Arizona’s Medicaid Cuts On Transplants Is A Classic Example of Decisions Not Based on Medical Needs But Rather Budget Only

What is also interesting about this story too is the fact the the Arizona Governor has isolated herself from comments and the press on this situation as it is dead wrong to be making life and death decisions based strictly on a budget.  I have several doctors write to me over this situation that were outraged as they stated transplants can and do work for those who have other chronic conditions.  It’s a total lack of ethics and for saving a life. 

Arizona seems to have created their own “death panels” and certainly there are times to look at the big picture but not at this level.  The algorithm folks were wrong and anger from this is not going to diminish anytime soon.  One man who was waiting for a transplant has since died.  How do people making such decisions sleep at night I ask?  There are other areas of a budget that could be considered to be cut without these measures. 

Phoenix Man Denied a Liver Transplant Due to Arizona Budget Cuts-Patient Who Had Insurance Coverage Received the Organ

What also gets to me is the fact that Health IT spending is at an all time high and there’s a lot of areas where private industry makes millions by using data base information from government agencies too, all they do is write and publish some algorithms and make millions.  Read this book if you are in the dark as those algorithms are used for decision making processes for budgets and it’s the interpretation and use of the data that is the problem.  What we have here is the “dark side” of mathematical formulas interpreted wrong, ethically wrong.

“Proofiness–The Dark Side of Mathematical Deception”–Created by Those Algorithms–New Book Coming Out Soon

MSNBC did a full video and story on this topic as well. 

Keith Olbermann Updates Arizona Transplant Denials–Death Panel Algorithms Provided by Subsidiary of United HealthCare (Video)

The governor will not call a special session and there are 98 others in the same situation as the people shown in this video.  Below is the post from earlier this week. Arizona Access had 2 companies provide them with statistics to make these decision on transplants.  See how powerful these algorithms are that compile data are and they don’t contain ethics issues.

Arizona has also cut Medicaid compensation to doctors and if it is anything like here in California, it will be hard to find doctors who will take Medicaid patients.  I hear that from doctors here all the time with the difficulty of finding doctors who will accept that level of payment.   Arizona has also eliminated coverage for emergency dental procedures, insulin pumps and orthotics.

The Kaiser Commission of Medicaid and Uninsured was the association that brought up the fact that decisions made only by budgetary considerations is resulting in denial of care.  It is sad to say, but many private insurers are right in here too with creating new algorithms for coverage, and some have been in the news big time where people have died. On the other side of the coin we have mismanaged data to where the City of Buffalo paid over 2 Million dollars in health insurance premiums for “dead” employees too, so how good are these folks at budgeting?  Those patients in Arizona could have used some of this money and funny that in 2 years that the health insurers were not asking for mammograms or other preventive information on the “dead employees” as they are usually all over everyone's back on those issues, so this was 2 Million dollars of easy money for the insurer and now the City does not know if they can get it back. 

City of Buffalo Has Paid Over $2 Million to Provide Health Insurance for Hundreds of Dead People-Some as Many as 4 Years

The financial part of healthcare is what really needs to be streamlined with cuts made there on price and they should be working closer with device and drug companies to help keep costs down as we have almost hit the bottom of the barrel with hospitals (as around 55% are in the red today in the US) and many doctors are considering leaving their practices, especially if Medicare rates are dropped any lower, and we have our illustrious Congress to thank for that issue which needs news laws to be changed. 

Here’s one big perfect example of big business making millions with running web data services that rank doctors and it is not even accurate as you can read how I found my former MD, who had been dead for over 7 years still listed.  They take state medical board data with insurance company data, query it and put up a website for consumers to find information and they rank hospitals.  Just recently the company was sold to a private equity firm, Vestar after a long roll on Wall Street.  The only work they did was with running some algorithms and creating a web site and they made millions. 

HealthGrades And Other MD Rating and Referral Sites List “Dead Doctors” on Their MD Information Pages And Even Include the Insurance Plans the “Dead Doctors” Honor

Subsidiary Watch – The private equity firm of Vestar has over 7 billion in assets and under management.  There are several healthcare companies already included in their portfolio and the combination of information data bases and business structures could be right around the corner.  We are seeing business models connecting industries and companies that in the past would have never worked together but the big change today is that they all have “data” to work with, exchange and query for business intelligence type decisions that will lead to bigger profits by using algorithms to calculate.

This is where so much of the expense is today in healthcare in supporting the Health IT systems that keep feeding itself.  We need Health IT, but not at the cost and sake of running profits on Wall Street like they do for some flimsy algorithmic data work.  This is behind the scenes and a big reason why we pay so much and why so many get denied care as the algorithms can be rogue and skewed, and then like in Arizona, we have those that are “non participants” with little or no digital IT literacy making decisions that kill people when they need care. Someone told me that the Governor in Arizona was lacking a high school diploma and I don’t know if that is all truthful, but that is what the word is being circulated as it can’t be found on the internet. 

Those are the wrong kind of people without the proper intellect to be making such decisions and I have also heard that her staff is pretty much a big group of former lobbyists as well.  That part is nothing new with staff as Rachel Maddow informed us all about the GOP Pledge for America was written by former lobbyists of AIG, Pfizer and more.  You can see the video from a few months back and she has it in black and white as they didn’t know how or forgot how to remove personal information from a pdf before releasing it, a sad state of affairs and scary as to that is what is at the top of the helm.

The Properties of an Adobe pdf Document -Rachel Maddow Rips the GOP on Lack of General Consumer IT Knowledge And Exposes the Input and Authors of the Content–Lobbyists

This sadly all comes back around that word that is center stage on my blog, “algorithms” and earlier this year I did an short interview with a Mass General Hospital magazine about “rogue algorithms” and we touched on that subject lightly, but again you need to get to the intelligence of any circle that controls the programmers that create these things, as well as the folks who use them to make decisions to get anything done. 

In the case of Arizona, in my opinion, it is largely due to those making decisions outside of healthcare, and they don’t even have enough digital consumer literacy to properly interpret, that is responsible for creating these “death panels”, again I had doctors outraged writing to me that the transplants do work and there no 100% with anything but the numbers are good and many have been very successful. 

How do those people sleep at night?  Are they that illiterate to not understand that with all these algorithmic formulas used for budgets that there are names and lives attached to those numbers.  Last year during the Senate hearings, Senator Rockefeller asked the CEO of United Health Care the same question.  BD 

Is This a Case for a New Law – Illegal Algorithms? How Do You Sleep at Night Rockefeller asked the CEO of United Health Care

The Arizona case, said Diane Rowland, director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, “is a classic example of making decisions based not on medical need but based on a budget.” And, she added, “it results, potentially, in denial of care to individuals in a life-or-death situation.”

