A blog covering the health/care ecosystem and people.

Nearly one-half of Americans experienced a personal data breach in the past three years, the third annual national cybersecurity survey found. Ensuring privacy and cybersecurity should become integrated into the healthcare industry’s consideration of a patient’s consumer experience. This makes sense, given that privacy and cybersecurity ranked the second highest priority to hospitals and healthcare providers polled in HIMSS 2018 Healthcare Leadership Survey. Providers put patient safety as #1. Appropriately, privacy and security were hot topics at HIMSS Annual Conference this year, in respond to providers’ demands for more education and concerns around the challenges. Let’s put these concerns in

On July 18, 2017, Neil Gomes, Chief Digital Officer at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, tweeted this: When I saw this tweet, I was especially struck by Gomes’s phrase, “Designed & developed with heart/love by my @DICEGRP.” That’s Jefferson’s health solutions group that focuses on digital innovation and consumer experience. Here’s a health system that’s focused on that customer experience, which has become a critical success factor for healthcare to thrive. That’s because, as Steve Laughlin, VP and General Manager of IBM’s Global Consumer Group recently explained to me, a consumer’s last great customer experience becomes the

This blog appears today as part of a #HIMSS18 primer series for attendees, and the industry at large, to discuss major health IT issues that will help move health and healthcare delivery forward in 2018 – and beyond. I’m grateful to HIMSS to be one of 20 Social Media Ambassadors appointed for this year’s conference, which convenes in Las Vegas at the Sands Expo Center from March 5 to 9th, 2018.  Prioritizing the patient-as-consumer through my health economic lens, the biggest priorities will be: Engaging patients in self-care and driving health and health plan literacy to better manage constrained access

As I am finalizing my schedule for meet-ups at CES in Las Vegas for early January 2018, I’m thinking about digital devices and wearable tech, connected cars, smart homes, and the Internet of Things through my all-health, all-the-time lens. My friends at TrendWatching write today about the automaker, Volkswagen, which has a division called MOIA started in 2016. VW, like most car manufacturers, is working on strategies to avoid being disrupted and made irrelevant as tectonic forces like autonomous cars and shared rides innovate and re-define the nature of personal transportation. MOIA is a brand and a self-described “social movement.”

In 2016, most consultations between patients and Kaiser-Permanente Health Plan were virtual — that is, between consumers and clinicians who were not in the same room when the exam or conversation took place. Virtual healthcare may be the new black for healthcare providers. Mercy Health System in St. Louis launched a virtual hospital in 2016, covered here in the Health Populi post, “Love, Mercy, and Virtual Healthcare.” Intermountain Healthcare announced plans to build a virtual hospital in 2018. And, earlier this month, UPMC’s CEO, Jeffrey Romoff, made healthcare headlines saying, “UPMC desires to be the Amazon of healthcare.” UPMC, aka University of Pittsburgh

The future of effective and efficient healthcare will be underpinned by artful combinations of both digital technologies and “analog humans,” if the first day of the Health 2.0 Conference is a good predictor. Big thoughts about a decentralized future in healthcare kicked off Day 1 of the 11th annual Health 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara, CA. The co-founders of Health 2.0 (H20), Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya, explained the five drivers of the tech-enabled health future. 1. The new interoperability, underpinned by FHIR standards and blockchain. “FHIR” stands for fast healthcare interoperability resources, which are informatics standards that enable data

We have entered an era of insecurity in healthcare in America. While major attention is being paid to healthcare insurance and service insecurity, food insecurity and financial insecurity, there’s another one to add to this list: medical device security. As more medical devices have moved into the digital internet-connected mode, the risk for malware, ransomware, and overall hack-ability grows. This increasing and challenging risk is covered in the report, Medical Device Security: An Industry Under Attack and Unprepared to Defend from Ponemon Institute. Ponemon Institute has been tracking information security across industries, including healthcare, for several years. In this survey, sponsored

The most trusted stewards for protecting consumers’ health data are “my providers:” “my” physician (88%), “my” pharmacy (85%), and “my” hospital” (84%). according to the Accenture 2017 Consumer Survey on Healthcare Cybersecurity and Digital Trust. Who’s least-trusted? Government (56%) and tech companies (57%). Note, though, that most Americans (over 50%) trust these health data holders — it’s just that fewer people trust them than healthcare providers, who are top health information protectors in health consumers’ trust rosters. Accenture commissioned Nielsen to conduct this survey in November 2016 in seven countries. The results discussed here in Health Populi focus on the

