Weekender 4/5/19

Weekly News Recap

• PatientsLikeMe seeks a a buyer after the federal government’s foreign investment review committee demands that its majority investor, a China-base firm, divest its holdings
• Amazon announces the availability of six new HIPAA-compliant Alexa healthcare skills
• GAO officials tell the House Veterans Affairs Committee that the VA’s poor track record of CIO leadership has harmed its IT modernization projects and will continue to do so
• FDA names Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy, MD, PhD to the additional role of CIO
• Walgreens says it will accelerate digitalization of the company, make executive team changes, cut costs, and redesign stores following poor quarterly results that sent shares down sharply
• A two-doctor ENT practice in Michigan closes for good and its partners retire after they refuse to pay a hacker $6,500 to restore their ransomware-encrypted systems

Best Reader Comments

AI is about six different things, with different methods and different targets. The fact that it gets rolled up into an undifferentiated mass screams that these are merely magic words meant to attract… well, suckers. Second, I would agree that resources could be spent better on other fronts. You mention lifestyle and similar social determinant factors. This reminds me that serious thinkers wonder whether diverting the last trillion or so marginal dollars from health care to education might actually improve public health outcomes more effectively. (Randy Bak)

Regarding the inability of financial incentives to change patient health behaviors, are the folks designing these studies basing them on any established health behavior change theories? If not, then there are good reasons that these interventions fail. (Mark Hochhauser)

Going to be really interesting when an AI says that we need to address behavioral health issues in a good portion of the population, only for us to realize that 1) there’s a huge shortage of workers; and 2) the reimbursement is not there to operationally break even. (NotTheDataYoureLookingFor)

Transfer of patient information results in decreased use of the healthcare system. Why? Because having those records available results in earlier intervention and in fewer repeated diagnostic tests. Decreased utilization of the healthcare system is important to the survival of only two parties I can think of: (1) the patient (obvious benefit), and (2) the payor (cuts costs). Therefore, we should be looking at the patients to pay, or the payors to pay [for data exchange]. No one else seems to have a dog in this fight. I realize it sounds quite callous to put it this way, but I feel it is realistic. There are indeed providers who act for the greater good and act in support of transfer of patient records. However, hoping that all providers will support timely transfer of patient info – without some inducement to do so – may be misguided. (Clustered)

The patient does not own the data. The data are about them and they have a right to see and distribute. Can they modify their record? Do they pay a record storage fee to the HC org to hold their data? If not, it’s not owned by the patient. (Data owner)

Initially or always for a percentage of tests, it might be a better idea to only give the AI verdict after the radiologist has given their opinion. You don’t want the radiologist to start being lazy/biased and lose their diagnostics chops either. (AC)

Watercooler Talk Tidbits

Readers funded the DonorsChoose teacher grant request of Ms. Z in Texas, who asked for STEM activities for her pre-K class. She reports, “They were so excited to see their new center materials. I enjoyed watching their creativity come to life and coming up with new things they could make. One of the lessons we did was using the 3 Little Pigs story and how they could come up with a house that was strong. They started coming up with so many different ways to use the materials and build houses. They were even coming up with things we adults didn’t even think of! I can’t tell you how happy and eager they were to go to their new STEM center and build their own creations! From the bottom of our hearts. we appreciate you giving these children the opportunity to expand their little growing minds!”

Conspiracy-obsessed Internetters are spreading rumors that rapper Nipsey Hussle was killed because he was working on a documentary about an alternative health guru who died in 2016 after claiming he could cure AIDS. The rumored conspirators behind both deaths are the always-collegial drug companies, medical societies, and regulatory agencies. Leading the charge with a list of 90 doctors who were mysteriously killed (by people such as their spouses or by auto accidents) is a “health nut” with no stated educational credentials whose website is full of anti-GMO conspiracy theories; vaccine theories; a recipe for a garlic soup that can cure flu and norovirus and a flatbread that “fights cancer with every bite;” and an online store that sells CBD skin serum and some seriously wacky products (all carefully disclaimed in the footnotes as not being a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment). Her husband, a DO, runs a similar site, which she promotes in videos in which she languishes on a bed with little evidence of clothing.

An Arkansas man who is being treated at a hospital for bruises caused by bullets striking his bullet-proof vest tells staff and police officers that he and a friend were involved in a gunfight while protecting a mysterious man called “The Asset” who had hired them as bodyguards. His wife then arrived and set the record straight – the men were drinking on the back porch and dared each other to be shot while wearing a bullet-proof vest. The first man admitted that he was annoyed at being shot, so he emptied five .22 rounds into the second man’s back. Both are fine other than being charged with aggravated assault.

US Navy corpsmen are working at trauma units in Chicago, Cleveland, and Jacksonville to gain experience with gunshot wounds, burns, and hypothermia that are likely to occur in traditional warfare but that are seen less in the military’s terrorism-related activities in countries like Afghanistan. 

Johnston-Willis Hospital (VA) arranges for a dying mother to see her daughter graduate from high school in her hospital room, with the school principal delivering a brief commencement address followed by a  vocal performance by the college music fraternity of the graduate’s brother. The mother died the next day.

A baby who was born in drug withdrawal and who endured a five-month hospital stay without having a single visitor is adopted by the hospital’s nursing director.

In Case You Missed It

• News 4/5/19
• EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 4/4/19
• Readers Write: Systems Integration with SMART on FHIR ─ We’ve Come So Far, Yet …
• Readers Write: File-Sharing And HIPAA – How You Can Keep Health Data Secure in an Era of Collaboration
• News 4/3/19
• HIStalk Interviews G. Cameron Deemer, President, DrFirst
• Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 4/1/19
• Monday Morning Update 4/1/19

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