If you want to see the future of health care, the can’t miss conference of the year is the Health Innovation Summit hosted by Rock Health in San Francisco. As a practicing primary care doctor, I had the opportunity to view health care through the lenses of a technology entrepreneur. I thought the conference was even better than the one I attended last year. Absent was the provocative rhetoric by 2012 keynote speaker Vinod Khosla who noted that “technology will replace 80 percent of doctors”. What continued to remain was the curiosity, confidence, enthusiasm, and optimism that health care and medical care could be even better and the willingness of entrepreneurs to fix a problem and build a business around it. Themes I found particularly interesting included the following: Make health care smarter by creating platforms, whether software or hardware, like wearables, to collect patient data and to analyze data, […] Read More »
Category Archives: Other
Future of Health Care Crystal Ball Via Rock Health – Inspiring Stories. Much Potential. More Questions.
Posted on August 27, 2013
Why Health Care Reform Won’t Happen Without Physician Leadership
Posted on August 1, 2013
This past week has been filled with great articles that show the stunning gap between what we know and what we need to do in health care to make it more affordable, accessible, and higher quality. In a recent piece by NPR, research shows that when it comes to treatment of low back pain, doctors are prescribing more powerful pain medications (narcotics) and ordering more imaging tests like MRI and CT scans when there is no evidence these are better than anti-inflammatories, time, and rest. Reasons for gap? Solutions to make the care provided for low back pain more evidence and scientifically based, we first needed guidelines. In the past, we didn’t have guidelines. Now we have had guidelines for quite sometime. However, we also know it takes 17 years for an idea to spread to be commonly practiced and become the norm. So to help make change happen more […] Read More »
Getting the Best Hospital Care – Beyond the Hype Over Hospital Rankings
Posted on July 28, 2013
The New York Times recently published an article titled, “The Hype Over Hospital Rankings”. It is that time of year when hospitals tout their US News and World report rankings and crank out their marketing programs. Perhaps this is even important with health care reform, decreasing reimbursement, and a push towards a more consumer driven market. Hospitals are jockeying for position. “Nearly every hospital has a banner out front saying they’re a ‘top hospital’ for something in some rating system,” said Dr. Nicholas Osborne, a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Michigan. “Those ratings have become more important for hospital marketing than for actually helping patients find the best care.”” So, how do you find the best care? Especially in health care when there is information asymmetry? Here is an excerpt from my book – The Thrifty Patient – Vital Insider Tips For Saving Money and Staying […] Read More »
The Truth about Medical Tests. Do I really need an MRI? Do I really need blood work? Book Excerpt
Posted on July 22, 2013
Book Excerpt from The Thrifty Patient – Vital Insider Tips for Saving Money and Staying Healthy. The Truth about Tests. Do I really need an MRI? Do I really need blood work? This often? Should I avoid talking to my doctor and jump right to tests? Americans love technology, whether it’s carrying the latest iPhone or buying the newest flat-screen TV with 3D technology. Naturally, our fascination with technology has spilled over into medical care, where everyone, including doctors in training, seems focused on what the x-ray, CT scan, MRI, or blood work showed. Sadly, this trend is seriously misguided. More testing does not lead to better care. More testing does not lead to more accurate diagnoses. Research has shown that Americans receive too many tests and procedures compared to other countries. If anything, more testing seems to be associated with worsening health. The leading cause of radiation exposure is […] Read More »
Is HealthTap Good for Doctors?
Posted on July 16, 2013
Is HealthTap good for doctors? I had a chance to hear Ron Gutnam, CEO and founder of HealthTap, at the 2013 Stanford Innovation Health Summit. He describes it best (comments begin at 3:00). “Patients or people can get health answers from physicians in minutes for free using their mobile devices, using their web browser from any time and any where. We started with pediatricians and obstetricians serving pregnant women and moms. Less than two years we have expanded our physician network to over 37,000 US licensed physicians in good standing, 128 specialties in all 50 states. We have physicians in over 3100 cities across the country. You can go to HealthTap, ask any question you want and get an answer for free in minutes or a few hours. There is a shift in how people want to get their health information today, from whom, and how fast they expect to […] Read More »
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