Most medical things exhibited at CES 2017 are connected devices with apps that collect, analyze, and feedback data and information to users (patients, consumers, caregivers) and health/care providers (physicians, nurses, care coaches, and others who support people in self-care). While the Internet of Things is generally thought to cover more generic stuff for smart and connected homes, network-connected health and medical technologies are also part of the larger IoT phenomenon. And like health and medical “things” exhibited at #CES2017, other consumer electronics that people will purchase this year ongoing will be connected to the Internet, from refrigerators to cars, to

Notwithstanding the head of the AMA recently referring to digital health technologies as “snake oil,” it appears that one-half of physicians is keen on digital health. And scale, not age, matters when it comes to doctors using digital health tools. The American Medical Association (AMA) surveyed physicians on their use of digital health tools, finding that primary care physicians (PCPs) and doctors working in larger and more complex practices tend to be more digital. In Physicians’ motivations and requirements for adopting digital clinical tools, the AMA’s digital health study, “Physicians are optimistic about digital health innovation and its game-changing potential

Investing information technology dollars in telehealth and mobile platforms, patient engagement, and cybersecurity are major focuses for leading IT-savvy hospitals in America, according to the 2016 Most Wired survey of healthcare organizations, released in July 2016 sponsored by Hospitals and Health Networks and Health Forum, a division of the American Hospitals Association. This survey, in its 18th year, has become an important benchmark measuring the adoption of information technology tools and services among American hospitals and health systems. The complete list of Most Wired hospitals for 2016 can be found here. The most popular telehealth services offered by the Most Wired hospitals are

Digital platforms and tools are fast-advancing in all industries, and especially in health and health care. But it’s people-first, and digital PLUS analog, based on Accenture’s latest forecast of five macro technology trends. The five forces are: Intelligent automation – 70% of health executives expect to invest more in artificial intelligence; Liquid workforce – 42% of health/care workers are expected to be contractors or free agents within organizations within 3 years’ Platform economy – 10x growth is expected in application programming interfaces (APIs) in the next five years, which will enable data to liquidly move across healthcare platforms Predictable disruption

There’s an overall feeling of angst about healthcare in America among both health care consumers and the people who provide care — physicians and administrators. On one thing most healthcare consumers and providers (can agree: that the U.S. health care system is on the wrong track.  Another area of commonality between consumers and providers regards privacy and security of health information: while healthcare providers will continue to increase investments in digital health tools and electronic health records systems, both providers and consumers are concerned about the security of personal health information. In How We View Healthcare in America: Consumer and Provider Perspectives,

Consumers may demand connected experiences in daily living, but there have been many barriers to health care industry stakeholders delivering on that expectation: among them, privacy and security concerns, and provider resistance. This demand-and-supply chasm is noted in Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions’ latest look into the healthcare landscape, Accelerating the adoption of connected health. The objectives of connected health, or cHealth, are: To improve digital connectivity among consumers, providers, health plans and life sciences companies To facilitate self-managed care in a secure environment that protects privacy To deliver care outside of traditional institutional settings To enable chronic care management

A Congressional hearing on the Internet of Things was held on July 29, 2015. “As we talk about your home, your lighting, your messaging, your voice, and, of course, your health and your actual biological function, issues like privacy and data security for these interoperable technologies become not just something to talk about but an area in which we in Congress play a large and potentially destructive — if we’re not careful — role in the development of these technologies,” cautioned the Honorable Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives. Pictured with Chairman Goodlatte are the other witnesses

When you think about life insurance, images of actuaries churning numbers to construct mortality tables may come to mind. Mortality tables show peoples’ life expectancy based on various demographic characteristics. John Hancock is flipping the idea life insurance to shift it a bit in favor of “life” itself. The company is teaming with Vitality, a long-time provider of wellness tools programs, to create insurance products that incorporate discounts for healthy living. The programs also require people to share their data with the companies to quality for the discounts, which the project’s press release says could amount to $25,000 over the

They’re the team that built a brand with the phrase “Health 2.0” before the world barely recognized v 1.0 in healthcare. This week, those folks that brought you the Health 2.0 Conference unveiled the Market Intel database of over 3,000 companies, trying to make sense out of a very blurry and fast-morphing market landscape. I spoke with Matthew Holt and Kim Krueger of Health 2.0 earlier this week to discuss just what’s in this mine of information, and what they intend to do with it. In full disclosure, I have been a colleague and friend of Matthew Holt since his

Health is where we live, work, play and pray — my and others’ mantra if we want to truly bend (down) the cost curve and improve medical outcomes. If we’re serious about achieving the Triple Aim — improving public health, lowering spending, and enhancing the patient/health consumer experience (which can drive activation and ongoing engagement) — then you see health everywhere at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. With this post, I’ll share with you the major themes I’m seeing at #CES2015 related to health, wellness, and DIYing medical care at home. The meta: from health care to self-care.

