miles bumper-to-bumper. Some are now offering oil changes for life, free car washes, dry cleaning, or the salesman will pick up your kids from soccer practice if you make a purchase now.  Ok, maybe they won’t pick up your kids, but you will please! buy now?

Francois de Brantes

Francois de Brantes, a nationally known advocate of health care quality, is hoping to bring warranties to healthcare. He and a few associates penned an article in Health Affairs describing the benefits of a new payment model for physicians which may inspire physicians to improve patient outcomes by putting their skin (and money) in the game.

The warranties which de Brantes proposes–Prometheus Payment as he’s called it–flip the current medical billing payment model on its ear. Prometheus Payment offers set fees to providers for recommended services, treatments and procedures. However, unlike the current system where all fees are covered by third-party payers, the provider now becomes a party in the payment process by assuming fiduciary responsibility for outcomes–should patients develop an avoidable outcome, providers become responsible for half the costs. The warranty is based on the costs of these avoidable outcomes and is risk adjusted for elderly or frail patients.

de Brantes and his co-authors explain that “the warranty concept has filtered into the self-pay portion of health care, such as corrective eye surgery, general cosmetic surgery, and dental care, which are often based on a global fee that includes any necessary rework by the provider. But it has taken much longer for warranties to appear in the third-party payer system.” They argue that with this global-fee model, overall costs in the healthcare can be reduced while improving outcomes for patients by making (and paying) the provider for any expenses before, during, and after the procedure.

The abstract to the Health Affairs article reads:

How health care providers get paid has implications for the delivery of care and cost control; the topic is especially important during an economic downturn with persistent growth in health spending. Adding “warranties” to care is an innovation that transfers risk to providers, because payment includes allowances for defects. How do such warranties affect patient care and bottom lines? We examine a proposed payment model to illustrate the role of warranties in health care and their potential impact on providers’ behavior and profitability. We conclude that warranties could motivate providers to improve quality and could increase their profit margins.

I find two points interesting.

1. He named it Prometheus Payment. In Greek mythology Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals–Zeus repaid him by tying him to a large rock and having an eagle eat his liver every day only to have it grow back and be eaten again the next day. Are the insurance companies Zeus? Are the payments the fire? Who is stealing from whom? Do physicians even want this kind of fire?
2. This plan was developed with the support of the Commonwealth Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a similar plan is already in practice at the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania. These are not exactly small operations.

This whole idea adds a new wrinkle to medical billing. As your billing service, we’d not only be incentivized to help you collect more money but also provide you tools to provide better patient care. Great news for you, we have a CCHIT-certified EMR which provides just the tools you need. Find out more here.

We will keep you posted if this model crops up at any payers near you.

Read more about Prometheus Payment:

• Health Affairs — Full Article: http:8//content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.28.4.w678/DC1
• New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/health/25chen.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=warranty&st=cse
• FierceHealthcare — http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/proposal-creates-care-warranty-model/2009-06-26
• Kaiser Health News — http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2009/June/26/Contracts-and-warranties.aspx

On June 16 the Workgroup on Meaningful Use presented its recommendations on the definition of Meaningful Use. They prepared a preamble describing their overall path to this definition and a matrix to organize their recommendations for each year. For those who have been under a rock for the past 6 months, “meaningful use” is the defining measure by which the incentive payments included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will be determined.

With this working definition, vendors, physicians, and hospitals can better plan for implementation and delivery of technology and services to achieve the measurable goals outlined by the Workgroup.

HITECH Act Incentives as outlined by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

Meaningful Use for Whom?

First it is important to note that “meaningful use” will have different meanings for hospitals and for groups in private practice. The preamble states “some features and capabilities will be recommended as required in an ambulatory setting before similar functions are expected to be widely used in the hospital.” This means that proving “meaningful use” will be a more rigorous exercise for private practices than it is for hospitals. However, private practices have a broader range of options and lower barriers of entry (cost, availability of technology, shorter implementation time frames, etc) when it comes to implementing technologies which can deliver “meaningful use.”

The Details

Let’s go over some of the measures which are planned for 2011 and look at some examples of each item. More details for each of the items below can be found in the matrix. John Halamka, MD of the CareGroup Health System of Harvard Medical School and the chairman of the US Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) said in Healthcare IT News that this matrix still needs to be populated with the most up to date standards and an implementation guide. These details will help vendors and physicians alike ensure that their software meets these measures. Expect this in July.

Each of the items below has associated metrics which will need to be reported to verify meaningful use; for example, one of the objectives calls for reminders to patients for preventive/follow-up care. In order to prove meaningful use, the EMR application must be able to provide a reporting of the percentage of patients over 50 with annual colorectal screening. Keep in mind that each of the items below has an associated measure (found in the matrix) which will require reporting to an authorized agency.

Items marked with a Yes! indicate that the MTBC EMR helps your practice meet or exceeds these measures.

1. Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities.
   1. Use CPOE (computerized physician order entry) for all order types including medications. Yes!
   2. Drug-drug, drug-allergy, drug-formulary checks. Yes!
   3. Maintain an update-to-date problem list. Yes!
   4. Generate and transmit electronic prescriptions. Yes!
   5. Record vital signs including height, weight, blood pressure. Yes!
   6. Generate list of patients by condition to use for quality improvement. Yes!
   7. Patient reminders for preventive/follow-up care. Yes!
2. Engage patients and families
   1. Provide patients with access to clinical information (lab results, problem list, medications, etc.). Under development! Yes! A bit more information has filtered through on this point. It has to be “electronic” access i.e CD, flash drive, etc and not necessarily web-based access. We have this functionality and we are also working on web-based access to patient information which can be pushed through the EMR. (updated 7/1)
      
   2. Provide access to patient specific educational resources. Yes!
   3. Provide patients with clinical summaries for each encounter. Yes!
3. Improve care coordination
   1. Exchange key clinical information among providers (problems, medications, allergies, test results). Yes!
   2. Perform medication reconciliation at relevant encounters. Yes!
4. Improve population and public health
   1. Submit electronic data to immunization registries. Yes!
5. Ensure adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information
   1. Compliance with HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules and state laws. Yes!
   2. Compliance with fair data sharing practices. Yes!

What Now?

Now that you know the definition of Meaningful Use what should you do now? The answer is simple: get an EMR. Ok it is not that simple, but you will be happy to know that you have plenty of options in the marketplace. Dr. Halamka writes, “Hospitals and Clinician offices now know what is expected for 2011, so the time is now to begin your software implementations.” Never before have there been so many EMRs which provide such a high level of functionality and interoperability. Today’s major differentiators are not function, but price and service.

MTBC Can Help

MTBC’s CCHIT certified EMR (free to MTBC medical billing clients) can help your practice meet the goals of 2011. Click here to find out more about MTBC’s unified medical billing and practice managagement services.

However, if “free” is not your bag, you have plenty of other options beginning at the $1,000 range and your imagination as the only limit. Vendors have become very creative in their pricing with new options emerging such as monthly subscriptions, charges for each fax sent from the EMR, hosting fees for web-based applications, fees for technical support by email, server replacement plans (a la replacement plans sold by big box stores), 50¢ per 100MB of storage, and many others.

MTBC’s EMR rivals those of its competitors because it is implemented, supported, and updated completely free of charge of its premium medical billing clients. To find out more about how MTBC’s EMR can help you meet the goals of Meaningful Use, request a demo today and, if you are not currently an MTBC billing client, find out how you can download a free trial.

Watch this space for more information regarding meaningful use and its impact on the healthcare IT.