Fight Health Worries|Healthy Living Techniques

On the University Diaries blog, Prof Margaret Soltan picked up on an article on the privileges now given to university leaders, using the example of the President of the University of Washington (which includes a medical school, academic medical center, etc). At a time when the university budget was being cut, President Mark Emmert refused to take a voluntary cut in his greater than $900,000 total annual compensation. This included a $12,000 car allowance and free use of the university mansion.

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I would take this as a warning from a former insider, you think?  At any rate we all know Wendell Potter from his testimonies in front of Congress on how the algorithms and the health insurance business works.  We have a President too who has first hand experience too with his mother and her issues on her death bed worrying about insurance coverage and bills.  It appears theres much more bargaining time at the table to occur before we have the ultimate plan and laws created and hopefully some algorithmic centric laws while we are at it.  BD 

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America is debating an important issue these days…whether healthcare is a right or a privilege. There are valid concerns and issues on both sides of the debate. However, I have grown tired of some of the myths perpetuated by big business and the insurance industry.

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Last year, we posted about the guilty plea by the US arm of the Canadian firm Biovail to charges that it paid physicians kickbacks to prescribe a long-acting version of the drug diltiazam. This week, the plea was formalized, per Reuters,
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Ok when we talk about saving some money on healthcare and technology being a solution, wake up folks, this is it.  This is one area that is somewhat technology stupid if you will. The fact that $8000.00 is paid for a device with normal internet surfing and other services disabled is nuts!  We are sure spending a lot of money to make sure the handicapped individual doesnt get any other use other than just communication from the computer, right!  Insurers say they are so progressive in this area with technology, well heres one instance where somebody is asleep behind the wheel, or I should say asleep behind the PC.

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On Health Care Renewal, we have often shown how the governance of health care organizations may be unaccountable, unrepresentative of relevant constituencies, opaque, and not subject to ethical standards. Conversely, we have repeated the need to make the governance of health care organizations accountable, representative, transparent, and ethical. Meanwhile, our US debate about health care reform seems to be driven by leaders of powerful health care organizations, while common citizens need to scream to be heard.

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Im looking through all the highlights and see some very familiar names, Dr. Halamka, who anyone in healthcare IT should recognize, Mickey Tripathi from MAeHC (press releases are published here) and Dr. William Biggs, who I know from another forum.  Additional information on the conference can be found at the website.  
I see some new business intelligence offerings listed on the website.  Personal Health Records are there that work with both Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault with the patient portal. 

Heres one of Dr. Biggss video from You Tube showing patients how to use the Patient Portal.  He also has a page of 10 videos also on using various areas of the eClinicalWorks system on his YouTube page.  I remember back when he started the project with Camtasia software and nice to see Dr. Biggs featured at the meeting!   Anyway, he does a great job in giving you an idea of the various workflow screens and processes in the program. 
Im sure there will be some additional announcements as the press release stated there would be additional information forthcoming from the meeting, which is also the companys 10 year anniversary.  BD
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The answer is “yes.”

The advancement of medical technology continues to address this serious, and potentially life-threatening, problem for the elderly and I wanted to share some new technology with our readers.

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Here is a fascinating, spot-on exchange regarding biomedical information science between Bill Moyers on PBS and the new President of Dartmouth College Dr. Jim Yong Kim (link). My comments in [red italics]:

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From what I have been seeing lately, it certainly has that appearance to me.  Yes, the president is driving this matter home and sticking to his guns, as we HAVE TO AFFORD healthcare reform, but how we get there is the big heated debate.  Yesterday I watched some of the videos on the internet with demonstrations and angry made people and after listening to some, Im not totally convinced they really know exactly what they are mad about.  I see the President as being a target for the anger when in fact hes not alone and we have a Congress that is fueling this fire with the very public shows we all now see on the internet.  Years ago we didnt have this, but today we do, so its not a matter of someone talking to another person and telling them about what was said or done, we get it in real time, all over the place, so this constitutes for some anger too for those not used to having so much media available and what to do with it all. 

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