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services do not monitor which states use Medicaid money for transplants. But health experts said no other state had withdrawn coverage for patients pursuing transplants.

Arizona’s decision, by Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, and the Republican-controlled Legislature, was made after state officials assessed success and survival rates for a number of transplant procedures. National transplant groups call the figures misleading.

Jennifer Carusetta, the legislative liaison for Arizona’s Medicaid agency, said the transplant cuts would save a mere $800,000 in the current fiscal year, and only $1.4 million for a full year.

Arizona’s Medicaid Cuts for Transplants Is Seen as Sign of Financial Times - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: Arizona,hospital,liver,transplant,Banner Good Samaritan Hospital,Hepatitus C,Cancer,AHCCC,Medicaid

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Patients Want their Data–This Guy Hacked a Fitbit to Get it Along With The API Algorithms

This guy could have saved himself some trouble if he just wanted the data and with Google Health he could have imported it, that is if Google Health was his personal health record of choice.  Myself, I am very cautious of devices that do not go directly to a PHR as they are collected on the web and all sites have some type of a disclosure and some of which are pretty gray these days and if you read privacy issues on the news, you hear it right and left.  We have a serious privacy issue that could easy be called “Body Leaks” out there today! 

Google Health PHR Gets a Facelift and Adds Some New Features–Augmentation for the Consumers

What is also interesting is that on another site we have another thinking about throwing away his fit bit.  How many of these types of devices can we use and collect?  That’s a good question and again look at the privacy issues.  He also mentions this quote from Carnegie Mellon:

“Manual collection of information means the collector is focusing on the data (whenever collection occurs) and has the opportunity for short reflections, and can keep abreast of the data more easily. We have found that completely automating collection removes these opportunities and can actually hinder individuals in keeping track of and making sense of their data.”

Where are we at, it is called participatory sensing, in other words how much connectivity can you have before it makes you nuts?  Insurance companies are pushing this to the hilt though as they want the data and don’t care if we go nuts in using a device in the meantime.  It’s all about marketing and sales. 

I used to write code and I know what companies are capable of doing out there and that is not to say that all are selling your data, but determining who is and who is not is the problem, so the safe alternative is to use none of them in my book unless the devices goes directly to a PHR you control. 

Stick a FitBit on every member of Congress and see how they function and it might just bring some of those folks out of the 70s!  Could you image that sight on YouTube with trying to create laws and all of them having to stop and respond to the Fitbit when needed?  This would be a very funny site indeed.  When I read about folks in Congress that are mad at Google over data accidentally collected due to the fact that they did not put a password on their own personal wireless network at home, we have elevated digital illiteracy in some very scary spots, at least ask someone to help you I say. 

Would our President sleep with a Fitbit on?  I ask that in pursing the big question once more is this something for everybody or is it that old paradigm of “its for those guys over there”.

What is useful and what is useless is in the eye of the beholder and and devices that are made to help us will go down the toilet soon with current marketing trends and no first hand participating of our leaders to get a clue.  We tired of these things and it’s work to look at data.  The average consumer doesn’t want all the detailed data, or after a week of it, is bored and tired of it. 

Participatory Sensing with Cell Phones – New Study to Determine If This Works and How Disruptive It Could Be

Luckily there are some forward thinking people out there that have also realized how these devices if not used properly and thrown at people with demands to send data could be a problem, but it’s the insurance and behavior modification guys you can bet!  We have some security issues with some wireless devices too.

Participatory Sensing – Center for Embedded Networked Sensing Studies Gathering Information with Cell Phones Relative to Use and Security

It is just so damned hard to get excited about a device that is marketed to help generate better health and then know on the back side they are potentially collecting data and selling it, anonymized or not.  That doesn’t mean squat any more as there are companies filing for patents to algorithmically match this stuff up and find you so the formulas of mathematics just keep on rolling while the non participants in digital society today (many are the ones who makes laws) are oblivious.  Read this book for some additional insight…and don’t think they are not out there to get data for sale, as they are

If programmers can write it, someone will try to make a buck off it and that even goes beyond healthcare too at times to read up.  Look at how those formulas made millions for Wall Street if you don’t think this all around us as formulas can be written for accurate results and for what I call desired results, used to write queries and algorithms all the time as software is nothing but a group of algorithms that cause a computer to calculate or do something.   Those are the words of Bill Gates.  BD

“Proofiness–The Dark Side of Mathematical Deception”–Created by Those Algorithms–New Book Coming Out Soon

The other week I received my Fitbit and have been in geek heaven ever since. Fitbit is a tiny magical device($99 USD) that automatically tracks your fitness and sleep statistics. Throughout the day it will track your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, your activity level, and even track your sleep patterns. All of this data is synced wirelessly through your base station to Fitbit’s website where you can get very detailed daily and historical graphs. The main benefit is that you can be conscious of and keep track of your fitness level, food your eating, and how well you’re sleeping so you can make better choices throughout the day.

Eric Blue’s Blog » Fitbit – Unofficial Perl API and CSV Download

Technorati Tags: Fitbit,PHR,Google Health,medical devices,devices that report data,applications,participatory sensing,algorithms

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Free Smart Phone Friday at Best Buy Through December 31st–“Free Phone Fridays”

Just as if you re-negotiated with your carrier and upgraded or new contract for 2 years is required to get the “free” phone.  As the article states the ones this week are the Droid operating system and keep checking back to see if Blackberry or Windows 7 units make the list.  It doesn’t appear that an iPhone will make it according to the article but you never know so if you are looking for a free phone keep checking back each “free Friday” and see. 

This way you can run all those thousands of healthcare applications that do “one thing” <grin>.  That is a short opinion on my part as there is such a glut in this area and if you are going to use an application that does something, you want it to connect to a personal health record like Google Health or HealthVault and look out for the web based services that capture and market your data s they are out there.  BD 

Best Buy's latest promotion is a follow-up to a campaign it ran in October, called Free Phone Fridays. Each Friday during the month of October, Best Buy offered a selection of free phones, one from each major U.S. carrier. Best Buy is applying the same concept to smartphones, and will run the free smartphone deal until the end of December.

Shoppers will be able to find the free smartphones at all of Best Buy's big box retail locations, as well as all 157 of its dedicated Best Buy Mobile stores and online.

