We hope everyone had a fantastic short weekend. Weather’s been hot in these parts, and we are certainly excited that the weekend is here so we can finally get to the beach to cool off. Below are just a few of the articles that captured our attention this week. Quite a few on some very American problems with the healthcare industry and disparities in the way care is delivered. Enjoy the reading.
Instant Replay — A Quarterback’s View of Care Coordination
Matthew J. Press for NEJM
“An internist gives an inside look into the what it takes to coordinate the care of one of his patients who receives a cancer diagnosis. Process flows are ad hoc, leverage only a modicum of IT but ultimately prove effective, albeit not efficient.” – John
The 125 Percent Solution: Fixing Variations In Health Care Prices
Jonathan Skinner, Elliot Fisher and James Weinstein for Health Affairs Blog
“We’re a fan of the growing interest and attention being given to bloated prices as a primary driver of high healthcare costs. So while the proposal included here, capping payment rates at 125% of the Medicare rate, seems too simple and idealistic to work in the real world, hypothetical models are a good starting point for discussion. Also worth considering: the role that Castlight Health played here and can continue to play in these efforts.” – Naveen
Medicaid 2.0: The health system haves and have nots of ACA expansion
HRI’s Closer Look – PWC
“Review of the impact on the PPACA on the rates of the uninsured and admissions rates in state that have and have not expanded health insurance coverage by PwC. No surprise in that the states that have expanded coverage have seen seen decreases in their rate of uninsured and higher inpatient admissions rates and greater number of visits to physicians by Medicaid patients.” – Matt
Two charts that show nursing is the job of the future
Matthew Yglesias for Vox
“Sooner or later in HIT, it hits you that a lot of what happens in patient care is because of some nurse making an observation, asking a question, or just dealing with the anxieties that patients and caregivers struggle with. This super short piece shows the appeal of the nursing profession.” – Brian
The Secret Committee Behind Our Soaring Healthcare Costs
Katie Jennings in Politico
“The politics of healthcare continue to have a stranglehold on true reform of the Byzantine system of health delivery in the US. Plenty of talk about pricing transparency at the facility level, but when will we see true price transparency from the beginning?” – John
The Food Gap is Widening
James Hamblin in The Atlantic
“A few weeks ago at the grocery store checkout aisle I noticed anecdotally what this story explores with new data from Harvard School of Public Health: that there is a widening chasm between the dietary habits of the rich and the poor. While there might not be a simple app fix today, longer term it points to the importance that nontraditional data on community health (SES, zipcodes, incomes, assistance programs, and even consumer behaviors) can play in total population health management.” – Naveen
Urgent Care: The health system needs to reach high performance as soon as possible. Here’s why.
Ian Morrison for Hospitals & Health Networks Daily
“Nice article by Ian Morrison that even though there has been some recent improvements in health care in the US including a moderation in price increases (at least the top-line), expanded coverage, and some quality improvements serious challenges remain namely affordability and that health care leaders need to feel a greater sense of urgency regarding this problem.” – Matt
Surgical error at Tufts prompts widespread changes
Liz Kowalczyk for The Boston Globe
“Medication safety continues to be a concern despite wide availability of CDS-based alerting. Incidents like the one described in this article show that technology and a strong commitment to patient safety do not always guarantee a good outcome. This incident focuses on ‘cognitive bias’ as a cause for a serious medications-related error.” – Brian
How Often Do Physicians Misdiagnose
Sermo Blog – Physician Poll
“Sermo, a social networking community for physicians, surveyed about 2,500 MDs and reported that approximately one in every 20 Americans receiving outpatient care are misdiagnosed annually. Clinical decision support has focused on the back-end of medicine including orders entry and medication reconciliation but there has been an increasingly focus in the past few years on clinician diagnostic error and its impact on patients.” – Matt
Thinking Outside the Office Visit at the Center for Connected Health
Aaron Krol in Clinical Informatics News
“Good read from earlier in the summer about how Partners Healthcare is reaching out to younger audiences through social media, SMS, and targeted approaches that seem to blend marketing and clinical intervention into one form of outreach. Chilmark is a fan of this ‘real world’ approach, as we believe that in order to impact behavior change outside of the clinic, HCOs will have to develop expertise in non-clinical language, messaging, and media.” – Naveen
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