Category Archives: General News and Commentary
New Yorkers Are Celebrating: “Do the Dew!”
Today was to have been the last day you could legally purchase a large, sugary soda in the big apple. Yes, today should have been that day, but alas, a New York judge intervened and added some ice. How gauche but, thank goodness. I’m reminded of a similar course correction made by Doc Holliday in the movie Tombstone. When presented with a law badge he refused to wear, the good Doctor commented, “my hypocrisy only goes so far.” But at his end, when given his last rights he acknowledged, “it appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds.” In the city that [...]
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GS1 Healthcare US Publishes New Guideline for Pharmaceutical Handling
The GS1 Healthcare U.S. Secure Supply Chain Task Force, consisting of more than 50 members from throughout the supply chain, has developed a guideline to identify and serialize pharmaceutical products using GS1 identification numbers. The guideline titled “Applying GS1 Standards to U.S. Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Business Processes to Support Serialization, Pedigree and Track & Trace” enables pharmaceutical companies to trace the movement of products through the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain. The guideline focuses primarily on best practices and methodologies for product serialization and sharing pedigree and traceability data to support implementation for pending state regulations. Implementing GS1 Standards will contribute [...]
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If Fee-For-Service is Dead –What are Reform’s Essential New Attributes?
In doing my research for this morning’s post, I became more familiar with The Commonwealth Fund and the work it is doing. Definitely some practical, down-to-earth stuff designed to help everyone get on the same page. After all, time is not standing still. The “new rules” of the game are actually being implemented. And because “getting paid” has always been a favorite topic of mine, especially when dealing with complex or evolving systems, I thought the following summary –a summary of the current “ideal” pulled together by The Commonwealth Fund– might be a useful primer. As our current system (U.S. [...]
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Re-admissions Penalties: What the Early Adopters are Saying
We’ve all heard about Medicare penalizing hospitals that have unacceptable re-admission rates for select conditions. For obvious reasons, new types of penalties tend to stick in the front of everyone’s brain. The “new deal” for hospitals that exceed the number of expected re-admissions includes a range of penalties, with a maximum penalty increase in 2013 to 2 percent for discharges starting in 2013 and to 3 percent in 2014. Based on those penalties, Medicare may accumulate savings of up to $8.2 billion over the next seven years. More than 2,200 hospitals faced some level of penalty in the first year. The penalties amounted [...]
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GPO News –Premier Cuts Significant CRM Deals
This past week, Premier struck deals with 4 major players in the cardiac device market for several cardiac rhythm management (CRM) device product groups. The suppliers include, Boston Scientific, Biotronik, Medtronic and Oscor –all have agreed to make selected CRM devices available to members of the Premier network. According to a prepared statement, the deal took effect on February 1 and will expand the variety of CRM therapies available to Premier members. In a separate deal that also took effect on Feb.1, Premier cut a new deal for various surgical supply instruments. In other GPO news, HealthTrust finalized deals with [...]
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CRE: Latest “Superbug” to Infect US Hospitals
The bacteria are called Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae and they have killed nearly 50% of the patients who have contracted bloodstream infections from them. Just yesterday, CDC officials published their most recent findings revealing evidence that although CRE is still considered rare, it is also considered an untreatable, antibiotic-resistant “superbug” that is unfortunately and clearly on the rise in U.S. hospitals. The CDC published its findings in a “Vital Signs Report” which outlines action for the healthcare community to take immediately on the individual, regional, and national basis. Early on in 2012, close to 200 hospitals and long-term care facilities treated at [...]
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Allscripts Buys dbMotion and Jardogs –An ACO Service Strategy Revealed
Yesterday, Paul Black, Allscripts’ new CEO announced two deals: Allscripts acquired privately held health solutions providers, dbMotion, Ltd. and Jardogs LLC. The dbMotion solution has some significant IP associated with it, supporting what is known as “semantic interoperability.” At the application level, it aggregates and harmonizes clinical content into a single clinical view, clarifying disparate codes and vocabularies used inside EHRs. In doing so, it forms a foundation for accountable care and population health management. The Jardogs FollowMyHealth solution enables “patient engagement,” allowing patients to actively monitor and optimize health status by participating in their own care, which is critical [...]
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NHS Gets Dinged Again in New Report –UK Health System Not Keeping Pace
In a study released just today, the UK health system is falling behind its peers in reducing early death and disease. Researchers who compared Britain’s health performance since 1990 with 14 European Union countries plus Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States said its pace of decline in premature death was “persistently and significantly” behind the average –a finding they described as “startling.” Chris Murray, who led the work at the University of Washington, said Britain’s poor performance was partly due to dramatic increases in Alzheimer’s disease and in drug and alcohol abuse problems, and to a failure to tackle [...]
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US Healthcare Performance –Compared to What?
I don’t know if you saw it, but Steven Brill’s recent, 26,000 word Time Magazine article on U.S. healthcare costs –why they’re so high relative to the rest of the world—offered very little in terms of fresh insight. Unless you still enjoy reading about the ridiculous cost of a single aspirin when you’re in the hospital –and other similar cliches– the article did nothing but reinforce popular, common knowledge. “Regrettably, his piece also amplified some important myths about the American healthcare system,” according to Chris Conover, a contributing editor to Forbes, the biggest among them being that U.S. patient outcomes [...]