Best Buy said the first four free smartphones -- available starting today -- are the Droid Incredible by HTC (Verizon); Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 (AT&T); LG Optimus S (Sprint); LG Optimus T (T-Mobile). All four of these handsets happen to be Android phones, so if you're looking for a free BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7 device, keep checking to see when the daily deal includes those platforms.

Best Buy Offering Free Smartphones Through December 31 -- InformationWeek

Technorati Tags: Smart phones,Best buy,PHR,personal health records,Droid,Blackberry,Windows 7,applications,promotions

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Former Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Employee Embezzled Over $1 Million Ordering Computer Printer Toner

Now that is a lot of ink and toner and somewhat makes a statement as to how much ink and toner a facility uses, so large that it took a year to figure out this person had ordered so much extra!

The article didn’t say what he did with the ink and obviously he must have had a market for it somewhere to sell as that kind of stuff happens all over the place today.  Its amazing though that someone didn’t catch this sooner and the fact that it went on for about a year and it was not product used by the hospital to boot.  BD 

NEW YORK (AP) — A former Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center worker embezzled more than $1 million from the renowned cancer hospital by ordering computer printer toner and stealing it, prosecutors said.

Receiving clerk Marque Gumbs ordered $1.2 million worth of unneeded toner on the hospital’s tab between October 2009 and this August, sometimes buying toner that wasn’t even compatible with the computers at the outpatient center where he worked, a court complaint says.

He had delivery drivers meet him on the street to hand over the supplies, and he was seen on surveillance video taking the shipments to an area where they didn’t belong, the complaint said.

Worker Accused Of Stealing Millions From NYC Hospital « CBS New York – News, Sports, Weather, Traffic and the Best of NY

Technorati Tags: Cancer Centers,Ink Toner,embezzlement,theft,Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center,New York

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John C. Lincoln Hospital in Phoenix Closes Birthing Center–Lay Offs Will Follow

This one kind of hits home as I grew up about 2 blocks from the hospital in Phoenix and watched it grow over the years and family members have have surgeries performed there.  Like many other stories we have heard in the news, this is not the first hospital to close their birthing center.  With tough economic times areas that are not profitable are the first to go and the area of the hospital will be used for general or orthopedic surgeries.  Orthopedic surgeries are mostly still considered very profitable and again this is not the first hospital to expand in that area.

The article notes that most patients in this area received were from the State run insurance program and we have all heard about what has happened there recently with people even being turned down for organ transplants.  BD

Keith Olbermann Updates Arizona Transplant Denials–Death Panel Algorithms Provided by Subsidiary of United HealthCare (Video)

Despite pleas from nurses and support staff, John C. Lincoln Heath Network's board Thursday voted to close the money-losing birthing center at its North Mountain Hospital.

The hospital said the obstetric program will close within two months because it no longer makes financial sense to keep the center open with the region's declining birthrate and cuts to the state's Medcaid program.

That decision will affect 99 full-time, part-time and on-call nurses and support staff.

Hospital officials did not immediately know how many of those positions would be transferred to other North Mountain departments, but it is likely some of those medical professionals will lose their jobs.

Phoenix hospital closing its birth center

Technorati Tags: John C. Lincoln Hospitl,Phoenix,healthcare,budgets,birthing center,layoffs,hospitals

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Grady Hospital Gets a Technology Make Over And Is No Longer Losing Money (Video)

This is pretty amazing as not too long ago we all read about the desperate conditions at Grady Hospital.  Bar code scanners were brought in that ended medication errors and lot of robots with an updated pharmacy warehouse.  They had to do it themselves as you can see from the link below, other hospitals were not anxious to help.  One hospital did donate money to Grady to help them, and that was Kaiser Permanente in California. 

Atlanta Hospitals to Grady Memorial – Can’t Help as we have our own issues

in 2007 the hospital was over 100 million in debt, so this is a pretty major change and things were maybe not kept up and updated with technology for years I could guess.  In his speech he elaborates on how the CEO needs to be the leader several times and when you listen further he has some technology background I think as well.  Sounds like a job well done.  BD 

Grady CEO Speech

When Michael Young took over as CEO of the 900-bed Grady Hospital in 2008, this safety-net hospital in Atlanta faced a $60 million dollar deficit -- the result of giving out $300 million in free care, with reimbursement of $240 million from federal programs and counties. This severe budget imbalance was compounded by unhappy patients and doctors, inefficient systems and out-of-date technology.

Young needed to figure out a way to make up that $60 million-dollar deficit and improve patient care. His solution was to hire more people and let go of people who were not performing well and to spend time and money updating the medical technology and the administrative processes.

By 2010, patient satisfaction is up and Grady is now bringing in $10 million more than it spends -- a huge improvement for a hospital that nearly closed just a few years prior. And in just two years. So what changed? Young introduced technology and efficient systems for handling the volume of services the hospital provides. He replaced the sagging pharmacy with a warehouse and robots that easily handle the 5000 prescriptions it receives daily –this change paid for itself in eight months. He also installed a new IT network and a new emergency department patient tracking system.

But the technological improvements didn’t stop there. He also improved or added:

• 3,400 desktops
• 850 printers
• 640 mobile units
• 100 laptops
• 800 thin clients servers

Intel® Premier IT Professionals: Community: Healthcare

Technorati Tags: Grady Memorial Hospital,Intel,technology,robots,healthcare,budgets,medical reocrds,pharmacy,Health IT,pateint tracking

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Blue Cross Launching New Health Coverage Option in Massachusetts-Encourages Consumers Via Employer Plans to Avoid 15 Named High Cost Hospitals

In the Boston area the article states this leaves out Massachusetts General, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital and there are also some community hospitals on the list but most are on the low cost list.  Boston teaching hospitals are on the “low” or good side of the list as well.  The official name is the Hospital Choice Cost Sharing plan.

Premium increases are stated to be around 4.5 percent versus 10 percent for those who do not opt for the change, so this is a bit of a no brainer here with cost being out front on everyone’s mind. 

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is launching a new health coverage option next month that encourages consumers to avoid 15 high-cost hospitals.

Employers who opt for the Hospital Choice Cost Sharing plan would benefit from a much smaller premium increase next year than they would have faced if they kept their same health plan.

A spokeswoman for the Boston-based health insurer said businesses who join the Hospital Choice plan would see an average premium increase of 4.5 percent on Jan. 1, compared with nearly 10 percent if they continued without any change.

