May 2014 ~ kathiskreations

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Why there is no public debate on PHS issues

In his weekly private letter to friends and colleagues, former Atrius Health CEO Gene Lindsey notes:As of yesterday’s Globe, my statement in last week’s letter that there had been no editorial, op-ed or letter to the editor comments in The Globe about the AGs decision to endorse Partners’ Healthcare’s acquisition of Hallmark Health and South Shore Hospital has remained true....

Getting along in New Jersey

An interesting story by Marketplace's Dan Gorenstein about an unusual level of cooperation among some hospitals in NJ. Excerpt:What is out of reach for most patients in America is becoming a reality in one of America’s poorest and most troubled cities, Camden, New Jersey. “You get three health systems to come together who are competitors who on Monday, Wednesday and Friday want to kill each other in the marketplace, but on Tuesday and Thursday...

Revisiting Snowden

Several months ago, I wrote about Edward Snowden and suggested that his failure to face prosecution was inconsistent the type of civil disobedience taught by Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I received many comments on that post suggesting that my view was naïve, given the overwhelming power of the US prosecutorial system. True, it is a powerful system, but it is one that remains subject to the checks and balances...

Faces of Sepsis

My buddy Dr. Jim O'Brien writes:I am proud to share with you the latest work from Sepsis Alliance, where I actively serve as a member of the board.This film, Faces of Sepsis, tells the story of sepsis in a highly personal, emotional and impactful manner, and it reflects the importance and the quality of the work we are doing at Sepsis Alliance to raise awareness of this...

Ariana Vargas, already busy with GiveForward, has a new project for which she recently won first prize in a "white board challenge" at the MIT Enterprise Forum in Chicago.She explains: "My Health Sensei is like Yelp but to help cancer patients find the resources they need to live their lives during treatment." The site offers an expanded explanation:When you’re diagnosed...

AT MIT in June: Technology, Organizations, and Innovation: Putting Ideas to Work

What do I call it when I get to co-teach an professional education course at MIT with people like this?Sanford L. Weiner, a Research Affiliate at MIT’s Center for International Studies;Johannes Fruehauf, Executive Director of LabCentral, a new shared lab facility now under construction in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Mass.;Lee McKnight, Associate Professor in the School...

As I reflect back on last week's announcement by the Massachusetts AG about her deal with Partners Healthcare System, I try to draw lessons from the manner in which such issues are covered by the major media.Everyone in the know in the health care community knows that Gene Lindsey's characterization is correct:What appears to be an impressive list of extracted concessions...

Risk Factors for Heart Disease Can be Controlled

Many of the risk factors for heart disease are related to lifestyle and environmental factors and are typically labeled uncontrollable (non-modifiable) or controllable (modifiable). These can be conditions, personal traits and lifestyles that contribute to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which causes coronary artery disease. The seriousness of this disease can be seen in the fact that over 40% of all people in the United States...

The stage is set

With the Attorney General granting Partners Healthcare System a long-term lease on life as the dominant provider in Eastern Massachusetts, we can now focus on the likely industry structure for the region.The short version: Bad news for Tufts Medical Center and Steward Healthcare. Fair news for Lahey Clinic and BIDMC. Clear sailing for Partners.There's nothing on the horizon that looks good for Tufts. Here's a recent summary...

PCMH on WIHI: Early results

Madge Kaplan writes:The next WIHI broadcast — The Patient-Centered Medical Home: Early Results, Tough Scrutiny — will take place on Thursday, May 22, from 2 to 3 PM ET, and I hope you'll tune in. This show is a collaboration with the Journal of the American Medical Association called JAMA on WIHI: An Online Audio Forum on Quality.Our guests will include:Mark...

Credibility of sources

I was always told that it is really important for reporters to have a good sense of the biases and credibility of their sources. After all, those sources are used to fill in stories by offering a perspective not always possible from the protagonists in the story.So, it was with some surprise that I saw this quote in a local story about the MA AG-Partners Healthcare deal from a person who makes money by selling consulting services to hospitals.“It...

Madder than hell

I can think of no phrase more likely to emphasize the powerlessness of a senior government official than to say, "I'm madder than hell," about something that has gone wrong under his or her watch. President Obama makes a habit of this:Here's the quote about the VA:White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough says President Obama is very upset about reported cover-ups at veterans' hospitals and long waits for treatment at VA facilities that...

Digital Health Communication at Tufts

Lisa Gualtieri at Tufts University School of Medicine is offering a certificate program in Digital Health Communication, currently enrolling for July. Here's her summary:While you may not be the one tweeting or designing infographics for your organization, you may be hiring and supervising the people who do as well as planning health campaigns that use digital technologies. Instead of struggling through or worrying that you are using the...