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Asian Demand Drives Expansion of Global Diagnostic Cardiology Device Market
In medicine, a Holter monitor (often simply called a “Holter” or occasionally an ambulatory electrocardiography device) is a portable recording device for continuously monitoring various electrical activity of the cardiovascular system for at least 24 hours (often for two weeks at a time). The Holter’s most common use is for monitoring heart activity (electrocardiography or ECG). The Holter market in particular remains underdeveloped in China and India. However, with rising levels of cardiovascular disease in these countries, healthcare providers are shifting their focus from costly intervention to relatively inexpensive preventative care. Because of the non-invasive nature of the device—and its [...]
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University Health System Selects MedAssets
MedAssets (NASDAQ: MDAS) today announced that University Health System (UHS), the third largest public health system in Texas, has agreed to a longer-term, multi-year, comprehensive agreement. It’s a reward for a job well-done because to date, MedAssets has already cut $13 million in supply expenses and accelerated an additional $14 million in cash flow, based on its revenue cycle management solutions. “Anticipating the negative financial impact of healthcare reform, University Health System was looking for a single, comprehensive source for a cost-effective suite of data and technology-enabled services to quickly improve our health system’s clinical, operational and financial capabilities,” said [...]
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Texting Your Doctor? There’s An App For That
Last year Dr. Michael Nusbaum introduced a mobile application in an effort to make scheduling a medical appointment as easy as sending a Facebook message to a friend, and as safe as sharing your medical information in person at the doctor’s office. The New Jersey-based surgeon said he designed MedXCom ”to bring doctor-patient communication to the twenty-first century” by sharing medical records, prescriptions and treatments on smartphones. The app is one of hundreds that promote health and health care, but it’s one of the first designed to meet the patient privacy standards set by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. With [...]
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ViiV Healthcare, Medicines Patent Pool — Big Pharma Can’t Buy Better Public Relations
GlaxoSmithKline’s HIV/AIDS drugs business is demonstrating some nice character. Their words and actions support a design to share intellectual property rights on children’s medicine in a patent pool designed to make treatments more widely available in poor countries. ViiV Healthcare, majority-owned by GSK, is the second research-based pharmaceutical business to sign up to the new Medicines Patent Pool, following a lead set in 2011 by Gilead Sciences. The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), launched in 2010 by the UNITAID health financing system that is funded by a levy on airline tickets, aims to address the remaining gap by getting patent holders [...]
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AMA and McKesson Team-Up to Improve Molecular Diagnostic Testing
The American Medical Association (AMA) and McKesson have entered into a licensing relationship to offer the industry a more consistent and transparent way to identify and track molecular diagnostic (MDx) tests. Under the agreement, McKesson Z-Code™ Identifiers will be grouped and indexed with corresponding molecular pathology codes in the AMA’s Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) code set. With identifiers and codes working in tandem to create a comprehensive reference for identifying and tracking MDx tests, the healthcare industry can better understand the growth in this area to support advanced diagnostics innovation. Today, over 3,000 molecular and genetic diagnostics are marketed for clinical use. According to Frost & Sullivan, MDx is the [...]
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Mile High Market Now Open to “Pot Tourists”
Medbox announced that its patented dispensing technology will be crucial to implementing the Colorado marijuana task forces’s recommendations regarding “pot tourism.” Late last week, the task force recommended that marijuana be made available to tourists over the age of 21, although in stricter quantities than will be made available to in-state residents. Representative Dan Pabon (D), who sits on the task force, argued that “…imposing a residency requirement would almost certainly create a black market for recreational marijuana [in Colorado],” which is precisely what supporters of Amendment 64 are aiming to eradicate. In order to prevent drug traffickers from exploiting [...]
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FDA Approves Revolutionary Breast Cancer Drug
The drug is called Kadcyla, but it will be better known as TDM-1. The FDA last Friday announced that it has approved TDM-1, as clinical trials have shown it is effective and has lower toxicity (less complications) for women with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positive forms of the disease. It’s revolutionary in that it contains the original drug Herceptin, a drug more commonly used to treat aggressive estrogen positive breast cancer, but there’s another drug in the same compound and a unique approach to killing the bad cells (from the inside out) is supported. Richard Pazdur, M.D., [...]
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- Healthcare in the Cloud: Forecast Still Hazy : HIMSS 2013: Top Takeaways Gathering Clouds said: [...] to David McCament’s mind, the future of healthcare cloud is not so clear. In a gue... more
- Time Definite Logistics –MNX Expands Global Network and Adds Track & Trace : Daniel said: Everything is very open with a precise description of the issues. It was definitely inform... more
- Varian Runs a “Clinic” in Effective Lobbying –Harry Reid Rides Shotgun : Thomas Finn said: Thanks for your comment Bo. I do not fully comprehend the differences between the two opti... more
- Varian Runs a “Clinic” in Effective Lobbying –Harry Reid Rides Shotgun : Barton 'Bo' Cooke said: Tom, you nailed it. This rider, put in at the last minute and was rushed into the Congres... more
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