The new Hospital Choice plan is viewed as an introductory step toward those three-tier plans because employers get to keep their current health plans intact, with one exception: steep co-payments for certain procedures at the 15 higher-cost hospitals.

http://www.patriotledger.com/business/x2126933198/Blue-Cross-creates-health-plan-that-charges-more-for-certain-hospitals

Technorati Tags: Blue Cross,Boston,hospitals,contracts,Hospital Choice,cost,co-payments,procedures,surgery,premiums

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VA Awards Contract to Picis, Subsidiary of Ingenix for Anesthesia Record Keeping Software

Picis before the acquisition by Ingenix already had many hospital installations so it appears this is to be one more area of revenue generation for Ingenix, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Healthcare.  During the last year Ingenix purchases several additional technology companies and Picis was one of them. 

Perhaps all the subsidiary purchases were in view of looking at a smaller amount of revenue from the actual health insurance side of the business as United stated this week that next year would probably not be a banner year like this one was, so some revenue will be coming from the government now to go to their bottom life profits with software and technology efforts.  BD

WAKEFIELD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Picis announced it has been awarded a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) contract to implement an anesthesia record keeping (ARK) system in the Stars & Stripes Healthcare Network, a Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) serving Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia.

“We are grateful for the opportunity to serve as a core technology within the VA healthcare community, and believe it reflects our commitment to and history of helping hospitals automate documentation and optimize high-acuity care for our veterans”

Known as VISN 4, this group of VA medical centers selected Picis Preop Manager, Anesthesia Manager and PACU Manager to streamline clinician workflow, anesthesia documentation and continuity of care before, during and after surgical cases. Picis Critical Care Manager is already being deployed in VISN 4’s intensive care units (ICU).

By selecting Picis for anesthesia and the ICU, VISN 4 healthcare providers will have easy access to complete patient care records — spanning surgical care and the ICU — in one application and on one common, central database.

Picis Anesthesia Manager and PACU Manager help clinicians manage large volumes of data in the operating room (OR) by assembling important data and providing a complete overview of a patient's status at any point in time. By automating the intraoperative and postoperative anesthesia documentation, including patient vital signs and physiologic data, these solutions are designed to provide a more complete, accurate and legible record that enhances accountability and increases clinician efficiency. Combined with Picis Critical Care Manager, the result is a care guidance system that enables clinicians to treat high-acuity patients using comprehensive care information available where and when they need it.

Picis, now part of Ingenix, is a global provider of innovative solutions that enable rapid and sustained delivery of clinical documentation, financial and operational results in the emergency departments, surgical suites and intensive care units of more than 1,900 hospitals in 19 countries. For more information about Picis, visit www.picis.com.

Department of Veterans Affairs Selects Picis for Prestigious VISN 4 Award for Anesthesia Record Keeping, Complementing its ICU Deployment | Business Wire

Technorati Tags: VA,Ingenix,anthesia,medical records,monitoring,ICU,algorithms,software,hospitals,government,contracts

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1.7 Billion Super Computer Hours Awarded by the DOE–Biomedical Research Projects Included for Parkinson’s and Cancer

This was part of the INCITE project and the selected programs went through a peer review and 57 projects in all were selected with those needing and having the best potential benefit from the high powered servers. Recently I covered the Cray computers who are in the #2 spot in the world for speed.  This is nice to see research and development get some use besides what we hear about with High Frequency traders benefiting.  BD 

China Hits the #1 Spot for Computer System Performance–Cray XE System in US Still Hot and Plays a Role with High Frequency

This week the US Department of Energy (DoE) announced that it has awarded 57 deserving projects with a total of almost 1.7 billion processor hours on two of its (and the world’s) most powerful computers. It’s part of the DoE’s cleverly-acronymed Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, the aim is of which is primarily “to further renewable energy solutions and understand of the environmental impacts of energy use.” That said, the program is open to all scientists in need of heavy-duty data crunching.

The winning INCITE projects were selected in a peer review process, and evaluated for computational readiness. According to the DoE, “Selected projects were chosen for their potential to advance scientific discoveries, speed technological innovations, and strengthen industrial competitiveness and for their ability to make use of hundreds of thousands of processors to work in concert to do so.”

1.7 billion supercomputer hours awarded to 57 research projects

Technorati Tags: Cray computers,Hi powered PCs,Servers,algorithms,China,DOE,research and development,INCITE

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UCLA Discovers A Process That Turns Healthy Cells into Prostate Cancer Cells–Discovery Could Lead To New Treatments

The discover was made by inhibiting a protein to slow the growth, and the findings are a result of 3 years of study.  It is amazing as to what is being done with stem cells and the study here related to animals but in other research areas a prostate gland can be grown for research purposes too.  BD 

Prostate Gland grown from Stem Cells - But Who Would Want One?

Press Release:

A protein that is crucial for regulating the self-renewal of normal prostate stem cells, needed to repair injured cells or restore normal cells killed by hormone withdrawal therapy for cancer, also aids the transformation of healthy cells into prostate cancer cells, researchers at UCLA have found.

The findings, by researchers with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, may have important implications for controlling cancer growth and progression.

Done in primary cells and in animal models, the findings from the three-year study appear Dec. 2, 2010 in the early online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Cell Stem Cell.

The protein, called Bmi-1, is often up-regulated in prostate cancer, has been associated with higher grade cancers and is predictive of poor prognosis, according to previous studies. However, its functional roles in prostate stem cell maintenance and prostate cancer have been unclear, said Dr. Owen Witte, who is director of the Broad Stem Cell Research Center, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and senior author of the study.

A study of loss and gain of function in prostate stem cells indicated that Bmi-1 expression was required for self-renewal activity and maintenance of prostate stem cells with highly proliferative abilities. Loss of Bmi-1 expression blocks the self-renewal activity, protecting prostate cells from developing abnormal growth changes which can lead to cancer.

More importantly, Bmi-1 inhibition slowed the growth of an aggressive form of prostate cancer in animal models, in which the PTEN tumor suppressor gene was removed allowing the cancer to run wild, Witte said.

“We conclude by these results that Bmi-1 is a crucial regulator of self-renewal in adult prostate cells and plays important roles in prostate cancer initiation and progression,” Witte said. “It was encouraging to see that inhibiting this protein slows the growth of even a very aggressive prostate cancer, because that could give us new ways to attack this disease.”