‘Tis the season for annual health trendcasting, which is part of my own business model. Here’s a curated list of some of my favorite trend reports for health care in the new year, with my Hot Points in the conclusion, below, summarizing the most salient trends among them. TechCrunch’s Top 5 Healthcare Predictions for 2015: In this succinct forecast, Walmart grows its presence as a health plan, startups get more pharm-funding, hospitals channel peer-to-peer lending, Latinos emerge as a “most-desired” health care segment, and Amazon disrupts the medical supply chain. Experian 2015 Data Breach Forecast: Healthcare security breaches will be

Mobile and digital technologies will bend the health care cost curve, drive individual and population health, and solve the nagging challenge of health disparities. Mobile and digital technologies will increase costs to health providers, disrupt work flows and lower clinicians’ productivity, and hit a market bubble. Depending on your lens into mHealth, and what product categories and user segments you’re looking at, all of the above can be true. The plenary session of the 2014 mHeath Summit kicked off with Dr. Harry Leider, Chief Medical Information Officer of Walgreens, who spoke of the pharmacy’s evolving role across the entire continuum of care,

There’s a health information disconnect among U.S. adults: most people believe online access to their personal health information is important, but three-quarters of people who were offered access to their health data and didn’t do so didn’t perceive the need to. The first two graphs illustrate each of these points. When people do access their online health records, they use their information for a variety of reasons, including monitoring their health (73%), sharing their information with family or care providers (44%), or downloading the data to a mobile device or computer (39%). In this context, note that 1 in 3

Patients are concerned about private risks of personal health data, resulting in some patients not disclosing certain information to health providers to protect their perceived EHR privacy and security risks. Peoples’ mixed feelings about sharing personal health information with their providers and EHRs is explored in The double-edged sword of electronic health records: implications for patient disclosure, published in the July 2014 issue of JAMIA, the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). “The perception of the [EHR] technology may elicit non-disclosure as a privacy-protecting behavior,” the authors warn. Celeste Campos-Castillo and Denise Anthony, the paper’s researchers who work in

“For Big Data, Big Questions Remain,” an article by Dawn Falk in the July 2014 issue of Health Affairs, captures the theme of the entire journal this month. That’s because, for every opportunity described in each expert’s view, there are also obstacles, challenges, and wild cards that impede the universal scaling of Big Data in the current U.S. healthcare and policy landscape. What is Big Data, anyway? It’s a moving target, Falk says: computing power is getting increasingly powerful (a la Moore’s Law), simpler and cheaper. At the same time, the amount of information applicable to health and health care

Smarter homes can conserve energy, do dirty jobs, and remind you to take your medicine. In doing all these things, smart homes can also collect data about what you do inside every single room of that home. The fast convergence of Wi-Fi and sensors are laying the foundation for the Internet of Things, where objects embedded with sensors do things they’re specially designed to do, and collect information while doing them. This begs the questions: what do you want to know about yourself and your family? How much do you want to know? And, with whom do you want to

8 in 10 people in the U.S. believe that total privacy in the digital world is history, based on a survey from Accenture conducted online in March and April 2014 and published in the succinctly-titled report, Eighty Percent of Consumers Believe Total Data Privacy No Longer Exists. 84% of U.S. consumers say they’re aware what tracking personal behavior can enable – receiving customized offers and content that match one’s interests. At the same time, 63% of people in the U.S. also say they have a concern over tracking behavior. Only 14% of people in the U.S. believe there are adequate safeguards

