Friday, January 29, 2010

Vish Sankaran Director, Federal Health Architecture Program, Officer of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Dept Health and Human Services
John D Halamka MD, MS, Chief Information Officer of Harvard Medical School, Chairman of the New England Healthcare Exchange Network (NEHEN).
David Bates MD Medial Director for Clinical and Quality Analysis, Chief of General Internal Medicine
Janet Marchibroda Chief Healthcare Officer, IBM
William S. Bernstein Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, Partner Chair, Healthcare Division
Ian Spatz Principle, Rock Creek Policy Group, LLC Senior Advisor - Manatt Health Solutions, Healthcare Industry
Rachel Block Deputy Commissioner Office of Health Information Technology Transformation
Gerry Hinkley Esq. Partner and Co Chair of HIT Practice Group, Pillsbury Winthorp Shaw Pittman LLP
Deven McGraw Director of Health Center for Technology and Democracy (ONC Policy Committee).
Larry Garber MD, Medical Director for Informatics Fallon Clinic (developers of SAFE Health, secure architechture for HIEs)
Micky Tripathi> President and Chief Executive Officer of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative (MAeHC)
Eric Hartz CMIO, Eastern Maine Medical Centre, Bangor, Maine
Irene Koch Esq. Executive Director Brooklyn Health Information Exchange (BHIX)
Dr Rick Shoup Executive Director of Massachusetts eHealth Institute
Dan Porreca Executive Director of HEALTHeLINK, Clinical Information Exchange, Western New York State
Justin Barnes Vice President Marketing & Government Affairs, Greenway Medical Technologies
Robert Tennant Senior Policy Advisor MGMA Jesse Singer, Executive Development Director, Primary Care Information Project (PCIP) (TBC)
Raymond W. Scott BSc, MBCS, C.Eng., CITP, CEO Axolotl Corp
David Whitlinger Executive Director NYC eHealth Collaborative

MDdatacor to help KC Blues with medical home pilot

KANSAS CITY, MO – Physicians taking part in a two-year medical home pilot program will soon have access to new technology designed to help them identify patient care opportunities.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, which is launching the medical home initiative, has signed a contract with Atlanta-based MDdatacor, Inc., to use the company’s MDinsight software solution. MDinsight is designed to draw data from a physician’s records, analyze it against evidence-based guidelines and identify additional care opportunities among that physician’s patient population.

“Medical home models have the potential to aid reform efforts by reducing overall costs in the U.S. health system. We know this firsthand because of the results our health plan customers have experienced through decreased hospital admissions and emergency room visits, dramatic improvement in physician and patient satisfaction, and a substantial return on investment,” said Tim Roche, co-founder, president and CEO of MDdatacor, in a press release.

BCBS of Kansas City, the largest not-for-profit health insurer in Missouri, provides coverage for roughly 1 million residents of the city and northwest part of the state. Company officials are calling on local internal medicine, family practice and pediatric physicians to take part in the medical home program, which is scheduled to begin this month.

“We are embarking on this initiative because we believe that a medical home model and access to more complete clinical data will help physicians treat the right patients at the right time, resulting in even better care and outcomes,” said Blake Williamson, BCBSKC’s vice president and senior medical director. “MDdatacor's data registry, a critical tool to make this happen, was the most comprehensive we reviewed and came with the strongest recommendations.”

MDdatacor officials say their technology draws upon diverse data sources, including electronic medical record, practice management, lab and registry systems, aggregates that data and makes it available to physicians through a Web portal. For example, the system can help determine the number of diabetic patients whose A1c blood sugar tests are above guidelines, prompting the physician to plan a more aggressive healthcare regimen that would work to reduce a patient’s A1c number and avoid more costly medical problems later on.

According to MDdatacor officials, studies have shown that medical homes can help patients better control their healthcare issues, reducing the chance of hospital visits of more costly treatments later on. Health plans use this data to drive improved patient and physician satisfaction, improving the quality of care and driving down the overall cost of care.

MDdatacor’s clint list numbers more than 7,000 physicians, company officials say, and includes Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Dakota, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Excellus BlueCRoss BlueShield, MVP Health Care and the Summa Health Network.

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Medical Advances Help Cystic Fibrosis Patients

More Money for Research is Still Needed to Find a Cure for CF

It's one of the most insidious of diseases. Young cystic fibrosis patients often look healthy and fit, but inside, their own bodies are slowly killing them.

Forty years ago, most CF patients died by the age of 4 or 5. But since then, more sophisticated treatments have allowed many patients to survive past 18, with some living twice that. Double lung transplants have added even more years to the lives of CF patients, but transplants are not a cure.

What is Cystic Fibrosis?

Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease that causes the lungs to fill with thick, heavy mucus that hinders normal lung function. A person with CF needs to undergo rigorous physical exercises designed to loosen the mucus and have his or her lungs suctioned free of the deadly gunk twice a day. The mucus often results in a buildup of bacteria that cause repeated lung infections, causing further damage.
In most patients, CF also causes thick mucus to block the pancreatic ducts, preventing the release of digestive enzymes. Patients must take 20 or 30 pills every day to enable their bodies to digest and absorb food.
As the patient grows older, lung function deteriorates. Treatment becomes less effective. The patient becomes weaker and weaker, and needs to use oxygen more often. Weight decreases to the point of emaciation. Other problems such as arthritis, diabetes and liver disease can develop. At this stage, only a successful double lung transplant will save the person’s life.
However, even a successful transplant is not a cure. Anti-rejection drugs are taken for life. And, since CF is genetic, the patient still has the disease. Eventually, whether five years or 25 years later, the new lungs may fail, too, from rejection or chronic bacterial infections.