UCLA stem cell researchers have been studying the mechanisms of prostate stem cells for years on the theory that the mechanism that gives the cells their unique ability to self-renew somehow gets high jacked by cancer cells, allowing the malignant cells to grow and spread. If the mechanism for self-renewal could be understood, researchers could find a way to interrupt it once it is taken over by the cancer cells, Witte said.

Rita Lukacs, a doctoral student in Witte’s laboratory and first author of the study, found that Bmi-1 inhibition also stops excessive self-renewal driven by other pathways. This suggests that the Bmi-1 pathway may be dominant to other genetic controls that affect the cancer phenotype.

“Prostate cancer can be initiated by so many different mutations, if we can find a key regulator of self-renewal, we can partially control the growth of the cancer no matter what the mutation is,” Lukacs said. “We’re attacking the process that allows the cancer cells to grow indefinitely. This provides us an alternate way of attacking the cancer by going to the core mechanism for cancer cell self-renewal and proliferation.” 

Witte said future work will be centered on searching for methods to control these pathways in human prostate cancer cells.

Prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed non-skin cancer and the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in men. This year alone, more than 277,000 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Of those, 32,000 men will die from the disease.

This study was funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Prostate Cancer Foundation, Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, a Stewart and Lynda Resnik Prostate Cancer Foundation Grant and a Stein/Oppenheimer Clinical Translational Seed Grant.

The stem cell center was launched in 2005 with a UCLA commitment of $20 million over five years. A $20 million gift from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation in 2007 resulted in the renaming of the center. With more than 200 members, the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of  Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research is committed to a multi-disciplinary, integrated collaboration of scientific, academic and medical disciplines for the purpose of understanding adult and human embryonic stem cells. The center supports innovation, excellence and the highest ethical standards focused on stem cell research with the intent of facilitating basic scientific inquiry directed towards future clinical applications to treat disease.

The center is a collaboration of the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and the UCLA College of Letters and Science. To learn more about the center, visit our web site at http://www.stemcell.ucla.edu. To learn more about the center, visit our web site at http://www.stemcell.ucla.edu.

Technorati Tags: UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center,prostate cancer,research and development,stem cells,UCLA,philanthropy,regenerative medicine,Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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Veterans Health And Allen Memorial Hospital in Utah Connecting- Pilot Program With UHIN Via Axolotl, an Ingenix Subsidiary

This will allow records from the VA and rural healthcare providers to share and coordinate medical records.  This scores some additional revenue for United Healthcare as the company is owned by Ingenix, which is a subsidiary of United. 

Axolotl (A Subsidiary of Ingenix) Creates Reporting and Analytics Solution for Health Information Exchanges–Algorithms for HIE–Business Intelligence -Subsidiary Watch

Axolotl also has a suite of software offerings to include electronic medical records that was operational before their acquisition.  Clinics will be able to connect to the VA for the exchange of information.  BD

Ingenix Acquires Health Information Exchange Services/EHR Provider Axolotl-United Health Group Behemoth Continues to Grow–Subsidiary Watch

SAN JOSE, Calif. & MURRAY, Utah--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--The Utah Health Information Network (UHIN) today announced a new pilot program to connect rural health care providers in the Moab, Utah region with the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to improve access and coordination of patient care for veterans and service members living in rural areas.

“Allen Memorial Hospital is pleased to be a part of the VA information exchange initiative”

As the state designated Health Information Exchange (HIE), UHIN has partnered with Axolotl Corp., a provider of HIE services and solutions, to enable the clinical Health Information Exchange (cHIE) connection to the VA, using the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) protocols.

Axolotl is part of Ingenix, a leading health information technology and services company. Based in San Jose, Axolotl is known for introducing Clinical Messaging®, now at the heart of all advanced health information exchange. For more information visit www.axolotl.com

Utah Health Information Network Connects Rural Providers to Veterans Health Administration to Improve Quality of Care for Veterans | EON: Enhanced Online News

Technorati Tags: Axolotl,Ingenix,United Health Group,algoirthms,HIE,Health IT,ARRA,health inforamtion exchange,aggregation,VA

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Simulation Technology Defense Contractors Looking to Sell Virtual Products to Civilian Healthcare Organizations With Defense Spending Down

This is becoming a hot topic and a hot item as well.  Recently I have written about UC Irvine and Stanford University with their simulation hospital environments to include simulated patients too.

Patient Illness/Emergency Simulation at the Stanford University Goodman Center

One organization, Kaiser Permanente has been working with simulation for quite a while and pretty much includes every detail of a simulated hospital, all the way down to the janitor working in the area.  Now that is paying attention to detail.  You can read more about how the Garfield Center works at the link below when I had the opportunity a while back to chat with Chris McCarthy, head of their Innovation Department. 

Innovation and Learning at Kaiser Permanente – Interview With Chris McCarthy

A couple months ago I wrote about defense contractors trying to find other resources for income and software is one of them.

Defense Contractors Focusing on Software Assets with Cut Backs With Defense Spending–More Health IT Software Houses

Here’s a good example with CMS giving Northrop Grumman the job of creating the “meaningful use” data base contract, to the tune of $34 Million.  It makes you wonder though at times how much money could be saved if in house programmers and resources could be used too.

CMS Outsourcing Creation of “Meaningful Use” Database to Northrop Grumman in a $34 Million Contract

There are also private industry companies that offer this type of service and I am guessing contractors can incorporate some of this into their overall areas of responsibility for the contract given.

As the country's military simulation-and-training industry gathered in Orlando this week for its largest-yet trade show, one thing was clear: Defense contractors have civilian health-care sales in their crosshairs.
From combat-medic training to 3D virtual surgery, companies are hoping their military-training technology will soon translate to a vast, new marketplace: the nation's health-care system.
Many of their new simulation products are still in early stages, but defense contractors are pouring millions of dollars into research and development with the goal of capturing a share of the medical-technology market, industry officials said Wednesday.

The local simulation industry has already reached out to Orlando's nascent "medical city," under development in the Lake Nona area. That cluster of biomedical and health-care facilities includes the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute's East Coast lab and the University of Central Florida's College of Medicine.
The potentially lucrative health-care market is drawing the attention of big contractors such as Lockheed as well as scores of smaller businesses. Many of them hawked their wares this week in the trade show's Healthcare Pavilion — the first time the conference has showcased medical technology.