People managing chronic diseases are more likely to have accessed information in their electronic medical records — and are also less likely to worry about the privacy risks of their personal electronic health information compared with people who are healthy. Over 2,000 people, both those who say they’re healthy and those with chronic conditions, were surveyed by Accenture in February-March 2014, and their responses are summarized in the report, Consumers with Chronic Conditions Believe the Ability to Access Electronic Medical Records Outweighs Concern of Privacy Invasion. Slight more consumers are concerned about privacy risks related to online banking, online shopping,

  9 in 10 U.S. adults would be willing to share their personal health information  to help researchers better understand a disease or improve care and treatment options — with varying desires to control the anonymity of their data, according to  the fourth Makovsky Health/Kelton Survey published April 24, 2014. This study gauged peoples’ perspectives on personal data privacy based on 1,001 responses from Americans ages 18 and older and was fielded in March 2014. The chart shows four variations on the theme of consumers’ interest in sharing their personal health data with researchers, finding that: – 40% of people

The convergence of technology developments – such as the internet, mobile phone adoption, cloud computing, sensors, electronic health records – with societal evolution including consumerism, demand for transparency, and “flatter” organizations – enable the phenomenon of Connected Health. Connected Health by definition includes mobile health (mHealth), telehealth and telemedicine, as presented in the February 2014 issue of Health Affairs which is dedicated to this theme. Why Connected Health’s time is Now relates to those factors cited above, and the underlying challenge of managing health care costs. While all nations in the developed world are facing difficult health economies, the U.S. spends so

Of 100 broad-based trends to expect in 2014, most relate in some way to health. I’ve reviewed every one of the 100 forecast points in JWT’s 100 Things to Watch in 2014 report, and it seems Health is Everywhere. Let me point out many, which I’ve allocated to health-ified buckets (note that JWT organizes the list of 100 by alphabet, from “A” to “Z,” so they are not in any prioritized or strategic order). The most direct-health impacting bucket of trends are those in health tech. These include E-cigarette regulation (#35), Glassware (#42), Haptic technology (#46), Needle-free vaccines (#64), Oculus Rift (#65), OTT TV (#66), Telediagnostics

1 in two people who are insured and have a regular doctor are interested in trying out an electronic medical record. But they need a doctor or nurse to suggest this, and they need it to be easy to use. The EMR Impact survey was conducted by Aeffect and 88 Brand Partners to assess 1,000 U.S. online consumers’ views on electronic medical records (EMRs): specifically, how do insured American adults (age 25 to 55 who have seen their regular physician in the past 3 years) view accessing their personal health information via EMRs? Among this population segment, 1 in 4 people (24%)

  Exploiting Big Data in industry is Big News these days, and nowhere is the potential for leveraging the concept greater than in health care. McKinsey & Company estimates that harnessing big data across five dimensions of health care could yield nearly one-half trillion dollars’ worth of value in The ‘big data’ revolution in healthcare. The chart summarizes McKinsey’s calculations on the value of Big Data in health care at its maximum. Before digging into the value potential, just what is Big Data in health care? Statistics and information are generated in the health care system about patients: say, during visits

In 2010, the folks who supported health care reform were massacred by the polls, Bill Clinton told a rapt audience of thousands at HIMSS13 yesterday. In 2012, the folks who were against health care reform were similarly rejected. President Clinton gave the keynote speech at the annual HIMSS conference on March 6, 2013, and by the spillover, standing-room-only crowd in the largest hall at the New Orleans Convention Center, Clinton was a rock star. Proof: with still nearly an hour to go before his 1 pm speech, the auditorium was already full with only a few seats left in the

PwC has seen the future of health care for the next year, and the crystal ball expects to see the following: Affordable Care Act implementation, with states playing lead roles The role of dual eligibles Employer’s role in health care benefits Consumers’ role in coverage Consumers’ ratings impact on health care Transforming health delivery Population health management Bring your own device Pharma’s changing value proposition The medical device industry & tax impact. In their report, Top health industry issues of 2013: picking up the pace on health reform, PwC summarizes these expectations as a “future [that] includes full implementation of

A time-and-technology challenged FDA, proliferation of software-controlled medical devices in and outside of hospitals, and growth of hackers have resulted in medical technology that’s riddled with malware. Furthermore, lack of security built into the devices makes them ripe for hacking and malfeasance. Scenario: a famous figure (say, a politician with an implantable defibrillator or young rock star with an insulin pump) becomes targeted by a hacker, who industriously virtually works his way into the ICD’s software and delivers the man a shock so strong it’s akin to electrocution. Got the picture? Welcome to the dark side of health IT and

