Eye-opening views from around the web

1. Scobleizer on using technology to get what you want out of life.

2. Bob Wachter providing a very detailed excerpt on the development of Google Health.

3. GPhone, or rather Android, demos!

4. A spiritual view of finding & fulfilling need (the business case for demand).

5. How mainstream media covers medical news.

Providing patients the means to monitor their own health

An elderly coworker recently mentioned her participation in a home-based, digital, disease management (DM) program sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield. At first I was astounded that an insurer would sponsor this. While there's always been a clear business case for prevention and monitoring to avoid chronic care costs in the long-term, insurance companies haven't been exactly eager to jump on board. They might be starting to see the win-win though:

"Keeping [at-risk] patients stable and quickly getting them care when it's needed can reduce hospitalizations and cut the insurer's medical costs. And since the savings come from improving the patient's health and quality of life, programs such as Blue Cross' "Your Heart Matters" are generally popular with participants."

That's from this article detailing how the above congestive heart failure (CHF) program works remotely from patient's homes.

"Every morning, Sedaris steps on a special digital scale beside the bed in her Raleigh home and answers a series of questions. Is she swollen or short of breath? Has she taken her medicines? The scale, provided by her health insurer, ships her weight and other data to a nurse's computer at Blue Cross and Blue Shield's disease management center in Winston-Salem. Any suspicious results -- an overnight weight gain of just a pound or two is a signal that Sedaris is retaining fluid that may strain her heart -- and the nurse is on the phone. She'll talk with Sedaris and, if necessary, send her to get medical attention.

The technology to remotely monitor patients' pulse, weight, blood pressure, blood-oxygen levels, general mobility and other indicators is already widely available. The declining costs and increasing use of high-speed Internet service should only accelerate acceptance of monitoring devices."

This is incredible! For more, here's another personal example from the Healthcare Economist.

Write It Down!!

I can't be any more clear. Whether you type it up, put it in a notebook, scribble it on a napkin, writing your ideas down has many benefits. I recently discovered this as I went through a spring cleaning of sorts through my computer's old files.

One, keeping a written record allows you to look back and see how you were thinking and articulating at a specific time period in your life. Its a personal benchmark for self-evaluation. For example, a lot of people feel they wrote a lot better in high school or college. Its possible. But many people just stopped writing when they began working. You can only observe patterns if you have something to look at. Whether it be ideas, short stories, poems, free-writing diatribes, it doesn't matter. It all becomes part of a personal portfolio of your work. To determine growth, you need reference points.

Two, as you gain experience and knowledge, the ridiculous can seem all the more plausible. As the saying goes, "one person's trash is another person's treasure". In so many ways, you are a different person year to year. What may not seem feasible at the time may be of great value to you later on. You can never tell in the moment so its worth writing it down!

Bottomline: In order to chart change and growth in your thought process (even after college!), you have to have some form of a written record. Blogging is one of the most efficient, least resource-intensive ways of accomplishing this. No matter how you go about it though, I guarantee you will find the experience rewarding.

Own What You Do

To buy or rent is a decision we all come across some time in our lives, usually in terms of cars or houses. Yet if asked, "Do you own your life?", the concept is a little more elusive. Ask an entrepreneur or independent contractor this question, and you will get a straight response; yes! In fact, its the question. The one that motivated them to produce, create, start something of their own. But that's just one way of looking at it.

We all own something (immaterial, of course!), whether we're aware of it or not. Its the thing we truly feel we have the power to effect, with a response equal to our will to effect it. Whatever it may be - leisure time, work schedule, planning the company picnic or the next major funding initiative - it should be acknowledged. Its an extremely self-empowering exercise!

What you discover through this process is that its all about how you approach it. The attitude you bring to the table. How many times have I heard, "same shit, different day" or "maybe I'll win the lotto this time". These are really defeatist statements. They shape your psyche and send a negative signal to those around you.

Bottomline: When you own what you do, you can take charge of the simplest daily routine with purpose in mind. Whether that purpose is change, growth, or maintenance doesn't matter. You simply believe in it more, because you're not renting your spot. As an employee, a father, a brother a husband. Any cap you wear applies.

Not Interested

At B&N the other day, I order my usual coffee with soy milk, and as soon as I see the barista about to pour what's left of the vitasoy into my coffee, I tell her to stop. I start to go into an explanation of how the really cold foamy dregs of milk at the bottom of the carton coagulate in very hot coffee and that...this is where the barista gives me a look and says, "so you want me to open a new carton...gotcha!"