Medical 'Pay for Performance' Programs Help Improve Care, but Not Always, Study Finds

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A new UCLA study shows that patient-care performance ratings for 25 medical groups across California improved significantly following the launch of a statewide pay-for-performance program in 2004 -- but not when incentives focused on doctors' productivity.
Reporting in the December edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Hector P. Rodriguez, assistant professor in the department of health services at the UCLA School of Public Health, and colleagues found evidence that certain kinds of financial incentives for the purpose of improving patient care, in combination with public reporting of medical group performance ratings, have a positive effect on patient care experiences. However, they also found that some types of incentives may have a negative overall impact on how patients experienced their care.
The researchers analyzed how medical group performance ratings changed over time and found that ratings in specific measures representing three broad categories -- physician communication, care coordination and office-staff interactions -- improved substantially during the period after the start of the Integrated Healthcare Association's (IHA) pay-for-performance program. Incentives for addressing the quality of patient-clinician interaction and the overall experience of patient care tended to result in improved performance in those three areas, especially when the additional funds were used broadly by medical groups to positively reinforce a patient-centered work culture.
However, the greatest improvements were seen within those groups which placed less emphasis on physician productivity and greater emphasis on clinical quality and patient experience. And within groups where financial incentives were paid directly to physicians -- rather than being used more broadly -- the researchers found that placing too much emphasis on physician productivity actually had a negative impact on the experiences patients had when visiting their primary care doctor.
"As the Obama administration and Congress continue to grapple with health care reform, these findings provide timely information about the kinds of things medical groups can do -- and can avoid doing -- with financial incentives in order to improve the quality of patient health care experiences," said Rodriguez, the lead author of the study.
For the study, researchers looked at information collected from 124,021 patients of 1,444 primary care physicians at 25 California medical groups between 2003 and 2006 and conducted interviews with group medical directors to determine how financial incentives were used. All 25 groups, which represent six insurers, were awarded financial incentives for achievements in the broad categories of clinical care processes, patient care experiences and office-based information systems, in accordance with the IHA program, which was launched in 2004 with the goal of improving health care quality in California.

•Human sperm cells created
BBC medical correspondent
Scientists in Newcastle claim to have created human sperm in the laboratory in what they say is a world first.
The researchers believe the work could eventually help men with fertility problems to father a child.
But other experts say they are not convinced that fully developed sperm have been created.

Writing in the journal Stem Cells and Development, the Newcastle team say it will be at least five years before the technique is
perfected. They began with stem cell lines derived from human embryos donated
following IVF treatment. ...................
•Exercise Programs Keep Elderly out of Hospitals
One in five Americans over the age of 65 suffers from sarcopenia, or age-related muscle loss. In 2000, the direct cost of treatment was estimated at more than $18.5 billion.
As the number of Americans older than 65 doubles by the middle of the century, those costs will increase accordingly.
A new study finds older adults who have greater strength, better physical function and higher muscle density are about half as likely to be hospitalized as their less fit counterparts......................
•World Arthritis Day, Monday 12th October 2009

‘Let’s Work Together’: Arthritis Care urges bosses to act on survey and keep people with arthritis in work
Employer support is a key deciding factor in helping workers with arthritis to keep their jobs, reveals a new survey by UK charity Arthritis Care for World Arthritis Day (Oct 12th).
Where bosses fail to offer supports like flexible working and an accessible environment, the snapshot shows that employees with arthritis too often end up leaving their jobs. Of the respondents still in work despite having arthritis, an emphatic 75% said their employer had provided reasonable adjustments when requested. But of the respondents not now in work, only 39% said they had received such adjustments.
‘Arthritis Care’s poll shows an inescapable link between an employer’s support for someone with arthritis and their ability to stay in work. Arthritis is the UK’s biggest cause of physical disability, and more must be done to enable people with the condition to have a full working life, not existence on disability benefit by default’, says Rachel Haynes, Arthritis Care’s director of public affairs.
A worrying 70% of the survey’s non-working respondents directly blamed leaving their job on their arthritis. Almost two-thirds of these (64%) said they had requested reasonable adjustments from their employer but only one in three of these (36%) got them.

Afghan Child Receives ISAF Medical Help

1/2/10 | Regional Command - West

More on Herat

New Building for Herat's Provincial Council Inaugurated »
Italian-led PRT Funds Herat Government Projects »

NEWS RELEASE
ISAF Joint Command - Afghanistan

2010-01-CA–005
For Immediate Release

HERAT, Afghanistan (Jan. 2) – A young Afghan child received a gift from ISAF service members in Regional Command West, recently.
The 2-year-old child suffers from a severe heart disease and was taken to Italy for surgery.
A service member from the "Guardia di Finanza" (Italian Border Police) told doctors at RC-West of Said Salar’s case. Immediately the personnel there and Organizzazione Non Lucrativa di Utilita' Sociale, an Italian social organization, began preparations to send the boy to Italy because the surgery was beyond the current capabilities of Afghan medical centers.
The Italian Air Force provided transportation for him and his father, Dec. 29. Several Italian non-governmental organizations provided the funding for his surgery and recuperation.