Social Media and Medical Practice III

      Websites               Samples & How to’s        Mobile Apps Many social media sites provide developer instructions for building APIs which can be integrated into business or personal web sites. FACEBOOK DEVELOPERS allow you to build your own social and personalized web. Companies are proliferating, all offering a complete API interface piggy-backed onto a business web presenc e. Some of the offerings include:  GNIP. SHAREAHOLIC, SNAPLOGIC, JIVE, OPUS, PRACTICE FUSION Owning your Name, a Practice’s Facebook Page. Like domain names facebook titles are valuable commodities. Think about having your unique...

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Social Media and Medical Practice II

Part II ……..Adoption of new software follows a process similar to adoption of most new technologies, a slow gradual awareness of a new way to do things, discovery by larger and larger groups of users accelerating exponentially during a rapid growth phase, with a gradual flattening of the growth curve as the product matures. Social media has  filled a space in our private lives, with rare adoption in the business world.  In most businesses Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many other social domains are restricted or blocked by corporate firewalls,  private, or public.  Internal business communication is usually accomplished via telephone, video conferencing, email and/or instant messaging.  Marketing for business relied...

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Social Media and Medical Practice

   The image above depicts a device that ‘tweets’ when the fetus kicks .When a father makes a gadget for his unborn son, that’s true dedication. Corey Menscher designed and built the Kickbee for his pregnant wife. The baby kicks her stomach, a piezo sensor reads it and another module twitters the response for all to see (might this be a mechanism for cardiac monitoring at home, with instantaneous notification to the physician ?  Twitter has an wireless API for smartphones as well. If you have any children under the age of 35 you must be aware of the influence of social media in their daily lives.  Young women no longer chatter endlessly on their phones, and have developed larger calluses on their thumbs.  I even...

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EMR in the Cloud

img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('769d0199-24ef-4480-b402-2c0068039427'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVPoxESA2Yo9IrEp07cnyDZnHQTUnnYX9x8_46_WJW52-8KNKvvMU8XRPvZYzoNPTvV6m8uknsY0hjb4OjbZOfaOK-5K5W3tqR298FKA48SjvIXzqfT93AXHC253r0FEXcPIagZMdQaSA/?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none">Simple ?? Two years ago the term cloud applied mostly to the weather. EMR vendors focused on selling hardware attempted to slow down the cloud as it approached HIT.  Now the first thing practices will ask is how much is the hardware going to cost?  Well, cloud computing only requires ‘thin clients”.  It seems attractive, however...

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$3 Million Health Care Analytics Challenge

  In today’s physician’s world one has to keep one foot in the medical journals and another in the world of technology. Information technology not only serves us in storing and distributing patient information, it also serves us in analytics. I would tell any fledgling college student or medical student to develop a strong knowledge base in computer science, statistics, and bio-informatics. It is essential to be able to read journals and critically appraise medical articles. It is also important in analyzing one’s own clinical records for outcomes, treatment paradigms, and examining Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). del.icio.us Tags: emr,bioinformatics,medical students,health care challenge,EBM...

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Blue Buttons for Medicare and VA

  What do the VA system and Medicare have in common besides federal funding? BLUE  BUTTONS !!https://www.mymedicare.gov/...

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Consumer Savy Websites

    Did you ever think there would be a ‘Kelly Blue Book” for health services and your fees?  Well buckle up Flash Gordon, and Dale Arden, strap on your ray gun and read further: Such websites have certain limitations, Many cost-comparison tools for health plans can be found online, beginning with a simple Google search that might draw thousands of results. Website officials also acknowledge that the nature of medicine makes it difficult to provide consumers a price guarantee, particularly because patients' requirements for treatment can vary based on their: Age; Current medical status; and Family and personal medical histories. Try these on for size PriceDoc; MyMedicalCosts; and HealthcareBlueBook. del.icio.us Tags:...

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Community Health Data Initiatives

img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('881c7320-20d9-43f0-8104-2026452a6311'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbofNy75pa8Bo2Gp9cialUI0MCBym0ibvEO_Om_4bt25r3Qdyn4pMtPrg-hCeEC0LLZrHhtzkXPP35IMCqb0F9GVSKLOBgZ9LK5hoo7ZpOycKgquTvHqs9H6cqwMxEBEitvTPYJ_XqNxk/?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none"> Opening by HHS leaders0:01 – Dr Harvey Fineberg, President of IOM0:08 – HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius0:19 – Bill Core, Deputy Secy of HHS on origins of the program and how innovators built the first set of apps using this data in just 12 weeks. Demos of apps using this data0:27 – Introduction0:31 -Palantir (Alex Fishman) – “AnalyzeThe.US”...

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Self-Congratulatory Seminars

  So, Why are these people Smiling? 1. They just voted to give themselves a raise. 2. They learned how to pass legislation without reading the bill 3. All doctors will be replaced by computers. 4. 1&3 5. None of the above. 6. All of the Above.  ...