I know at first it seems like I was trying too hard, but I had good reason since this had occurred before and I wanted to avoid 1) wasting a cup of coffee, 2) wasting mine and everyone else's time in line and 3) avoid having the barista go through the customer conciliation process that could have been avoided in the first place (coagulated milk&coffee is not a pretty sight!). But the barista was not interested in the why of the solution that would avert repeating the problem in the future; she only wanted the solution itself.

Prior education makes no difference. From the bookstore coffee stand to a physician's office to board of trustees of a major corporation, the why of it has become less important. And why I hope you would ask is this so? The primary reason given seems to be lack of time; everyone's too busy to spend time figuring out the why. I contend that its just the opposite: not taking the time to figure out why makes us more busy. And busy doing things that are duplicative and useless. The stop-observe-evaluate and then do mentality is becoming rare. Technology is being treated more as an added burden rather than a tool for efficiency.

Bottomline: Think what a day without cell phones, texting, google, twitter, facebook, and RSS would be like. Then plan the day out in a way that technology actually benefits it. Don't be beholden to your resources, make use of them as you best see fit to accomplish your goals.

Produce what you Consume

"The world brought me to my knees
What have you brung you?
Did you improve on the design?
Did you do something new?"

--Lupe Fiasco, ala "Superstar"

The "you attract what you think" principle has been proving itself quite well in the last few weeks. My recent interest in America's high consumer-to-producer ratio and how the web is contributing to lower it has led me into some very enlightening conversations off-line.

The real-time nature of the web makes you shift your thinking from "What am I contributing?" to "What am I contributing NOW?" (totally Tim Ferriss). The latter used to be too resource-intensive a question for any one individual to ask until the internet came along. Take Yoani Sanchez for example. Her blog helps to make the rest of the world aware of the way the Cuban government controls its citizens. Even though it is only one person speaking out, the validity of the outcry can be judged by the response. And this entire discussion occurs on a market-governed online forum.

Whereas the ability to vote used to be the single source of contributing one's personal voice to the global agenda, now one's online persona, free of anonymity, fuels the underlying free-market democracy developing exponentially online. This is incentive enough to become a member.

Bottomline: Turn off the TV, get off your butt, and do something. You never know who you'll meet, help, or learn from.

Your Future Doctor will see you Now

I wrote a post recently on needing a medical facebook (and medical twitter) to improve communication between patients and physicians. Jay Parkinson not only does this real-time for his patients, but he also sees them in their home, face-to-face for as much time as deemed mutually necessary. I wonder if the time saved from ridding himself of inefficiencies in communication has something to do with it.

"On the doctor side, I have a facebook-like platform that allows me to see and receive client updates and communicate via email, IM, video, and SMS with my clients and colleagues. We don’t do eVisits — we simply communicate normally via a whole range of communication options to help streamline healthcare delivery."

Hello Health!

Second-hand Health Care: Why Health 2.0 is Lagging

AMA is sponsoring a seminar called "Financing electronic health record (EHR/EMR) systems: Should your practice accept a donation?".

Looks like the open market making up for gov't inefficiencies. At first it seems like a salvation army effort to donate something that still works but isn't useful to the hospitals (like donating an old phone system), but look at it long-term and you see that it only slows down the transition from paper to electronic records.

Here's why: using a sub-par, used EMR system in your practice isn't going to help your practice if the doc next door buys a state-of-the-art system. Plus, interfacing not conversion is the more important issue. The EMR has to talk to other EMRs, pharmacies, scheduling systems. Old systems don't have this capability. The main reason I'm against this is because a practice's paper process indicates how well its electronic process will be. So if you make a lot of medical errors on paper, you'll probably do the same (if not worse) on an electronic system.

Bottomline: Bush passes initiative (in 2001) to have every practice/hospital on an EMR by 2014. He doesn't provide ANY financial help whatsoever to make this happen. Hospitals try to convert on the cheap and realize they need to upgrade within the next 5 years. Having an EMR becomes the cost of doing business, like having credit card machines at a department store. Financing (the money it costs to implement) is a NON-ISSUE. Do it well the first time, don't take hand-me downs and upgrade faster than the next guy. Adopting early makes you better off in the long run.