All Posts By

Kevin Roche

The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry through Roche Consulting, LLC. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.

Nov 22 2013

HHS is seeking comment on proposed quality measures for health plans sold through the exchanges.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-11-19/pdf/2013-27649.pdf
Nov 22 2013

From the Department of failed government IT projects, the Department of Defense has announced that its new EHR won't be ready until 2017, at the earliest.  This following the abandonment of a joint DOD/VA EHR that was projected to cost $28 billion (yes, you read that right).  This one will "only" cost $4 or $5 billion; just 10 or 100 times more than buying an off-the-shelf system would, even for this large a customer.  An absurd waste of taxpayer money.

http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2013/11/pentagons-electronic-health-record-not-ready-initial-use-until-2017/74135/#disqus_thread
Nov 22 2013

CodeSmart has received $1.5 million in equity financing to help with its IDC-10 related products.

http://www.pehub.com/2013/11/20/codesmart-grabs-1-5-mln/
Nov 21 2013

A scale that measures the relationships that patients and physicians have appears to show that poor relationships lead to perceptions of poorer quality according to a study in the Annals of Family Medicine.

http://www.annfammed.org/content/11/6/543.full
Nov 21 2013

eClincial Works is investing $50 million and hiring 100 software developers to strengthen its patient engagement and population health management capabilities.

http://medcitynews.com/2013/11/eclinical-works-adding-100-software-developers-part-50m-investment/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=75baf350f4-RSS_Daily+Top+Stories&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c05cce483a-75baf350f4-67648197
Nov 20 2013

General Electric is selling its Vital Signs unit, which makes anesthesiology and respiratory products, to Carefusion for $500 million.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303985504579205712067990806?mod=dist_smartbrief
Nov 20 2013

A study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research reports that use of an app on a smartphone can help improve glycemic control in patients with Type 1 diabetes.

http://www.jmir.org/2013/11/e235/
Nov 19 2013

MapMyFitness, a maker of apps to enter and track various kinds of exercise and fitness apps, hit the jackpot, being bought out by Under Armour, a maker of sports clothing for a cool $150 million.  Map that!!

http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20131114-909210.html?dsk=yhttp://
Nov 19 2013

Acupera has raised $2 million for its population health management and workflow tool that creates more visual displays of patient data.

http://medcitynews.com/2013/11/health-companys-workflow-tool-helps-physicians-identify-patient-needs/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=b1d1c157a6-RSS_Daily+Top+Stories&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c05cce483a-b1d1c157a6-67056361
Nov 19 2013

More hospitals are being penalized, and penalized more on average, under Medicare's value-based purchasing program.  Some hospitals are also getting bonuses.  It is unclear what the consequences of the program are or will be on hospital behavior and patient care.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/November/14/value-based-purchasing-medicare.aspx?utm_source=medicaretop&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=111813
Nov 18 2013

A survey from Humana indicates that on average Medicare beneficiaries spend 22 hours making a decision on Medicare choices, including selection of a Medicare Advantage plan.  About 64% said that quality and keeping their current physician were the most important factors in their decisions.

http://humana.newshq.businesswire.com/press-release/many-medicare-beneficiaries-spending-nearly-24-hours-researching-and-selecting-their-m