November 27, 2012 Gabriel Perna
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In healthcare, there are many places where that saying applies. For instance, the journey of an engaged population begins with a single informed patient. But how do you get from the beginning to the end – or at least some semblance of engagement? NeHC has created a guide to do just that.
November 15, 2012 Gabriel Perna
More healthcare systems are beginning to mine patient data for marketing purposes. This trend could increase with the rapid adoption of EHRs and leave many providers with an ethical dilemma.
November 9, 2012 Gabriel Perna
It has been a momentous week for healthcare, to say the least. The election is over. The President is back in office for another four years, the House is still in the hands of Republicans, and the Democrats have maintained the Senate. In healthcare, a status quo election may not appear to mean much, but every expert I’ve talked to over the past three days seems to think this election will have implications for various policies going forward.
October 31, 2012 Gabriel Perna
A recent report, brought to my attention by the nice folks at The Advisory Board Company, looked at how more doctors in the U.K. are using the Medical Defence Union (MDU) because they are being stalked on social media by an infatuated patient. Reading this report and having covered social media in healthcare extensively, I can understand why some doctors are reluctant to connect with their patients on social media, even when it has nothing to do with love.
October 26, 2012 Gabriel Perna
David Chao, Ph.D., chief technology officer of The Advisory Board Company, could talk about the Washington, D.C.-based research, technology, and consulting firm’s recent Patient Engagement Blue Button Challenge for hours on end. The thing that impresses me about this initiative, and others like it, is a fostering of this attitude that “if you build it, they will come.”
October 19, 2012 Gabriel Perna
In the past, I’ve written about how many CIOs from major hospital and healthcare systems are expressing doubts about how cloud computing can be used to provide better care while saving money. While a level of pessimism is definitely there, people like Robert Kaufmann, M.D., from the Kaufmann Clinic, are making me realize the path to that $5.4 billion may be paved with smaller providers, more willing to take a leap into the cloud.
October 16, 2012 Gabriel Perna
At the Digital Health Conference this week in New York City, hosted by the New York eHealth Collaborative, David Brailer M.D., chairman of Health Evolution Partners and the former National Coordinator for Health IT, gave a rousing speech about the past and the future of the industry.
October 12, 2012 Gabriel Perna
Two university research studies are indicating that the way in which readmission rates are calculated can create a variance and might be misleading. Considering the serious penalties derived from the mandatory Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Readmissions Reduction program, are hospitals getting the shaft with the way calculations are made?
October 6, 2012 Gabriel Perna
I’ve been thinking about data breaches in healthcare a lot lately. For my feature in the October/November issue of Healthcare Informatics, I interviewed various industry thought leaders who had plenty to say on the topic. One constant theme from every interview subject was that this issue is primarily an organizational one.
September 28, 2012 Gabriel Perna
Recently, I sat in on an interesting webinar, presented by the folks at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), a non-profit looking to address varying healthcare challenges across the country through grants and research. The webinar focused on one of its many initiatives, Project HealthDesign, and it showed me the role observational daily patient data can play in improving outcomes.