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President Obama to Eric

img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('2419e8a9-1d84-4b67-ae0d-5f5c77248ef8'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjclYlTXWSMKhUGC9CdQ-8j_o0uLJzsSVwtGROw7AItLjKCTp_0AusaWqK0n3iSfuYcAby1pLOeMNX2t4n6Ym1CzRD99gK6m4vMmsjUoj0sGHHiYrwE92ZDe0f7gP-HKpbpVcX3u5qopp0/?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none"> No arguments here.   del.icio.us Tags: obama,medical school,critical illness...

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PERSPECTIVE The ACO Model — A Three-Year Financial Loss?

  The NEJM” reports on ACO in their “Health Policy and Reform” Report. The accountable care organization (ACO) model is rather controversial among health care experts. Its proponents tout the potential savings and coordinated care that could be achieved through this model.1 Others, however, point out that the model is not without risks, such as the potential for anticompetitive effects as providers leverage it to concentrate market power.2,3 Because of the need to stem the spiraling costs of the Medicare program and the need to shift the health care system from volume-based to value-based rewards, the ACO has been put forward as a possible model for restructuring traditional Medicare coverage.4 In particular, Section 3022 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires the...

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What Can Anyone Say or Do?

  Neither physicians, nor patients (not consumers) really have much control over  health care, despite what all the MBAs, Pundits, Consumer Advocacy Committees and Wanabees running all over the country going to seminars, meetings, Health 2.0 and the like. Physicians are always pictured as rich, fat and living off their unfortunate patients who are misled by the government and payors in the name of money. These organizations attribute their own feelings and attitudes upon doctors about the expense of caring for sick patients. They project their own attitudes on physicians. During my early career years (about 20 or more  years ago) I made a very nice living, if I say so myself I saw  many patients for free. I would do...

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A.C.O. More on

  Ken Cohn, wrote to me today about ACOs. Ken Cohn describes multiple issues and complete ambiguity regarding how to form or implement an ACO. Here is what he  wrote to me. “Dear Gary, I participated in a panel discussion of physicians' roles in Accountable Care Organizations two weeks ago.  The blog post that summarized the discussion resulted in a firestorm of comments.  When you would like to learn more about ways that you can engage physicians to improve healthcare collaboration, please read on. Doug Hastings, a lawyer and Chairman of Epstein, Becker, Green, empathized with the difficulties that healthcare leaders face, planning for an uncertain future in the absence of specific regulations regarding Accountable Care...

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M.U. or A.C.O. Pick Your Poison

  HIMSS 2011 has just adjourned, and the reviews are filled with prognosis and predictions. by Neil Versel (Xerox)   M.U. The healthcare world is waiting nervously for HHS to release its proposed ACO regulations. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was on hand for a keynote address Wednesday morning, but gave no hint of when the regs might come. Instead, Sebelius and departing national health IT coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal mostly stuck to their general stump speeches, perhaps not wanting to stir up political controversy in this time of divided government. In some ways, Blumenthal’s presence at HIMSS was notable for something he didn’t show up for. Deputy National Coordinator Dr. Farzad Mostashari, likely to be the interim...

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Preventive Measures, Exercise, and Fluids….never too early

  img alt="" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('948efc97-2999-4bc1-a5bf-ad7879e4c96b'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "";" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwB4Zd5MnKV1YnshwxGdQqGl6_2PJN8trNDEyDfV8pFsuPheyAGld_zAtK8FAyoUrich4N8zaWazmiJl3DKrFZPeq2VeZnTHx764R0L44EBrLmQ_rpXIYaWH431SRTYftGN8b_sPSP-A/?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none">Go Daddy, Go del.icio.us Tags: health,wellness,prevention,exercise,evian,roller babies...

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More Butterfly Effect

  The Laws of Unintended Consequences, or Whose Money is it Anyway? There are provisions in the health care bill which paradoxically, and perhaps predictably increase the cost of Rxes and add additional burdens to the doctor.  Patients are demanding doctors' orders for over-the-counter products because of a provision in the health-care overhaul that slipped past nearly everyone's radar. It says people who want a tax break to buy such items with what's known as flexible-spending accounts need to get a prescription first.   The result is that Americans are visiting their doctors before making a trip to the drugstore, hoping their physician will help them out by writing the prescription. The new requirements create not only an...

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Dr Berwick’s Numbers are Almost In

   And he and President Obama are not going to like it. Unlike his calculations for decreased costs with better outcomes the number of senate Republicans and Democrats has increased to not hold a confirmation hearing. Apparently  congress does not wish to embarrass President Obama, nor does President Obama wish to face down nor delay a new Head of CMS, and there are suitable alternatives. Berwick was appointed as an interim and temporary head of CMS in the rush  to reform. (haste does make waste) It also points out the crucial lack of time given to Congress,, and their outright negligence in analyzing the bill set forth by Obama and the Democratic controlled congress. In a report from Katherine Hobson of the Wall Street...

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