I realize it's been quite a while since I taught - or was in school myself - but I'm distressed…
Morning Headlines 6/24/13
Experts tout Blue Button as enabling information exchange between medical provider and patient
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette covers the federal government’s Blue Button initiative, calling for its expansion into the private sector and citing it as a key concept to moving forward in an EHR-enabled healthcare system.
Creative Skills For Life – Creative England Competition Fund
In England, the NHS and Creative Skills for Life announce a $154,000 contest that challenges developers to create apps that will help young people with life-threatening or debilitating medical conditions explore their creative potential.
Optometry EHR Breached in Florida, 9,000 Notified
An optometrist’s office in Gulf Breeze, FL is notifying 9,000 patients that their personal health information has been compromised after hackers break into the practice’s EHR and copy the medical records data.
Why no comments on the failure of the ACA Law to bend down the cost curve?
There is paltry little evidence that computer/EMRs have reduced cost more more than
anecdotally or improved overall care quality. It has been a windfall for computer vendors and for profit providers, and from Brills article in Time it also applies to the so call non-for-profits to a large extent.
All this talk about “big data” is another misdirection – until we have a more robust vocabulary as the metric for content we have little to no useful comparable data. Please explain to me why the AHA & AHA have blocked the implementation of even ICD-1o for more than a decade. Have they offered anything better? Are they funding any development efforts toward improved clinical vocabulary. Last time I looked the only large scope project is LOINC which is a very poorly funded and performed by those who donate there time (I did for more than a decade before retiring).
While I’m a conservative Republican I don’t get why we don’t go single payer!!!! Remember we are talking about single PAYOR not anything else. The average cost of administration for health insurance companies I am told is in the mid to high 20% range while Tricare (Military) and Medicare have about 4 1/2 % admin cost. Since when does the Government deliver anything cheaper than the private sector? I am unaware of an example outside of healthcare claims/payment. How has electronic claims submission and payment reduced cost – it has NOT!!!! Who benefits – well that would be the payors would it not? Look at the SEC filings for publically held health insurance companies – they are making a killing.