Category Archives: social media

GHX Surpasses $3 Billion Savings Milestone –Just in Time to Celebrate at This Year’s Supply Chain Summit

Thomas Finn - April 4, 2013 9:54 AM | Categories: General News and Commentary, healthcare IT, Healthcare Providers, Intermediaries/GPOs +, Procurement, social media, Supply Chain tool vendors, Supply Chains

GHX is back in the news, celebrating its recent achievement –eclipsing the $3 billion mark on a well-publicized savings goal of $5 billion.  It’s known as its 5 in 5 program ($5 billion in cost elimination –not cost shifting– over 5 years) and the company has every reason to be proud of this latest milestone. GHX is a high profile advocate for supply chain collaboration and transparency. As the second largest and fastest growing expense for healthcare organizations, the supply chain is both a challenge and major opportunity for healthcare firms. That is why a large focus of the company’s [...]

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PwC’s Top 10 Technology Trends for Business — “Same as it ever was…”

Thomas Finn - January 24, 2013 8:02 AM | Categories: Big Data, General News and Commentary, healthcare data security, Healthcare Providers, social media, Technology

Taken from the Talking Heads song, “Once in a Lifetime,” I found myself thinking and singing the lyric “same as it ever was” while reading this year’s top technology trends. Frankly, there really isn’t much new to it, unless “gamification” strikes you a little more suddenly than it did me. In its 2013 Top 10 Technology Trends for Business report released late yesterday, PwC US revealed its opinions about the most significant trends in technology –the ones that are reshaping strategies, business models, and will drive enterprise investments this year. “Our top trends report shows that a diverse and complex [...]

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Bloomberg Scores Front Row Seat to This Year’s “Food Porn” Gala

Thomas Finn - January 16, 2013 11:50 AM | Categories: General News and Commentary, government policy, Healthcare Providers, insurance, social media

Coca Cola is taking the offensive. It’s set to launch a risky public relations campaign on the back of at least two new TV advertisements designed to help it grab the high road in the nation’s ongoing “obesity debate.” “The long-term health of our families and our country is at stake, and as the nation’s leading beverage company, we can play an important role,” said a Coke spokesperson. The first ad is aimed at policy makers, but a second ad, to be broadcast Wednesday during the first episode of the new season for “American Idol,” will focus on consumers. The [...]

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Apple Shares Dip Below $500… Time to Buy?

Thomas Finn - January 15, 2013 1:35 PM | Categories: doctors, General News and Commentary, Healthcare Providers, M&A Activity, social media, Technology

Apple shares fell as low as $483.80 during this morning’s session, with the stock trading at $484.10, a decline of $17.65, or 3.5 percent. For the second consecutive day, Apple faces the prospect of closing lower than $500. The company has been in a freefall since introducing the iPhone 5. Although Apple hit an all-time high of $705.07 the day the iPhone 5 launched, it’s been nothing but a long slide downward since then –down 28.8 percent through Monday’s session. The latest news that the company has cut back on component orders for the iPhone 5 is said to be [...]

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Pew Research Study Reveals Affluent U.S. Adults Can’t Self-Diagnose…

Thomas Finn - January 15, 2013 11:53 AM | Categories: doctors, General News and Commentary, Healthcare Providers, social media, Technology

The results of Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project were just published and revealed that 35% of U.S. adults use the Internet to self-diagnose.  In addition, 59% use search engines to look-up health information, but interestingly, more than half of those searches were on behalf of someone else. The results were derived from a nationwide survey of 3,014 adults living in the U.S. over both landlines and cell phones. Interviews were conducted between Aug. 7 and Sept. 6, 2012. The overwhelming majority of us (82%) prefer the use of search engines, while just 13% go direct to a [...]

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Best of 2012: Last in Wins –Airline Industry Supply Chain Relevant to Healthcare?

Thomas Finn - December 24, 2012 8:43 PM | Categories: government policy, Healthcare Providers, Intermediaries/GPOs +, Procurement, social media, sourcing services, Supply Chain tool vendors, Supply Chains, Technology

I was reminded of the debatable nature of certain analogies I am prone to use given a dialogue I had with a reader this morning. He/Mark thought I “whiffed” on the use of an analogy I used in a story posted earlier this week. He might have been right. It reminded me of yet another analogy that I used in a previous post (below) that does a better job of making some similar points –and that I remain confident is not only relevant to healthcare, but is instructive to SCM professionals of all stripes. It’s not always about “first mover [...]