Simulation industry trade show healthcare: Simulation training industry focuses on healthcare tech market - OrlandoSentinel.com

Technorati Tags: Kaiser Permanente,Innovation,Garfield Center,Simulation,healthcare,technology,Military contractors,virtual surgery,military

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HHS HealthPeople Website–More Software and Challenges for Applications and Ideas–Lacks Initiative To Invoke Collaboration Efforts

I think if I see one more mobile application that sends a text message I’m about ready to choke.  We have graduated way beyond that and besides at this point we all know a phone can do it, but how many actually use this?  I’m am guessing not many and I put the reminders I need in Outlook so for me anyway, that negates any type of healthcare program that sends text messages and besides I’m not pregnant and not intending on getting pregnant so a bit less about that program that was touted as being earth shattering would be great, not to say it doesn’t have use, but it’s only for pregnant women and does text message reminders.  Those too if not correlated properly and set up at good reminder times can also turn a consumer off too once the novelty wears off in a couple of weeks, especially if you already have other stuff going on with your phone.

I think we get lost in way too many applications that do one thing and one thing only and thus there’s not enough value.  One example that I have quoted before are the inhaler devices.  One company I have written about created a blue tooth inhaler that reports and records data, while the government has an inhaler with the GPS unit, so why do these 2 not get together?  Its makes sense if you have one with a unique GPS capability why not have it do data too?  See we don’t get this yet and again my opinion here is this challenge with simple applications here seems to continue to fragment further with software, which we already have a glut of, and besides that who in the world has time to look at all of it. 

NOW IF THE SITE PUT SOME “AGGREGATOR” CHALLENGES UP THERE, WE COULD BE ON TO SOMETHING.  You know this is almost like Windows trying to make a market out of each function that is in the operating system and is probably why the called Windows an operating system too as it combines a lot into one, which is what healthcare needs.  The state listing was nice here to find out who’s in charge of State Health Departments but outside of that fact I saw very little that impressed me and I used to write code and thus some of my own feelings here.

There’s also this site which is strange too and just seems like a a mini Facebook type of site called “Healthy People.Gov.  I thought we were trying to make life simpler and perhaps if this page ends up having something besides goals and objectives, it might hold some interest, but for now, who cares! as it seems to be very ambiguous of what is already out there on the web?  WHO HAS TIME FOR ALL OF THIS, NEW WEBSTES WIHTOUT INITIAL VALUE BEING SEEN DO LITTLE ANY MORE AND CERTAINLY DON’T HOLD AN AUDIENCE VERY LONG. 

I’m not picking on HHS by any means as their HealthCare.Gov site is great and I keep a link on my blog so people can find it immediately, it does have value, but these other 2 sites today in my opinion, lack it.  The government will be like Microsoft and Apple in throwing away what doesn’t work out there in time too.  All software houses do that and this is no different. 

Innovation Without Collaboration Is Fouling Up The US Healthcare IT System–We Need Both As We Can’t Stand on Innovation Alone

Right now we are marketed up to our ears and at times if I have to hear anymore about healthcare at the end of my day, I want to scream as again I watch out for the privacy portions and research and look and separate those who have helpful applications from those who want to make a quick buck and mine your data and there’s tons out there today.  In final thoughts too, get  unemployment extension through Congress as you may find many of those folks perhaps exploring this area to generate a little income, even though it is not much, but you will end up getting what you pay for.  Again, maybe it’s just me but I didn’t find much value here at all with this site as it leads away from collaboration and innovation without collaboration can’t stand on it’s own.  It’s almost ridiculous to put out a 10 year goal as we don’t know where we are going to be in 5 years, so maybe  a year at a time could be better as that allows for adjustments with the new left curve that technology throws us everyday.  BD 

As part of its new roadmap to improve healthcare quality, the Health & Human Services Department has challenged developers to create applications for professionals who are working on national health objectives and with state and community data.

HHS detailed the “myHealthyPeople” challenge as a part of its Healthy People 2020, the nation’s next set of 10-year goals and objectives for health promotion and disease prevention, which it unveiled Dec. 2.

For the past 30 years, HHS has made its Healthy People effort a framework for public health prevention priorities and actions. Chronic diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, are responsible for seven out of every 10 deaths annually and account for 75 percent of the nation’s health spending, said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Many of the risk factors that contribute to the development of these diseases are preventable.

http://www.govhealthit.com/newsitem.aspx?nid=75414

Technorati Tags: HealthPeople,HHS,sofware,heatlhcare,websites,framework,public health,disease,cost,collaboration,innovation

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Personal Health Records – PHR Roundtable At the ONC-Hope All Experts and Attendees Actually Use a PHR-Hands On Experience Coupled with Other Knowledge Is The Best

A little background here on the Medical Quack is that I have been following PHRs since they began with HealthVault and Google Health and actually have a section on the blog with over 300 posts with many ‘how to’s” and a ton of information.  What is very distressing though is on the internet I run across all these “experts” with PHRs and when I ask them which one do they use, I get something like this…ummm….well…I’ve looked at a few…thinking about starting one…to the ending of something like I’m going to start one next week. <grin>. 

Yes this does make me chuckle as PHRS ARE CONSUMER PRODUCTS AND SO MANY ARE FREE, SO IF YOU ARE AN EXPERT, WHICH ONE DO YOU USE? 

We end up with Magpie PHR Chat which is just about like reading a book on how to drive a car and then showing someone else how to drive via text book knowledge?  Stuff will be missed; however if you choose to be trained and educated by someone who currently drives a car, aha, much better knowledge to be gained, as again nothing like first hand knowledge with “consumer products” and PHRs ARE CONUMER PRODUCTS.  Even if participants are not heavily involved at least take the time to take one out for a trial run. 

I see this so much out there too with the “Magpies” that just repeat what they hear and have never stuck a toe in the water and thus they just repeat and we get the awkward paradigm that keeps surfacing of “it’s for those guys over there”.  If you read here often enough you have seen this mentioned before when I address the “non participants” we have in Congress that are lacking in some general consumer digital literacy.  You can’t help but notice that as it is in the OMG news all the time. 

I’m not really picking on anyone in particular here as I have busted Microsoft employees who don’t use their own HealthVault too on occasion and there’s probably just as many hanging around Google with the same issue, so those 2 in particular might think about their “internal sell” as again it is not “just for those guys over there”. If it is so good, everyone should be using one and at least companies that provide them should promote the use internally, AGAIN THIS IS A CONSUMER PRODUCT AND FREE TOO FOR THOSE 2 MENTIONED. 

