December 27th, 2011 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Health Policy, Opinion
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Bill Crounse, MD, Senior Director, Worldwide Health, Worldwide Public Sector Microsoft Corporation shares his insights and describes four leading trends and technologies that will transform health and health care in 2012 and beyond.
These leading technologies include: cloud computing, health gaming, telehealth services and remote monitoring/mobile health.
Telehealth, Remote Monitoring, Mobile Health
I’d like to focus on telehealth and remote monitoring/mobile health since I feel telehealth is the nucleus of patient care, and telehealth can help reduce health care costs, and improve quality health care for patients. Telehealth technology combined mobile technology such as smartphones will make monitoring patients conditions easier and more efficient, and “cheaper and more scalable.”
Patient Quality Health Care
Through the Accountable Care Organizational Model (ACO), the core concept is to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
December 11th, 2011 by Jessie Gruman, Ph.D. in Health Policy, Health Tips, Opinion
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Did you know that every nursing home resident in the U.S. must be asked every quarter whether she wants to go home, regardless of her health or mental status? And if she says yes, there is a local agency that must spring into action to make that happen.
This is the result of a 2010 Center for Medicaid/Medicare Services regulation aimed at helping keep older people in their (less expensive) homes rather than institutional settings. A New York Times article notes that the nursing home exodus, while modest to date, is building. This means the number of people with serious chronic conditions like congestive heart failure, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who draw heavily on community-based primary care services will grow.
These returnees are joining their peers and the blossoming crowd of us Baby Boomers who intend to resist living in nursing homes with as much spirit as our parents did, while the consequences of our plump and sedentary lifestyles arrange themselves into a constellation of diabetes, congestive heart failure and COPD similar to the one that plagues our elders.
Much has been written about Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
October 28th, 2011 by DavidHarlow in Opinion
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I’m back from my pilgrimage to Rochester, MN for the Third Annual Health Care Social Media Summit at the Mayo Clinic, presented by Ragan Communications. I had a great time, and want to share the experience with you. So please take a look at the archived #mayoragan tweets, my presentation on health care social media and the law, and my blog posts about the pre-conference and the summit itself posted at HealthWorks Collective. Here are some excerpts:
Mayo Ragan Social Media Summit Pre-Conference:
A recurring theme in my hallway conversations [today] was that it is impossible to transplant a successful program from one location to another without taking into account myriad local conditions (social media program, heart transplant program – same problem). As I always say to folks Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at HealthBlawg :: David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog*
October 11th, 2011 by KennyLinMD in Health Policy
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The buzzwords of cutting-edge primary care reform – the medical home, coordination of care, electronic health records – have usually been associated with large integrated health systems such as Intermountain Healthcare, Group Health, and Kaiser Permanente. If you believe the arguments that economies of scale and financial resources give such organizations built-in advantages over the traditional small group practice, you may be inclined to believe that solo practice is going the way of the dodo. Indeed, immediate past AAFP President Roland Goertz, MD, MBA penned an editorial a few months ago, “Helping Small Practices Survive Health System Change,” that, while touting some services that the Academy offers family physicians in these practices, betrayed a decidedly pessimistic outlook on their long-term future.
Not everyone agrees, however. In the September issue of the Journal of Family Practice, Jeff Susman, MD cast solo practices as vital engines of primary care innovation: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Common Sense Family Doctor*
September 19th, 2011 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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As we get closer to January 2012, the originally scheduled implementation date for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), the time has come to reexamine the showpiece of President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010.
The final rules for ACO’s are now scheduled for release on January 2012. The implementation was originally scheduled for January 2012. As the original rules are being studied and interpreted the program for ACOs implementation became more confusing. Dr. Don Berwick (CMS Director) has refused to discuss the final rules until they have been published in the Federal Register.
“The ACO program is based on the hubristic assumption that the federal government can design the best organizational structure for the delivery of care, foster its development, and control its operation for the entire country.
The federal government has big-footed health system reform. Although there is no one right way to organize care, the federal government (Dr. Don Berwick and President Obama) thinks it has found one—and exerts top-down, bureaucratic control through PPACA to implement it.”
ACOs are supposed to be organizations that improve coordinated care. If an ACO decreases the cost of care Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
