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Podcast: HIMSS CEO Steve Lieber, 2014 edition

It’s time for my annual podcast interview with HIMSS President and CEO Steve Lieber, this time from the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla., on the day before the official opening of the 2014 HIMSS Conference, rather than in his Chicago office a week or so in advance.

Lieber reiterated HIMSS’ position that the federal government should extend the attestation period for Meaningful Use Stage 2 by one year. I wasn’t there, but today at the CIO Forum, one of the preconference educational symposia, ONC Chief Medical Officer Jacob Reider, M.D., hinted that there will be an announcement on Stage 2 flexibility, possibly Thursday morning at a joint ONC-CMS town hall. That session will feature CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner and new national health IT coordinator Karen DeSalvo, M.D. I’ve never heard either of them speak, and now I’m excited to be covering that session.

We also discussed other aspects of healthcare reform, trends in health IT and expectations for HIMSS14. Of note, on Monday morning, HIMSS and two other organizations will announce a new initiative on “personal connected health.”

Near the end, I reference the podcast I did last week with Dr. Ray Dorsey about remote care for Parkinson’s patients. For easy reference, here’s the link.

This is, I believe, the seventh consecutive year I have done a podcast with Lieber at or just before the annual HIMSS conference. Another interview that has become somewhat of a tradition won’t happen this time, as Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush is not making the trip to Orlando this year.

 

Podcast details: Interview with HIMSS President and CEO Steve Lieber, Feb. 23, 2014, at HIMSS14 in Orlando, Fla. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 36.2 MB. Running time 39:35.

0:40 “It’s time to execute.”
1:40 Challenges for small hospitals and small practices
3:10 New ONC EHR certification proposal and continued questions about Meaningful Use Stage 2
5:00 Prioritizing with multiple healthcare reform initiatives underway, including proposed SGR repeal
6:30 Surviving ICD-10 transition
7:35 HIMSS’ position on MU2 timelines
9:05 Remember “macro objective” of Meaningful Use
10:00 Letter to HHS from organizations not including HIMSS calling for what he says are “very vague” changes to MU2 criteria
11:40 Things in MU2 causing providers fits
13:05 Fewer EHR vendors certified for 2014, but more HIMSS exhibitors
15:00 What this means for providers who bought products certified to 2011 standards
17:20 Progress on Meaningful Use so far
21:00 Looking toward Stage 3
22:42 What healthcare.gov struggles might mean for health IT
25:35 Other aspects of the Affordable Care Act being lost in the public debate
27:10 Political considerations related to health IT
29:40 Patient engagement and new HIMSS exhibitors
32:20 Why healthcare spending and provider shortage forecasts don’t account for efficiency gains made from technology and innovation
35:10 Demographic challenges for healthcare
35:45 Shift from hospitals to ambulatory and home care and consolidation of provider organizations

February 23, 2014 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.

Podcast: Telehealth for Parkinson’s care

Two months ago, I interviewed neurologist Ray Dorsey, M.D., co-director of the Center for Human Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Rochester, for a story I wrote based on a study he led. He had a lot of interesting things to say and, unlike so many other physicians, was aware of multiple system atrophy, the disease that killed my dad in 2012, so I decided to have him on for a podcast to describe how he is using off-the-shelf telehealth technology to expand access to care, improve patient satisfaction and reduce costs.

The study focused on Parkinson’s disease, as does a new study Dorsey is leading through http://connect.parkinson.org, but Dorsey sees this technology as promising for treating autism and Alzheimer’s disease as well.

We, of course, discussed cross-state licensure holding back wider use of remote care, a subject that is very much in the news right now. In fact, Health Data Management just published a story I wrote about, in part, the launch of the Alliance for Connected Care. This group, headed by three former senators and including CVS Caremark, Walgreens, Verizon Communications, WellPoint, Welch Allyn, Cardinal Health and telehealth companies HealthSpot, Teladoc, Doctor on Demand, MDLive and GE-Intel Care Innovations, is advocating for regulatory changes to expand remote care.


Podcast details: Interview with University of Rochester neurologist Ray Dorsey, M.D. MP3, mono, 128 kbps, 16.3 MB. Running time 17:54.

1:30         Telehealth to expand access to care for people with chronic diseases

2:00         Shocking numbers about Medicare beneficiaries with Parkinson’s who don’t have a regular neurologist

2:45         Lack of reimbursement for telehealth even though it costs substantially less than in-person visits

3:38         Incentives to provide care in “high-cost, relatively unsafe environments”

3:58         Insurers “are never going to lead the way” in terms of innovation

4:40         Previous study funded by PatientsLikeMe, the Verizon Foundation and Medtronic funded his study

5:40         Findings of that study, and advantages of remote care

6:25         Telehealth to increase access to care, improve patient satisfaction and reduce costs

6:50         New study on “virtual house calls” about to launch in collaboration with Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)

7:37         Low-cost, off-the-shelf technology

9:45         Registering for PCORI study

10:40       Cross-state licensure issues, including new Alliance for Connected Care

12:10       Parameters and goals for new Connect.Parkinson study

13:35       How technology is creating care opportunities for “anyone, anywhere”

14:10       Dealing with the newly insured and with special-needs patients

15:50       Savings from preventing falls and other dangerous conditions

16:10       Enrollment for Connect.Parkinson

16:42       About the Center for Human Experimental Therapeutics

 

February 19, 2014 I Written By

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New technology for the 90-plus set

Meet my grandmother.