While 87% of U.S. adults are familiar with health providers converting paper medical records into digital records, only 26% — 1 in 4 — say they want their own medical records to go digital. This sobering statistic comes as hundreds of thousands of doctors and hospitals are migrating to electronic health records (EHRs), motivated by the U.S. government’s HITECH act which provides incentives for the adoption and so-called meaningful use of EHRs. To gauge U.S. consumers’ views on digital medical records, Xerox polled 2,147 U.S. adults ages 18 and via an online survey in May 2012. The chart illustrates several key

The ability to get the data is the #1 obstacle that will slow the adoption of data analytics in health care, according to IBM’s report, The value of analytics in healthcare: from insights to outcomes. Healthcare “high performers,” as IBM calls them, use data analytics for guiding future strategy, product research and development, and sales and marketing functions. 90% of healthcare CIOs told IBM that developing “insight and intelligence” were key focuses of their organizations over the next 3 to 5 years. Underneath this macro objective are 3 business goals that data analytics addresses in healthcare: to improve clinical effectiveness

How electronically connnected and communicative are nations’ health information infrastructures? Accenture has answered that question in its report, Making the Case for Connected Health. Accenture built a “connected health maturity index,” analyzing a nation’s level of health information exchange among users along with their level of health IT adoption among specialists and primary care doctors. Adoption was defined across four HIT functions: administrative tools, electronic patient notes, electronic alerts/reminders, and computerized decision support systems. Health information exchange was defined across seven connectivity dimensions: electronic communications, e-notifications, e-referrals, e-access to clinical data about patients who see a different provider, e-prescribing, and

“Value” in prescription drugs is first and foremost about outcomes, in the eyes of physicians and biopharma. For managed care, “value” is first about safety, then patient outcomes. However, although one-third of patients managing a chronic condition cannot define “value” in health care, 9 in 10 say that prescription drugs are “valuable” to their health and wellbeing. In fact, 80% say that the money they spend on prescription medications is “worth it.” Yet patients feel largely out of the prescription drug development process. These findings come from Quintiles research report, The 2011 New Health Report, subtitled: exploring perceptions of value and collaborative relationships among

The one issue in health politics that’s got bipartisan support is health care IT. While Republicans in the House may try to pick away parts of the Affordable Care Act, the HITECH Act — part of the 2009 stimulus package formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — will stay intact, according to most industry analysts (including me). However, political agreement doesn’t equal market adoption. So forecasting what 2011 will mean for health information technology requires some deeper analysis of additional issues. For today’s Health Populi, take a look at my annual health IT forecast in California HealthCare Foundation‘s

Women, on average, have far more contact with the health care system over their lifetimes than men do.   So kicks off an analysis of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010’s (PPACA) impact on women, published by The Commonwealth Fund. Realizing Health Reform’s Potential explains that PPACA should insure some 15 million women as well as give fiscal relief to those women who are under-insured or have pre-existing conditions. One of the key underlying factors which stacks the deck against women in health insurance coverage is the fact that insurance companies see young women a higher risk than

“We are only as good in treating patients as the information we have,” opined Dr. David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health information technology in the Department of Health and Human Services, during yesterday’s launch of the new regulations on the meaningful use (MU) of health information technology. In the health care world, yesterday featured a star-studded line-up (live and via webcast) that ushered in the long-awaited meaningful use regulations that provide the roadmap for the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) for providers, hospitals and doctors alike. Simultaneously, Dr. Blumenthal’s 4-page summary of the reg’s was featured in a tidy, useful article in the New

It was the best of times, and the worst of times. Well, perhaps not the worst, but a time to pause and reflect on the power and the money. Thus I turn to a Tale of Two Cities.   As I depart Chicago and the 47th annual conference of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, I recall two different meeting-experiences: the convention floor, with its mood of upbeat urgency, brightly colored booths and activity; and the education sessions and hallway conversations that featured pragmatic, real-world challenges.   ARRA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, with its $19+

I “leave” you for the year with some great, good, and less-than-sanguine expectations for health care in 2008. These are views filtered through my lens on the health care world: the new consumer, health information technology, globalization, politics, and health economics.  Health politics shares the stage with Iraq. Health care is second only to Iraq as the issue that Americans most want the 2008 presidential candidates to talk about, according to the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. Several candidates have responded to the public’s interest with significant health care reform proposals. But major health reform – such as universal access