Health care turmoil of the last 10 years was wild enough, but the ride ahead promises to be even wilder. News and social media are swirling with proposals to “reset” health care. Among the dizzying array of possible scenarios, one idea is gaining traction: patient “empowerment.” It will, without doubt, be a prominent call-to-arms in […]
Bedside Viewpoint: Why Watson Will Never Know Enough to Replace Your Physician
Every conversation with a patient is an exercise in big data analysis. Your patient’s appearance, changes in mood and expression, and eye contact are data points. The illness narrative is rich in semiotics: pacing, timing, nuances of speech and dialect are influenced by context, background and insight, which, in turn, reflect religion, education, literacy, numeracy, […]
Physician Culture Must Transition from Defensiveness to Performance Improvement
Physicians undergo long and arduous training, with good reason. Lives are at stake. Learning to make the correct diagnosis, to expertly perform the appropriate procedure and to properly treat conditions is essential. Mistakes or flaws are scrutinized and not tolerated. Being wrong may cause greater harm to the patient—and lead to malpractice litigation. In short, […]
Personalized Medicine v Population Health: Opposites or Complements?
If personalized medical care is the goal, how does that fit with the concept of “population health,” the darling of the health care industry’s drive toward better results and lower costs? Are these two concepts really at odds, or do they work in tandem? This is not a rhetorical question; in the current environment of […]
Personalized Medicine Can’t Wait for Genomic Data
Personalized medicine is off and running. The effort to enroll one million people who will volunteer their genomes for science by the year 2019 kicked off recently with an event featuring President Obama that included more than 150 of the first volunteers. But this effort is not for my patient. It will be either too little, […]
MACRA Match-up: How EHR Source Data Will Benefit Registry Research
At the core of MACRA and MIPS requirements, Electronic Health Record (EHR) source data will soon become a key component for Registry research. Specifically, Clinical Performance Improvement Activities (CPIAs) are a required component of MIPS. Performance improvement efforts will no longer be optional. Quality data will be essential. EHRs present an excellent data resource, but […]
Your Health Care IT Investments: How to Purchase for Performance Improvement
Health care technology (HIT) is frequently oversold. That may be a surprising message coming from a Registry CEO, but it’s the truth. In the quest for answers, too many providers search for a system that can “do it all,” a dream technology that exists, well, only in your dreams. There is intense pressure on providers […]
Does Data Say All You Need to Improve Health Care Performance?
Can data lie? In a word, yes. The answer also depends on whom you ask. That goes for all forms of data analysis, including how we evaluate health care. This presents a tough dilemma for providers, patients and other stakeholders at a time when the industry and government are heavily invested in using data to […]
First, Ask Questions: How to Harness CDR Data for Better Patient Outcomes
As more and better clinical data becomes available and demand grows for better outcomes, the Clinical Data Registry is positioned to fulfill the role of data manager—a vital mechanism for improving care. The CDR is the engine driving a smoothly running system toward better outcomes. This involves much more than data collection. A high quality […]
Plenty of Data, Not Enough Answers: What We Need to Improve Health Care Performance
If you read the industry hype, you might believe that we’ve left the data wasteland for the data land of plenty. Some health care technology and analytics companies allege that, with all this enhanced data capability, you can now discover everything you need to know about your operations and patients that will lead you to […]