She is less than two weeks away from her 93rd birthday. She lives alone, in the same apartment she and my grandfather retired to in 1984 (my grandfather died in 2001). Her closest relative is 100 miles away. Her children and her grandchildren all live more than 1,400 miles away.

Her bones are brittle from osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. She is losing her hearing. Her vision has been bad for as long as I’ve known her. She lives on the second floor of a walk-up building, with no elevator.

Last weekend, she had to be hospitalized for a fall she took when the car she was getting out of moved slightly while she was removing something from the back seat. She had had another fall in her home less than two months earlier. She is out of the hospital now, in a rehab facility, where she is supposed to stay for as long as three weeks while she gets physical therapy so she can stand and walk without pain. But what happens after that?

In the past, she has flat-out refused to move to be closer to one of her children because she doesn’t want to deal with winter weather anymore, and, as she says, “This is my home.” She has also said she does not want to go into assisted living or nursing home because she has always been stubbornly independent.

I know this story is not unique to my family. I’m sure many of you have faced similar dilemmas with elderly relatives.

My mom and my aunt have both suggested that my grandma get some sort of “panic button,” more formally known as a personal emergency response system. They were thinking of the old “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” variety, which requires the user to push the button to summon help. Of course, that does no good if the wearer is unconscious or is disoriented.

I explained, based on my coverage of health IT and wireless health technologies, that there are some new types of personal emergency response devices that are passive, i.e., they can automatically detect a fall and call for help, no matter what condition the user is in. Some more comprehensive systems monitor vital signs and movement.

Most of my family did not know about these options.

When I visited back in December, I showed my grandma videos of a few technologies. She wasn’t interested in anything that looks like a computer or a touch-screen tablet because, frankly, new technology is confusing. I mean, she doesn’t even know how to use her DVD player, and has no interest in learning. Caller ID was a big step for her.

She also did not seem too interested in wearing a vitals monitor, even something as simple as a chest strap. Her heart is fine. While she did survive cancer twice in the past 15 years (!), I am not aware of any chronic ailments other than the arthritis and osteoporosis. There is no Internet access in her home, and she does not have a cell phone. She begrudgingly said that she would be OK with wearing a sort of panic button. I have a feeling she would also agree to have a motion sensor installed in the apartment, but only if the landlord would allow it. (I’m pretty sure the landlord would, and that she was just making excuses.)

So, what would you suggest? Vendors, whatcha got?

I’m not looking for any handouts or freebies here by virtue of the fact that I have this public forum. My family would be willing to pay the regular price for your products and services. But I am going to use my soapbox to do the right thing for my grandma.

January 26, 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.

Rock Health seems to be learning

My first impression of healthcare startup incubator/accelerator Rock Health was not a favorable one. I wrote in MobiHealthNews last July that the San Francisco-based organization founded by some hotshot, young Harvard MBAs demonstrated “yet another example of Silicon Valley arrogance.” I said that Rock Health was mostly targeting the young end of the market with cool, fitness-oriented apps, not the elderly and chronically ill who account for the bulk of the nation’s $2.5 trillion annual healthcare spend. That group wants things that are easy to use rather than fun and hip.

Needless to say, I was not invited to Rock Health’s Christmas party. I did share a quick “hello” nod with Managing Director Halle Tecco when I saw her in a meeting room at the mHealth Summit last month, though.

Even then, I wondered if Rock Health had changed its attitude at all, seeing that even the executives were outfitted in company t-shirts in the buttoned-down world of (just outside) Washington, D.C. (I once had a Capitol Hill press pass early in my career. The rules require members of the media to conform to the same dress code as members of Congress. That means a coat and tie for men, while women have to have jackets if they choose to wear slacks. An unwritten rule of D.C. in general calls for women to wear stockings if they go with a skirt, even if it’s 95 degrees and humid, which it frequently is in the summer.)

Today, though, I saw a clear sign that Rock Health is starting to learn from its earlier mistakes. MobiHealthNews reported on the incubator’s class of 2012, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of the 15 companies are aimed at either healthcare providers—an important constituency largely missing from the first Rock Health class—and on treatment of truly sick patients. One startup, for example, helps people being treated for breast cancer prepare for doctor visits, while another produces an EHR for home-health agencies. Good stuff in my critical eyes, though really, enough with the social networking to get people to exercise. There are too many of these platforms and apps already.

I never thought I would say this, at least not before the end of 2011, but kudos to Rock Health for making a real effort to figure out the complex healthcare industry and to add some substance to what heretofore had been all style.

December 20, 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.