One other item too that I see around the web is that so many write these long elaborate posts on why you should be using a PHR, and then they don’t use one, so what’s up that that?  I see many other bloggers do this and don’t even provide their readers a like to get started with one, but they are healthcare bloggers so I would think a few links for their readers would be helpful, right?  I do it and it doesn’t take up that much valuable real estate on a site.  If consumers see the links often enough around the web, it just might perk that area of curiosity and nothing gets started without that being perked.  Back in September of 2009, the link between curiosity and intelligence was published. 

The Link between intelligence and Curiosity Is Discovered

Back in January of 2009 I sat and listened to the Senate Finance committee video, which they have now removed, hear testimonies from Kaiser Permanente and Microsoft and duh, none of them knew what a PHR was and mildly related to electronic medical records.  Hopefully we have grown since that day!   I was reading Dr. Halamka’s blog that day and he posted the link so I took the time to watch the 2 hour long video and a compliment here is deserved as well for his testimony as they all called him the “jet” and we need of fleet of people like him.  When you read what is posted on the web, his information has value for a couple reasons.  One this that he is such a smart guy, but rather more important is the fact that he takes time to share that knowledge and he’s “hands on”.  I have not seen anyone else out there with the credibility and it’s sad as again we need more like him out there who are not afraid and who actually put their hands on technology and touch the stuff and share it openly, again while most of the rest of what I see falls into the “magpie” category. 

Dr. Halamka is an MD but still take the time to establish his own PHR too and shares information from his experiences.  I do the same from my little corner of the world as best I can as that is what people want today, not the experts that adhere to the old paradigm of “it’s for those guys over there”.  On that note, I hope all that work in the ONC have a PHR too, it sure helps when it comes to professing what is good for the goose is also good for the gander <grin>.   I was kind of disappointed in not seeing Dr. Halamka on the list but I can completely understand as he has other stuff going on too with keeping the hospital IT system up and running as well. 

The other day I made a comment too on the amount of mobile applications we have out there too and pretty much said if they don’t connect to a PHR, if they are devices that collect data, then they are useless as being tied to a site that is web based and is used to collect data for marketing can be deceiving too.  Again, I hope all these scholars, and prominent researchers here take time to use a PHR and the same for companies that develop, it’s called “eat your own dog food” internally and when that occurs we all get smarter and benefit. 

Role models in this area suck as nobody wants to be one.  I have harped on that in healthcare for over 2 years and then we see these awful stories in the news how consumers lack IT literacy, again beating up on the consumer when we can’t get anyone off their duff to be a role model, and I guess they are either scared or are non participants themselves so in that case don’t open mouth as you might be asked some “social questions”, you know like we all do on the social networks, so in essence I guess you could say our leader suck at being social. 

We are going to expect that all use a PHR and yet we have those in Congress that have problems with using properties of Adobe pdfs so these folks are great candidates for becoming participants with digital consumer literacy and a PHR is a good place to start.  Consumers are getting hammered and told how dumb they are and it’s not fair when this level if illiteracy exists at the very top levels. 

The Properties of an Adobe pdf Document -Rachel Maddow Rips the GOP on Lack of General Consumer IT Knowledge And Exposes the Input and Authors of the Content–Lobbyists

Our governor though here in California has started an initiative though this is a good thing.

California Governor Initiates Digital Literacy Campaign By Executive Order

I’ll be sure though to check back even though I can’t attend and review and read up on what comes out of this, but again as I stated, more participants and a steering away from the paradigm of “it’s for those guys over there” is truly needed and role models too.  Here’s an older post that that topic, so please with image and everything being so important today, at least have some images on the web with minimal Joe Biden using a cell phone or for that matter Kathleen Sebelius, and again not picking but I looked all over the web and can’t see a picture of either using any technology. 

HHS National Plan to Improve Health Literacy – Not Going To Happen Until We Focus on Using Technology (The Tool for Literacy) Which Includes Role Models at HHS And Other Places in Government

This is important too as you have other software companies like Intuit wanting to integrate with PHRS and at one point I think they thought I didn’t like them, which was not the story at all, I was just being honest and conveying how few would know what they are talking about and later they did their own survey and found out, so again not picking but being a realist here, something I think is hard to find with all the “Shell Answer Men” that seem to walk the planet today. 

Intuit Does a Study That Reveals Most American Do Not Understand Medical Bills and and EOBs – Not Big News Here

ONE FINAL LAST COMMENT – PHRS ARE CONSUMER PRODUCTS AND AGAIN I HOPE ALL THE EXPERTS AN SCHOLARS ON THE PANELS ARE ACTIVE USERS OF A PERSONAL HEALTH RECORD AS HANDS ON EXPERIENCE REALLY HELPS TREMENDOUSLY.  BD 

The Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will host a free day-long public Roundtable on "Personal Health Records — Understanding the Evolving Landscape." The Roundtable is designed to inform ONC’s Congressionally mandated report on privacy and security requirements for non-Covered Entities (non-CEs), with a focus on personal health records (PHRs) and related service providers (Section 13424 of the HITECH Act).

The Roundtable will include four panels of prominent researchers, legal scholars, and representatives of consumer, patient, and industry organizations. It will address the current state and evolving nature of PHRs and related technologies (including mobile technologies and social networking), consumer and industry expectations and attitudes toward privacy and security practices, and the pros and cons of different approaches to the requirements that should apply to non-CE PHRs and related technologies.

HealthIT.hhs.gov: Personal Health Records – PHR Roundtable

Technorati Tags: PHR,EHR,data,consumers,Google Health,HealthVault,healthcare,Health IT,non participants,ONC,medical records,roundtable,Mapgie healthcare

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Norton Healthcare To Use Microsoft Health Solutions Platforms to Support Its Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Initiative

This ACO is the first in the region and one of four national pilot sites for the Brookings-Dartmouth ACO Pilot Project.  ED clinicians, primary care doctors, specialists, nurses, patients or family members will have the ability to access, view and share health data at the right time for more more informed decisions and to improve care delivery and outcomes.  Recently in the news with Amalga is the option for clinicians to have a single sign on and this is a huge convenience for those accessing the system and records without having to constantly sign on and maintain appropriate security through the the software with Sentillion. 

Single Sign on for Microsoft Amalga – Sentillion Signs License Agreement

Amalga will be used to create comprehensive views of patients managing chronic conditions by combining clinical data from inpatient and outpatient sites, payment data from Humana and patients will be able to contribute via HealthVault personal health records.  When you read further down you will also see how the use of devices that report data will be used with the patient opting to include blood pressure readings,glucose, etc.  Using connected devices with HealthVault makes it easy for the patient to enter data into their HealthVault PHR without manually having to sit down at a computer and type it all in, and we all like that for sure.  What is also interesting here is the payment data from insurer Humana being added to the files as this is somewhat still an area where insurers are figuring out where their roles are specific with ACOs. 

