MassDevice's blog
Employers who promote individual health will have the greatest success at lowering employees' health care expenditures.
By Merrill Goozner
Check out this study from the Healthcare Performance Management Institute, a business-backed think tank that promotes self-insurance among employers. The survey claims that insurance companies are refusing to provide employers with detailed data about employee claims, citing privacy concerns. The result is that employers do not have the data that would allow them to better control their own costs by promoting employee health.
In the new healthcare environment, it will also be necessary for medical device companies to communicate to its customers that they can help them achieve the broader goals associated with Accountable Care Organizations.
By John Smith
The term "accountable care" grew out of studies at Dartmouth Medical School which tracked the variation of quality and cost of care across the United States. Their findings showed that cost and quality were not always in alignment and that regions that spent a lot of money on healthcare did not always reap the benefit of high quality. Hence accountable care became a fitting and useful lens through which to view healthcare delivery across the country.
Psychoanalysis of a nation through Twitter; Elsevier's Procedures Consult app provides videos and illustrations via smartphones; Fujitsu tests electronic paper-based waiting room guide; Study: MD's smartphone adoption exploding, but mobile systems lack standardization.
Psychoanalysis of a nation through Twitter: A team from Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School is analyzing words used in tweets by Americans in an attempt to gauge the public mood around the country. They discovered that Twitter users on the West Coast seem to be quite a bit jollier than those on the East Coast. It is not clear whether the data was collected during the summer or winter months and accordingly adjusted, for that surely would affect the readings.
Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer for Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, summarizes the quality measures included in the meaningful use rules for electronic medical records.
By John D. Halamka, MD
To help all stakeholders who want to better understand the latest healthcare IT regulations:
Paraplegics walk again with an exoskeleton, while U.S. Army researches similar tech for the battlefield; an artificial arm that you control with your mind; PositiveID develops breath glucose meter technology; Cambridge Consultants and XenBio Fluidics bring diagnostic testing to the bedside.
Paraplegics walk again with exoskeleton while US Army researches similar technology for the battlefield: Rex Bionics launched Rex, a robotic exoskeleton consisting of a pair of robotic legs that enables wheelchair users to stand up and walk. The device can be used by anyone who can self-transfer and operate hand controls, with most users to-date having sustained spinal cord injury. Operators control movement using a joystick and a control pad. Currently, users need to be between 1.46m and 1.95m long, weigh less than 100kg and have a width of less than 380mm.
A robust communications program can enhance a medical device company's positioning with its hospital customers as they prepare to become Accountable Care Organizations.
By John Smith
Accountable Care Organizations will be part of the new healthcare reform. They hope to encourage a healthcare system that pays doctors and hospitals to keep you well, not just treat you when you're sick. They also would give doctors a financial incentive to limit unnecessary tests and prod patients to exercise more and eat better. And, included in healthcare reform, "gains sharing" will now be allowed from hospitals to physicians from savings due to operating efficiencies, quality improvement, reduced re-admissions, lower infection rates, etc. It will be a system where hospitals would benefit from keeping you OUT of the hospital.
Nursing Schools.net names the 15 most revolutionary iPhone apps; InteractiveMD launches a telehealth platform in the Bay State; SunTech's 247 Diagnostic Station wirelessly transmits data to EMRs; and an app for downloading and viewing neurological images during emergencies.
Nursing Schools.net names the 15 most revolutionary iPhone apps: The nursing school resource and networking site Nursing Schools.net made a list of what it believes are the 15 most forward-thinking iPhone apps for doctors and nurses.
