Healthcare Matters

A bright idea can change everything

Vital Signs by Phone, Then, With a Click, a Doctor’s Appointment

If ever an industry were ready for disruption, it is the American health care industry. Americans spend about $7,600 a year per person on health care, one in two adults lives with a chronic disease and the average wait time to see a doctor in a metropolitan area is 20 days. Entrepreneurs have responded by starting health care technology companies that are changing the way we interact with the entire system…

More on technology…

Power to the people! Engaging patients to be engaged

Everybody’s talking about accountable care nowadays. But providers aren’t the only ones who need to be held accountable as we push off into the uncharted waters of care coordination and payment reform. The folks on the other side of that storied and sacred doctor/patient relationship have important responsibilities too. It’s a refrain one hears over and over again, from the National Coordinator on down to smallest software start-up company: Only once a critical mass of people start thinking more about and taking more responsibility for their own wellness, can the health system transformation toward which we’re all striving really come about.

Gives new meaning to the phrase “bad to the bone”

Our DNA May Help Decide How Nice We Are

Partly, a new study suggests, but genes don’t tell the whole story. The new research adds to the evidence linking specific genes to kindness and generosity, but these traits were also influenced by views about whether the world was a threatening or non-threatening place. So although DNA may influence behavior, people do not come pre-programmed to be kind or mean or altruistic or selfish, says lead researcher Michael Poulin, PhD, of the University at Buffalo.

From Spend Matters

Ariba Breaks Up With “The Cloud,” Romances “Enterprise Networks”

It seems that for every few “persons of interest” Kim Kardashian is seen with, Ariba comes up with a new corporate umbrella from which to dangle its overall company and product positioning. Fortunately, we all know the results that good P2P provides can long outlast the run of a typical reality TV show — or the love interests of someone on it. For Ariba, not so long ago it was “Spend Management” (the Nick Lackey and Reggie Bush years for Kim). Then it became the “Commerce Cloud” (moving onto Miles Austin and a short-lived and long-paid jaunt with Kris Humphries). As of yesterday, it’s “Enterprise Networks” or “Business Commerce Networks” (Kanye?!).

From Spend Matters UK/Europe

Procurement fraud costs the UK £258 trillion annually*

Of course it doesn’t. That’s a made-up number. While it is deliberately ridiculous, it’s there to illustrate a point. And that is – it’s dangerous to present numbers as facts when they are not.