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A new HIT comic, and perhaps a Google fail?

Healthcare Technology Online reports this week that there is a new comic strip online called Hacking N’ Healthcare. “Hacking N’ Healthcare is a comic strip that takes a humorous look at the challenges often associated with implementing health information technology,” the magazine says. Here’s what appears to be the first edition, taking a swing at user experience design, but also, perhaps inadvertently, mocking personal health records and gamification in healthcare. (The timing is interesting. In a MobiHealthNews column that should be published Friday, I take the most measured, hopeful look at PHRs that I have since about 2007.)

Hacking ‘N Healthcare (from Health Technology Online)

 

I can’t determine if Healthcare Technology Online or Pathfinder Software is the source of this comic, or if it’s going to be a regular feature in either place. I Googled “Hacking ‘N Healthcare” and found nothing relevant. And speaking of fails, there is no word in the English language spelled “sceptor.” It’s “scepter” in American English and “sceptre” in the Queen’s English. Did I mention I’m available for all your editing needs?

 

August 8, 2013 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

CNN highlights health apps, clinical intelligence

CNN hasn’t exactly shined of late with its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath, but the embattled news network got my attention by airing a segment on cutting-edge health IT over the weekend. (Actually, credit goes to Scott Anzel, CEO and co-founder of MDconnectME, one of the three companies featured in the short video.)

MDconnectME makes an app intended to keep people up to date with short, secure messages when their loved ones are in surgery. I actually wrote about Philadelphia-based MDconnectME for MobiHealthNews last fall, after clinicians at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York found that the app worked well for keeping frazzled family members up to date on patients transferred there when other Manhattan hospitals closed in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Also included in this report are Flatiron Health, a clinical intelligence platform for cancer care that’s backed by Google Ventures and LabCorp., and Mango Health, an app supported by Rock Health to encourage medication compliance through a rewards program.

Watch the video here:

You also can see

April 22, 2013 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Urgent news from Health 2.0

SAN FRANCISCO — The Health 2.0 Conference stopped in its tracks late Monday with this stunning news: fictional EHR vendor Extormity has agreed to acquire every one of the hot, buzzworthy, break-the-mold, think-outside-the-box, too-cool-for-school (and smarter than you because they live in Silicon Valley, went to MIT and/or once knew a guy who worked at Google) app developers showcasing their “solutions”* and explaining why a killer UX in a 99-cent app is the key to all that ails the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry.

From the horse’s mouth:

Extormity announces plans to acquire every application developer at Health 2.0

The Health 2.0 conference currently under way in San Francisco features hundreds of developers, health IT firms and device companies demonstrating innovative applications designed to improve clinical outcomes, reduce medical costs and revolutionize healthcare delivery.

“It would take a dedicated team of talented professionals months to sift through all these disruptive innovators to determine who has the next killer app capable of interrupting the significant revenues we realize from maintaining the status quo,” said Extormity CEO Brantley Whittington from his yacht moored in the San Francisco Bay. “It’s more expedient for us to simply acquire every start-up, playing the role of angel investor sent to answer the capital formation prayers of each young entrepreneur wearing premium denim and a sport coat.”

“Acquired organizations become part of our strategic portfolio and are assigned to our innovations business unit, the division where new ideas fester,” added Whittington. “Developers from digested companies are housed in a bullpen where they engage in a never-ending code-a-thon that breeds fierce competition, resentment and angst – as you might imagine, turnover is epidemic.”

“Meanwhile, the principals who come on board join the Extormity think tank where they are paid handsomely as they wait for their options to vest.”

Extormity personnel will be stationed in each breakout session room with agreements and checks.

 

About Extormity

Extormity is an electronic health records mega-corporation dedicated to offering highly proprietary, difficult to customize and prohibitively expensive healthcare IT solutions. Our flagship product, the Extormity EMR Software Suite, was recently voted “Most Complex” by readers of a leading healthcare industry publication. Learn more at www.extormity.com

 

Enjoy your new-found wealth!

* Marketingspeak for “vaporware.”

October 9, 2012 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.

Health 2.0 by Twitter

Here’s my version of Short Attention Span Theater (which is pretty much what Twitter is anyway), of the recently concluded Health 2.0 Fall Conference, as I reported via Twitter. Note the juxtaposition between observation, commentary and snark.

Preconference sessions on Sunday: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118085752008622080″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118087344766193664″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118087651160109056″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118179141274189825″]

Monday plenary sessions: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118362364071518208″] This got someone from HealthTap to misinterpret what I had said: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/HealthTap/status/118365108513673216″] To which I replied: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118365613512073216″] (For the record, @CHCF is not the correct handle for the California HealthCare Foundation. It’s @CHCFnews.)

I also had an important question for HealthTap, one that so far has gone unanswered. [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118363924281303040″]

I retweeted/commented on many others’ tweets, too. [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118366901800935424″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/pjmachado/status/118366688705122304″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/pjmachado/status/118384207276949504″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/ekivemark/status/118389410910846977″]

I found quite a bit of news and lack of news being announced on stage. [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118383509172793344″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118384168316059649″]

And don’t take kindly to vagueness about the word “solution.” [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118390936257560576″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118391125554892800″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/grapealope/status/118391490748743680″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118393697674067968″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/grapealope/status/118394480213766144″] (I get the sense @grapealope is among the many Silicon Valley cheerleaders who came not to a conference but a pep rally. I bet the Kool-Aid tasted great.)

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118402107702394880″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/rdesain/status/118486784484192256″]

Then came the lamest presentation of them all, in a plenary session no less, a demo of an overly cutesy “life game” called Mindbloom. The presentation was accompanied by distracting sound effects of birds chirping the entire time, and the game itself featured a guide character called the “enlightening bug.” My impression? [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118492715196497920″]

Others weren’t so harsh, but at least had questions about the purpose and appeal. [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/pjmachado/status/118492523277729793″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118492973959888896″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/pjmachado/status/118493232614215680″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118493422821715968″]

I later asked fellow realist John Moore of Chilmark Research this question: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118498456888279040″]

At least I wasn’t the only one worn out by having to separate the wheat from the chaff. [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/familyhealthguy/status/118479710656278529″]

I did tone down my rhetoric a bit on Tuesday, though. [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118569075063529472″]

OK, maybe only a bit, especially after Microsoft’s Mike Raymer said, “It was good to have two companies create a marketplace,” in reference to Microsoft’s HealthVault and the soon-to-be-departed Google Health. [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118799888640258048″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118800555463290880″]

I highlighted what I saw as good points: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/2healthguru/status/118706082238562305″] [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118706473646817281″]

And I asked a question that I’d love to hear an answer to: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nversel/status/118801288849920002″]

I would be less likely to tune out certain sessions if there were more related to healthcare and less to personal fitness and wellness. Of course, others have different viewpoints, which is why it might make more sense to separate the two into different conferences or at least different tracks.

September 30, 2011 I Written By

I'm a freelance healthcare journalist, specializing in health IT, mobile health, healthcare quality fast $5000 loans-cash.net with bad credit, hospital/physician practice management and healthcare finance.