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St. Josephs and Hoag Hospital In the OC Form New Healthcare Network Combining Hospitals
The two hospital systems actually announced the plans for the new network, Covenant Health back in August of last year. This makes it official and the two systems are the best in Orange county. The offices will be based in Irvine so I am guessing it’s in the office area of the new Hoag facility. …
New Mobile App Does Urinalysis With the IPhone–Lab on a Phone
This was shown at the TED conference in Long Beach and looks to be quite useful and no you don’t pee on your phone. The app is being tested at a hospital in India and was developed by an MIT graduate. It uses time lapsed images to read the dip stick. You do have to pee in a container and dip for…
Flawed Data With Physician and Hospital Rating Sites- Want To Go See Michael Jackson’s Former Dermatologist? Vitals and HealthGrades Says He’s Still There - Not…Flawed Data & Algorithms Persist…
Yes it’s time once again to review this topic once more to talk about flawed data the the little value these sites have to offer. I have said a couple times the rating are nuts as UCLA and Boston Hospitals never seem to make the top of their listings. It’s using some type of quantitative formula f…
New York Statewide Health Information Network Has First Hospital Provider Using the Direct Project to Use Direct Messaging
Remember the commitments back in 2011 (link below) with all the EHR vendors and other HIT entities who committed to using the Direct Project, just about all the major players. You can read at the link below for a refresher. Also HealthVault was right in there too with the PHR to offer their “Direc…
Extormity EHR Anticipates a High Level of Client Suicides For Those Who Can’t Change to Another Medical Records System–And Is Ready To Help the Remaining 40% Get Moving…Humor
I made sure I put “humor” in the title as of late we have some GOP folks not being able to distinguish the difference:) If you missed that one here’s the link…and here we have our favorite Health IT satire buddies back at it. Let’s face it, what choice do you have but suicide if you can’t afford t…
Health Insurance Exchanges–Will State IT Departments Be Able to Meet the Deadlines…A Wait and See, And What About That Flawed Data?
I don’t care where you look in Healthcare IT today, everyone has a lot on their plates. The Exchanges for each state are supposed to be online and available for consumers in October of this year, but will they make it? The federal government is now in charge of setting them up for a large number o…
Telus Health Acquires MD Practice Software Which Makes the Company the Dominant Force With EHRs in Canada
Telus has now become the largest EMR vendor in Canada with this acquisition. They have around 9,000 physicians out of the 50k market of Canadian doctors. Back in 2010 Telus also licensed the Microsoft Health Vault Platform for personal health records. Telus Canada Pilot PHR Goes Online w…
FDA Approves Non Estrogen Based Pill for Post Menopausal Women
This is a pill this time and not a cream or lubricant that is taken once a day. It is to help restore and strengthen vaginal wall tissues that cause pain during intercourse. The medication binds to the receptors and activates some of the mechanisms that shut down during menopause. It also raises …
Aetna Creates a Branding Name for the Health IT Companies They Have Purchased, Healthagen
It’s a mouthful, Healthagen. The company has been buying up IT companies for a while, basically following what United has done for a long time and they are nowhere near the huge daisy chain they have. As a matter of fact the company is finally paying up on the 15 year short pay of hospitals and d…
Code.Org, The Video Coming to a Theater, or School Near You Soon Starring Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and More..An Outreach for Education
This is great and there are all different levels of writing code. I’m old one that wrote from the bottom up with VB6 and today we have platforms and even dot net from Microsoft where part of the code you will need is already done for you, so you write application on top of what has already been don…
California Forms Statewide ICD-10 Collaborative As It Will Have Major Effects on Operations and Revenue Streams–Help and Support for Smaller Providers
Ok this is getting a little more attention as the time comes near. The collaborative is being lead by St. Josephs and a few other larger institutions. Holy Moly if this gets implemented on time. I do wonder if deadlines might be extended here too. It was done once and we do have those insurance …
Half of Analytics Investments By Companies and Banks Will Be a Waste–What Do We Analyze with Big Data and Does It Have Value–Some Algo Fairies Would Do Better at Disneyland…
This is a great article and some folks who have some foresight here. I write the Medical Quack to bring some understanding to the layman level as best I can and already I’m seeing this in some of the stuff in healthcare. You can’t turn linear data into non linear and expect to find relatio…
Crescent Healthcare, A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Walgreens–Security Breach With the Personal Health Records, Again Time to License and Tax the Data Sellers Out There To Help Regulate Data Flow & Profits
Not too long ago Walgreens made the news that pharmacists and all involved in clinical patient treatment areas would have access to a patient’s personal health record, used via their retail clinics. I don’t know if this is the specific information relating to those data bases or not as discussed in…
FDA Approves New Late Stage Breast Cancer Drug From Roche, Life Extending Kadcyla
TDM-1 was the name given to the drug during the clinical trial. One thing that’s not any different is the price of another life extending drug, about $9800 a month and will be available in a couple of weeks. Kadcyla is a combination of a current cancer drug, Herceptin and a chemotherapy drug named…
Doctor Who Helped US Find Bin Laden Sits Jailed in Pakistan–Will Zero Dark Thirty Nominated for an Oscar Help Free America’s Abandoned Hero?–Update
We all know the Oscars are up and coming and that the movie has been nominated for an award. This is sad that the doctor now sits imprisoned sentenced to 33 years after helping the US. I don’t know all the details on why he was not given an opportunity to leave the country but sitting in prison fo…
You know I saw this and I had to laugh too one one side and on the other end it scares the daylights out of me. I’m one of those out here with a few others that would just love to “help” educate some of these folks as that would save them from themselves. The world is moving quick today and it is …
Why Medical Bills Are Out of Control–Steven Brill From Time Magazine “The Bitter Pill” With Jon Stewart…Killer Algorithms Part 55 (Videos)
Jon Stewart does a pretty good job with this serious topic. There are 3 parts to the interview. The point out that non-profits do make money. MRIs are one of the first topics discussed and that has been in the news of late with the various charges and prices you get. All the pricing is done with…
Latest From Health Insurance Business Intelligence Analytics For Avoiding Risk and Saving Money, Break Up Marriages and Dump the Spouse Coverage
Surcharge are becoming more well known for spouses and when the numbers are crunched, risk assessments are performed along with any other type of risk numbers such as mortality rates, etc. and the results must be saying “dump the spouse” according to this article in Market Watch. This is pretty muc…
