DIY Health Reform: Proof of How Easy it is to Slay the Healthcare Cost Beast
This story also appeared in Forbes.
Since Medicare was put in place, healthcare costs have increased 274x while all other consumer good and services have increased 8x. We are spending approximately $2.8 trillion on healthcare in the U.S. One could make the argument that there are 2.8 trillion reasons why market incumbents want to protect the status quo but there is a DIY Health Reform movement that is proving otherwise.
As federal health reform trudges towards full implementation, elements in the legislation have already been implemented with great success in the private sector by forward-looking health plans and providers. For example, […]
The 7 Habits of Highly Patient Centric Providers
This article was also published on Forbes.
Since Dr. Farzad Mostashari’s (the U.S. “healthIT czar”) keynote presentation at the 2012 HIMSS conference, I’ve repeatedly heard that 2013 is the year of patient engagement. Dr. Mostashari unveiled the latest requirements to tap stimulus dollars and virtually all of the new items were around patient engagement. As Lygeia Ricciardi of the ONC recently stated, the ONC is going all-in on patient engagement.
Why the focus on patient engagement? Leonard Kish aptly called patient engagement the blockbuster drug of the century for its profound impact on improving outcomes. Combining patient engagement with other proven approaches […]
The Trillion Dollar Healthcare Disruption has Begun
As a healthtech startup, you can’t help but get excited when Bob Kocher (Venrock) or Esther Dyson speak about the opportunities in healthcare given their impressive track records. Both spoke during this past week’s StartUp Health Summit.
One of Bob’s main points was that the opportunity in healthcare is so big that most startups are thinking too small and his firm is putting their money where his mouth is (e.g. Castlight). Esther has proven time and again to be very prescient — just go back and watch her old interviews on Charlie Rose over the years to see how accurately she […]
Healthcare Startup Formed by Former Microsoft Executives Is Bringing Internet Efficiencies to Inefficient Provider Workplaces
The following is a release on having a highly successful serial healthcare entrepreneur, Andy Palmer, join the Avado team as a strategic investor.
Healthcare Startup Formed by Former Microsoft Executives
Is Bringing Internet Efficiencies to Inefficient Provider Workplaces
Redmond, Washington (January 4, 2013) – Avado, an innovator in Patient Relationship Management systems formed by former Microsoft Healthcare executive Dave Chase, today announced that Andy Palmer has joined the company as an angel investor.
Andy Palmer is a serial entrepreneur who has helped found, start, fund and/or advise more than 25 innovative companies in technology and the life sciences. Previously, Palmer was co-founder and […]
Small Town Rules will Govern Healthcare
Regardless of what happens in DC or the Supreme Court, it’s clear that healthcare is shifting from a wholesale market to a more retail oriented market. It’s inevitable when most people are paying 30-50% of healthcare costs out of their own pockets. Because smartphones and social media such as Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook have connected us, they’ve made the world much closer. Those tools have connected us. What happens when everybody knows your stuff? You are playing by small town rules.
Things that made Main Street businesses successful in our grandparents time become important again. Guess where the baker’s dozen came […]
The Irrelevance of Obamacare Supreme Court Ruling: Politicians Bicker While Physicians Innovate
In a previous piece The Irrelevance of the Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare, I spoke of the disruptive innovation that is the bigger worry to healthcare executives than what nine black-robed individuals in DC will rule.
The best part of my job as a startup CEO is speaking with those disruptive innovators who see the current healthcare system I’ve described as a Gordian Knot designed by Rube Goldberg as so broken that they are rethinking models from the ground up. One of those innovators is a pediatrician who goes by the Twitter handle @SeattleMamaDoc. IRL (In real life) she […]
Pioneer ACOs Share Lessons Learned and Challenges Ahead
This post also appeared on Forbes.
The biggest mega-trend in healthcare is a shift towards fee-for-value from what some call the “do more, bill more” era of healthcare that is bankrupting governments and impacting business’ competitiveness. The most prominent new model is the Accountable Care Organization (ACO). Skeptics say ACOs will be a repeat of the failings of HMOs. Proponents say they have fixed the shortcomings that were the undoing of HMOs.
Last week was “Health Week” in Washington DC featuring an array of conferences and meetings related to healthcare. [See previous article reporting on a meeting at the White House -
Jay Parkinson Nicely Describes Avado
Dr. Jay Parkinson is a physician that was a founder of Hello Health and more recently of Sherpaa (a creative new healthcare delivery model). I’ve read Parkinson’s pieces for some time and his recent piece entitled “What Healthcare Can Learn from Facebook” lays out what we can learn from Facebook. Like Parkinson, I’m not a big fan or frequent user of Facebook. However, that doesn’t mean one can’t learn from their success and selectively apply the good aspects.
In Parkinson’s latest piece he wrote for Qualcomm’s “spark salon” he outlined what we can learn from Facebook. He also highlighted a point […]
Mr. Obama, Tear Down This Wall(ed Garden)
This post also appeared on TechCrunch.
Today, I participated in a meeting at the White House described as an “expert roundtable on patient access to health data” hosted by Todd Park (Chief Technology Officer of the United States), Farzad Mostashari (the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology), Leon Rodriguez (Office of Civil Rights) and Peter Levin (CTO Veterans Administration).
Being at the White House within a week of the 25th anniversary of President Reagan’s famous “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech at the Brandenburg Gate, it struck me that tearing down a wall was a good metaphor for what was the goal of today’s meeting. In […]
Avado Communicator: The Answer to Stage 2 Meaningful Use Requirements
Everyone in healthcare knows that reimbursement is shifting from the flawed fee-for-service model of reimbursement to a fee-for-value model. The founding purpose of Avado has been to recognize that it is virtually impossible to succeed in the value/outcome based model without recognizing what has long been said — the most important member of the care team is the patient. After all, except in high acuity situations (e.g., you are unconscious at the hospital), it is the patient (or family) that drives decisions that drive outcome.
The organizations who have recognized the central importance of patients have demonstrated the best […]