By THCB STAFF

Scott Shreeve, MD, Senior Health Advisor at The X Prize Foundation and frequent THCB contributor, has asked the health care blogosphere to take part in this blog rally in order to raise awareness about the Healthcare X Prize Foundation competition and encourage public participation in the prize design.  Pass the word around and feel free to post this to your own blog if possible.

We are
entering an unprecedented season of change for the United States health
care system. Americans are united by their desire to fundamentally
reform our current system into one that delivers on the promise of
freedom, equity, and best outcomes for best value. In this season of
reform, we will see all kinds of ideas presented from all across the
political spectrum. Many of these ideas will be prescriptive, and don’t
harness the power of innovation to create the dramatic breakthroughs
required to create a next generation health system.

We believe there is a better way.

This
belief is founded in the idea that aligned incentives can be a powerful
way to spur innovation and seek breakthrough ideas from the most
unlikely sources. Many of the reform ideas being put forward may not
include some of the best thinking, the collective experience, and the
most meaningful ways to truly implement change. To address this issue,
the X PRIZE Foundation, along with WellPoint Inc and WellPoint Foundation as sponsor, has introduced a $10MM prize
for health care innovators to implement a new model of health. The
focus of the prize is to increase health care value by 50% in a 10,000
person community over a three year period.

Continue reading…

By Matthew Holt

I have no idea why this was at HealthcampNashville today, but here’s sword swallower Dan Meyer swallowing a huge sword with change:healthcare’s Chris Parks removing it!

More tweets from HealthcampNashville here

Web-based Tool Equips Healthcare IT Professionals with a National Benchmark on Clinical Application and IT Infrastructure Investment

CDW Healthcare, part of the public sector subsidiary of CDW Corporation and a leading provider of technology products and services to healthcare organizations, today announced the release of the IT Checkup Self-Assessment Tool, a Web-based program which enables hospital IT managers to evaluate their clinical application and IT infrastructure investment and receive an instant score indicating how their healthcare organization compares to averages from across the U.S.  The tool is based upon the results of the CDWHealthcare IT Checkup, a national survey of healthcare IT professionals, which CDW Healthcare reported in March.

Using the self-assessment tool, hospital IT managers, CIOs and senior leadership answer 19 questions about the sophistication and capacity of their clinical applications and IT infrastructure.  The questions highlight indicators of relative strength or weakness in both areas and provide results that are meant to guide discussions between IT managers and senior leadership about the importance of pursuing a balanced approach to clinical IT implementations.  No findings based upon individual usage of the Self-Assessment Tool will be made publicly available.  The CDWHealthcare IT Checkup Self-Assessment Tool is online at http://www.healthitcheckup.com.

Oxford University Press is proud to present the launch of the online version of AMA Manual of Style (launching June 2009), an essential tool for everyone involved in medical or scientific publishing.  The online version is written and updated by a committee of editors from JAMA and the Archives Journals, making researching quick and convenient. And as many in the scientific and medical communities know, being able to find information quicker via browsing and searching a website instead of flipping through a manual saves a lot of time, however users are also offered numerous other online features, including: 

• Style policy changes highlighted and explained
• Learning and training resources
• An SI conversion calculator
• Commentary from editors of JAMA and the Archives Journals
• Open URL bibliographic references

http://www.amamanualofstyle.com/home

>

The 5th Annual Games for Health Conference 2009 in Boston, Massachusetts on June 11-12 is closing in.

REGISTER NOW! at http://www.regonline.com/gfh2009

You can still register for $499.00 for the core conference and $599.00 for the conference+pre-conference events.

You can receive 15% off the normal registration rate by entering the discount code of bos09 during registration.

MAIN SCHEDULE NOW ONLINE

You can find the core schedule for the conference now online at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p9ekyWGoKP7oLryMizeugTw

Games Accessibility Day (June 10)

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p9ekyWGoKP7oJbqar0v4zAg

Pre-conference schedule for Virtual Worlds in Health Day is still  forthcoming

TOUR GAMES FOR HEALTH
Dr. Ernie Medina takes you on a 2 minute tour of Games for Health 2008
http://www.gamesforhealth.org/video.html

TRAVEL & HOTEL
Games for Health 2009 is located at the Boston Hyatt Harborside hotel.
To reserve a room please contact:

       Hyatt Harborside Hotel
       617.568.1234

A Games for Health Conference rate may still be available while supplies last

The Games for Health 2009 conference will be hosted in partnership with
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio, which has
served as the leading sponsor of the Games for Health Project since
2004. The Pioneer Portfolio supports innovative ideas that may lead to
significant breakthroughs in the future of health and health care;
having recognized the transformative potential of games, its support
has helped Games for Health to become the leading professional
community in the growing health games arena.

By JOSH SEIDMAN

I participated in a personal health record (PHR) workshop yesterday hosted by the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). CDT’s goal was to gain input from a wide array of stakeholders (an impressive collection of about 40 health care leaders with different types of expertise in PHRs) to help inform CDT’s recommendations to federal agencies — HHS and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — and try to build some degree of consensus among key stakeholders.

[NOTE: All comments at the meeting were not for attribution, but I confirmed with the organizers that there was no problem in sharing my own impressions following up from the meeting.]

There’s no doubt that current federal statutes and regulation (and there are potentially many that apply to PHRs) create considerable uncertainty regarding how to balance promotion of consumer engagement with concerns over privacy and security. Existing regulations from HIPAA, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and others coupled with the new provision from the American Recovery & Reinvesment Act (ARRA) — not to mention the complexity of layering state laws on top of that — provide a lot of work for privacy attorneys. But with all the different (potentially) applicable federal and state laws/regulation, there is very little practical guidance on what has to go into privacy policies. PHR implementers can find some guidance from FTC consent decrees, which can represent an expansion of the law.

Continue reading…

By Matthew Holt

Do you want to see me and Regina Herzlinger in conversation together?  You can sort of do that here. The Center for Connected Health (the Partners guys) had a conversation which was supposed to be three people who’d been at their previous conference talking together. But for some mysterious reason at the last second Herzlinger couldn’t make it. (I sincerely hope that it wasn't because she saw that I’d be on the call!)

So it was Joe Kvedar (from Connected Health). Jay Sanders—who is great by the way—and moi. All talking about the future of remote care. It’s a fun conversation, with Herzlinger’s comments somehow cut in at various times.

By the way, on the topic of everyone’s favorite HBS Professor, last week WellCare settled with the Feds following the raid in October 2007. Apparently the Feds figured that the fraud on Florida Medicaid was about $40m, and that a fine of $80m would be as much as the company could afford (although as far as I can tell they have over $1 billion in cash!). This week on Monday, Wellcare settled with the SEC for another $10m. By the way, Wall Street regards these settlements as good news, and the stock actually has nearly doubled from the depths of last month

Our friends over at Health Care Renewal have put themselves on the Regi shit-list by noticing that she’s still on the board of directors, and they’ll presumably be expecting a letter from her lawyer too. But Roy missed out on noticing (or didn’t report) that Regi sold more than $2m worth of stock a few months before the raid. Not getting soft in your old age are you, Roy?