Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Health Care Reform, Where to Focus

Start the video for some 'listening music' whilst you read today' offerings.


Quote of the day:
One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine. - Sir William Osler

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Steven Beller, PhD  has been blogging for over five years. His recent blog contribution at Curing Health reveals some important clues to where our resources should go in reforming our health care system. He and I became involved in what was probably one of the first blogs, Trusted.MD, started by Dimitriy Krygylak.  That was a time when I was really interested in RHIOs and the implementation of EMRs.

We need a quality Health Train, one that can efficiently carry as many passengers as possible,

and not leave patients at the train station, waiting and hoping for the next express.  When they get on the train we want them to have a safe and relatively good experience in a time when they are ill.  Additional stresses beyond getting well should not be in their path on that goal.

The buzz word for the last two or three  years has been Health 2.0. Heralded as the next "Apple" of the internet it has found some acceptance, but the business model remains weak, except for some focused applications such as .asp solutions for medical management and electronic medical records and personal health records.  In reality .asp has been around for decades since the days of mainframes.  Today's applications are being directed at patients, and consumers.  Steve Case and Revolution Health have been disappointed in their venture for our 'vision' for the future. Well intentioned, Steve Case invested a good portion of his well deserved treasury from American Online.  Revolution Health is now for sale, having been unable to establish a business model with sustainable income.  This should be a loud example that pouring large amounts of money into an idea does not always bear fruit.  Steve should not be faulted...he is not the first, nor the last to go down that path.  Sound familiar? A lot like RHIOs.

And that's the rest of the story.

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