A while back I had the opportunity to chat with Steve Shihadeh from Microsoft about where Amalga and HealthVault were headed and the link below contains some additional information on how the platforms are being use at other locations and what some of the possibilities are.  BD

Steve Shihadeh, VP Microsoft Health Solutions Group – The Amalga Software Solution for Aggregating Hospital Information (Interview)

Press Release:

REDMOND, Wash., and LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Dec. 2, 2010 — Norton Healthcare has entered into an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to use its health solutions platforms, Microsoft Amalga Unified Intelligence System (UIS) and Microsoft HealthVault. These systems will allow Norton Healthcare to aggregate and mine data in a highly efficient manner and will assist the Louisville, Ky.-based health care system in its Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative.

Norton Healthcare and Humana Inc. are working together to establish the first ACO in the region, which represents one of four national pilot sites for the Brookings-Dartmouth ACO Pilot Project. The ACO model Norton and Humana are co-creating established incentives for health systems to increase quality and efficiency, better coordinate patient care, eliminate waste, and reduce the overuse and misuse of care (see Nov. 23 news release: “Norton Healthcare and Humana Launch Accountable Care Organization”).

Microsoft Amalga UIS, a data aggregation platform, will play a critical role in enabling Norton Healthcare to rapidly gain longitudinal, person-centric and population views of patient data stored across multiple sites and providers, a key element of the ACO pilot. The ability to view a broad set of individual and population patient data will enable the ACO to identify ways to improve the quality of care, improve care coordination across the community and reduce costs.

Specifically, as part of the ACO pilot, Norton will use Amalga UIS to create comprehensive views of patients managing chronic conditions by combining clinical data from inpatient and outpatient sites, payment data from Humana, and patient-provided data from HealthVault, a personal health application platform. This will help Norton to identify opportunities for more supportive care, support patient self-monitoring and management, better manage care transitions, and reduce hospital readmissions.

The ACO also will use HealthVault to support the creation of a patient-centric medical home by giving patients an easy way to store and share personal health information with providers, and to track and share health indicators, including blood pressure and weight, through the use of connected personal health devices, such as blood pressure cuffs, glucometers and scales that are connected to their health care provider via computer.

Patients will benefit by having a personalized portal view of portions of their electronic medical record (EMR). They can take more responsibility for their own health by tracking their progress in areas such as exercise, blood glucose, weight and blood pressure. Having their clinical information available to non-Norton Healthcare providers lessens the chance of patients receiving duplicate tests or conflicting care instructions.

“Using Amalga UIS and Microsoft HealthVault, Norton Healthcare will have access to an extensive system wide data and patient relationship strategy designed to improve the health and quality of care for our patients,” said Steven T. Hester, M.D., MBA, system senior vice president and chief medical officer, Norton Healthcare. “We can use the data to provide a more complete view of a patient’s history.”

“We’re excited to collaborate with Norton Healthcare on its ACO initiative and demonstrate the power of data to transform healthcare,” said Peter Neupert, corporate vice president, Microsoft Health Solutions Group. “We look forward to showing how unlocking health data and making it available for re-use across a health system, from hospital to clinic to home, can improve care outcomes for patients and create efficiencies at the same time.”

Amalga UIS addresses a common and critical challenge of healthcare providers — integrating vast amounts of clinical, administrative and financial information that flows in and out of disparate information systems, and tailoring that information for use by physicians, analysts, laboratory technicians, nurses and administrators. Amalga takes advantage of health enterprises’ investments in existing health IT solutions, making it possible for the entire organization to gain quick access to data and turn that information into critical knowledge that facilitates better decision-making and improved patient outcomes.

Microsoft HealthVault is a personal health application platform designed to put consumers in control of their health information. HealthVault provides a privacy- and security-enhanced foundation on which a broad range of providers can build innovative health and wellness solutions, such as personal health records, disease management, fitness, weight loss and other Web applications. HealthVault can be used to collect and store health information that would otherwise reside in disparate systems and transfer the information between a variety of providers’ health services and systems. It enables the reuse and free flow of interoperable and transportable personal health information.

Amalga UIS is in use at more than 120 hospitals in renowned U.S. health organizations, including NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, The Johns Hopkins Health System and the Wisconsin Health Information Exchange. More information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/amalga.

About Norton Healthcare

For more than a century, Norton Healthcare’s faith heritage has guided its mission to provide quality health care to all those it serves. Today, Norton Healthcare is the Louisville area’s leading hospital and health care system (44 percent market share) and third largest private employer, providing care at more than 100 locations throughout Greater Louisville and Southern Indiana. The not-for-profit system includes five Louisville hospitals; 12 Norton Immediate Care Centers; 10,900 employees; nearly 400 employed medical providers; and more than 2,300 total physicians on its medical staff. For five consecutive years, Norton Healthcare has been recognized as one of the Best Places to Work in Kentucky. The health care system serves patients in the Greater Louisville area, including Southern Indiana, and throughout Kentucky. More information is available at www.Nortonhealthcare.com.

About Microsoft in Health

Microsoft is committed to improving health around the world through software innovation. Over the past 13 years, Microsoft has steadily increased its investments in health, with a focus on addressing the challenges of health providers, health and social services organizations, payers, consumers and life sciences companies worldwide. Microsoft closely collaborates with a broad ecosystem of partners and develops its own powerful health solutions, such as Amalga and HealthVault. Together, Microsoft and its industry partners are working to deliver health solutions for the way people aspire to work and live.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

Norton Healthcare Enters Agreement With Microsoft: Norton Healthcare has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to use its health solutions platforms to support its Accountable Care Organization (ACO) initiative.

Related Reading:

A Deep Dive into Microsoft Life Sciences Today and in the Future – Interview with Michael Naimoli

Microsoft Introduces Groundbreaking Technology – Amalga Life Sciences Software

Microsoft Research Trento Centre: Biology and Computer Science Coming Together

Microsoft Amalga at Wisconsin Health Information Exchange – Video about their RHIO Solution

Technorati Tags: Norton Healthcare,Microsoft,Amalga,HealthVault,heatlhcare,Health IT,software,ACO,Accountable Care Ogranization,Medicare

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