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Harvard Protects the “Kink” in your Armor

Thomas Finn - December 11, 2012 1:26 PM | Categories: General News and Commentary, social media

Lending credence to the late William F. Buckley’s statement that “he would sooner live in a society governed by the first 100 names randomly selected from the Boston Telephone Directory than by the faculty at Harvard College,” its Committee on Student Life recognized yet another new “society” this past Friday. It’s  called “Munch.” See if you can guess the mission of Munch: A society dedicated to the promotion of healthy snack foods that complement the use of medical marijuana; A group dedicated to the promotion of kinky sex; A society dedicated to the promotion of kinky and alternative snack foods. [...]

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Friday Rant: Making “Meaningful Use” of Communication Technologies Too

Thomas Finn - November 9, 2012 8:30 AM | Categories: doctors, General News and Commentary, government policy, Human Resources, mobile apps in healthcare, social media, Technology, telemedicine

It’s common knowledge that doctors are leaving private practice in droves. Sixty-one percent of independent physicians are now seeking employment, and the majority of those doctors say that the government requirement for them to adopt and show meaningful use of an electronic health record (EHR) is one of the big reasons, a new Accenture report finds. That’s remarkable to me. I know a dozen doctors who are currently negotiating the sale of their private practices and all of them are doing it for the same reason –more money and security.  None of them mentioned EHRs. Said Kaveh Safavi, MD, managing [...]

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CEOs Jump on the Social Media Bandwagon

Thomas Finn - October 10, 2012 6:05 PM | Categories: Big Data, healthcare data security, Healthcare Providers, Human Resources, payers, Procurement, social media, Technology

For you supply chain professionals out there who suffer from “collaborative fatigue,” I’ve got some bad news for you. Not only has your CEO discovered that newly defining word, but he/she has fallen for an entirely new context in which to promote it. Yes, technology continues to transform healthcare in many ways, but CEOs surveyed by IBM seemed to have fallen hard for applications that will enable doctors, nurses, payers and patients to be more communicative –and collaborative. IBM recently surveyed about 1,700 CEOs and about 60 of them lead hospitals, insurers and other types of medical practice groups. The [...]

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Facebook Continues to Struggle

Thomas Finn - September 25, 2012 12:15 PM | Categories: General News and Commentary, mobile apps in healthcare, social media, Technology

Yesterday, Google shares finished up $14.43, or 2%, to $748.42, partly boosted by a Citigroup analyst who raised the stock’s price target to $850. But optimism about Google does not extend to Facebook, which lost $2.05, or 9%, to close yesterday at $20.82 (off 40% from opening day). It seems that Facebook lives up to the adage that “if it didn’t have bad luck, it wouldn’t have any luck at all.”  The company’s share price plunged again amidst news that users’ private messages were appearing on the public “wall” page of their profiles. Add to that a story published in [...]

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Sentara and MDLIVE (telehealth platform) Announce Partnership

Thomas Finn - August 20, 2012 5:07 PM | Categories: doctors, General News and Commentary, Healthcare Providers, M&A Activity, payers, Procurement, social media, Supply Chain tool vendors, Supply Chains, Technology, telemedicine

Hospital executives need to keep their ear’s on. Whether you call it “share care,” “virtual care,” “telecare,” “telemedicine,” “on demand care,” etc., it’s coming –and for all the right reasons. To wit: Norfolk-based Sentara Healthcare and MDLIVE announced today a first of its kind partnership that will deliver secure real-time medical consultations to patients via telephone and online video throughout the state of Virginia. The deal is not only exemplary of the latest trajectory in US care delivery, but it also gives Sentara an equity stake in the privately held Sunrise, Fla.-based telehealth firm. MDLIVE is a national network of [...]

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Social Media Advertising: A Big Winner During Olympics

Thomas Finn - August 13, 2012 5:47 PM | Categories: General News and Commentary, Healthcare Providers, social media, Technology

Healthcare and social media are figuring it out. But it would help matters immeasurably if a more tangible ROI angle would emerge –of the type that even a healthcare finance executive could love. Amidst all of the negative publicity suffered by Facebook since its IPO, what follows had to be welcomed news at HQ. The fact that the value of online advertising via social media –specifically Facebook–  made a solidly positive statement during the Olympics is a good thing for the industry. Kenshoo Social promotes itself as a leader in digital marketing software. The company provides solutions for measuring the [...]

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