A perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine critiques the application of Medicare value-based purchasing to physicians, pointing out that doctors have not accepted the system or the specific quality measures and participation is likely to be very limited until a better and less expensive system is implemented.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1312287
Jan242014
DocsInk, a startup providing mobile administrative services to medical practices, has raised about $1 million.
A JAMA Viewpoint discusses use of guidelines by physicians, opining that guideline adherence is still spotty, costing the system billions and lowering quality, and recommending methods to improve both guidelines and use of them.
Surgical Information Systems, which does what its name suggests, has acquired AmKai Solutions, which also offers software and data analytics to surgery providers.
Streamline Health, which provides knowledge management systems to health care industry participants, has agreed to acquire Unibase Systems, which offers patient access software.
Veria Living, which provides a multiplatform approach to health and wellness information, has acquired dLife, which provides information and a social community for patients with diabetes.
Cloud-based EHR provider Kareo has raised about $30 million to bring its free core application to more physicians. Kareo makes money by selling add-on capabilities.
A perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine points out that although the Medicare physician value-based purchasing program starts this year, doctors generally are unprepared and unengaged and there are more issues with this program than the comparable one for hospitals, including a lack of predecessor programs, sample size and measure issues and reward/penalty design.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1311957
Jan232014
Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that severely obese patients who underwent bariatric surgery generally had significant weight loss in the three years following surgery, but other outcomes related to diabetes, blood pressure and lipids were more variable.
According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, eating more nuts is correlated with a lower risk of total and cause-specific mortality, so go nuts on nuts!!
A study in the journal Stress and Health finds that people with private or no insurance had lower levels of psychological stress than those with public coverage like Medicare or Medicaid and people with a change in insurance coverage status in the last year also had higher levels of stress, but the relationship is modest, and other factors likely play a larger role in an individual's stress level.
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. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.
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. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.