I was surfing through LinkedIn and came across a person with the following position: Vice President, Physician Alignment.My first thought was how generous it was for this hospital system/ACO to offer chiropractic services for its doctors!But then I realized that the job of this person was different. It is something about ensuring that physicians behave in such a manner...

Aiming for Zero

Following up on the piece referred to below written by Doug Hanto about preventable harm, please see this lovely article in a new magazine called Pediatrics Nationwide, published by Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.Author Kelli Burton starts with this dramatic moment:In October 2008, Richard Brilli, MD, stood in a silent conference room, waiting for his audience...

Two articles crossed my "desk" today that provide useful bookends to the issue of physician responsibility and engagement in patient safety and quality of care.The first, by Brad Flansbaum at The Hospital Leader, cites an article from the New England Journal of Medicine summarizing the relative lack of effectiveness of pay-for-performance metrics in the National Health Service. ...

Time to break up Standard Oil

What's striking about the Mass. AG's deal with Partners Healthcare System is what it does not do. Although it puts some restrictions on the organization, it leaves in place a colossus with a common bottom line that can shift costs among its component parts. And, the actual restrictions will not make any appreciable difference in the pricing differential for this system relative to others.As noted on WBUR's Commonhealth blog:If Partners...

I told you so, 20 years later

In January 1994, Alan Sagar, Deborah Socolar, and Peter Hiam published an opinion piece in the Boston Business Journal advising against state authorization for the merger between MGH and Brigham and Women's, and the other community hospitals, and the physician organizations that ultimately became the Partners healthcare System.Their summary is evident from the out-take you...

5 Common Types of Heart Disease

There are many types of heart disease, but this article will explore five types that are common to happen. Hopefully, this article can add your knowledge concerning this leading cause of death disease. #1 Congenital heart disease There is a fallacy of thinking that many people do when they believe that all heart diseases are brought about by outside factors or that it needs some periods of time for the disease to build up. This is, of...

Save a Child's Heart

MIT student Noah Buckman writes:I’m writing to you about a fundraiser I have been working on these past few months with my fraternity, AEPi, for Save A Child’s Heart. Our campaign has been a major success and it’s been a really amazing experience working on this fundraiser during my spare time.In case you haven’t seen yet, here’s a video we made of students getting pied. Save a Child's Heart is an organization that identifies children...

Selling out to Partners

If this newspaper story by Robert Weisman at the Boston Globe is correct, the Attorney General is about to sign an agreement with Partners Healthcare System that will lock in the system's dominance for years to come.The main provision:Under the deal, which has yet to be formally signed, Partners’ prices would be tied to the rate of inflation, currently about 1 to 1.5 percent. That is significantly less than the recent trend of health care cost...

Failing to act as stewards of the occupation’s standards

There continue to be lots of stories about the high cost of the new drugs to combat hepatatis C. Here's one from NPR by Melissa Block and Richard Knox. In a previous post, I talked about the presence of a distinguished academic on the board of Gilead, the company that makes one of these drugs. It's time to ask the question more directly: Where does Dr. Richard Whitley stand on this matter?What does his silence on this issue...

A protracted failure of American medicine to self regulate

Scott Gottlieb, writing at Forbes, says:The “Physician Sunshine Act” is as much a response to the past marketing excesses of the drug and device makers as a reflection of the retreating stature of the American doctor. Aspects of medical practice that were once firmly the domain of professional bodies are now subject to federal tinkering. This has profound implications for doctors and patients alike who have firmly ceded vital autonomy.The Sunshine...

Is this part of the promised lower costs?

The Boston Globe's Robert Weisman summarizes the effect of the tax on insurers imposed by the Accountable Care Act. Excerpts:Insurance companies, like drug and medical device makers, were required to help fund the Affordable Care Act through annual taxes that must be booked in the first quarter for accounting purposes. But the insurers said they will try to recoup much of the added cost through the year by boosting premiums for employers...

The Times learns digital

For those interested in the future of journalism in the digital age, there is likely to be no more significant document than a recent report prepared for the New York Times. Here's a great summary from the Nieman Journalism L...

Risks and Mitigation Approaches for Business System Integration MIT SDM Systems Thinking Webinar SeriesDate: May 19, 2014Time: Noon – 1 p.m. EDTFree and open to allRegisterAbout the PresentationThe successful integration of new technologies is essential to continual success in today's fast-moving global economy, enabling businesses to upgrade their systems to be more...

Glassdoor invitation

Thanks to Glassdoor for inviting us to post this article....

Well, no, he doesn't say that, but he would if he were around again.The state DCR is considering proposals that would prohibit swimmers from swimming across Walden Pond (open water swimming, or OWS). This is raising the hackles of lots of people, from triathletes to us normal swimmers, who enjoy wide open water where we can swim for a mile or more--and who value Walden...

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