September 2009
94 posts
“If you’re right, people realize it.”
– Listen: Stanley Kubrick interview, 1966 (via nevver)
Making healthcare more efficient simply leads to...
I had breakfast with Mark Graban on Sunday morning. He is a senior fellow at the Lean Enterprise Institute and author of the book Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction. It’s always a great time talking with him. He and I think a lot alike and I really envy his knowledge of lean healthcare. For those unfamiliar with Lean, here’s a basic summary:
...
Ontario's EHealth operation bled $1B →
Even in a “socialist” healthcare system like Canada’s where they have the authority and freedom to command, they have failed to implement electronic health records from the top down.
I think this mostly stems from the level of waste and fraud that happens in government, but also has much to do with the fact that healthcare IT simply sucks. It’s built by people who...
Health insurance companies are exempt from the... →
And the best solution Washington can come up with is mandating that we all purchase products from a private industry that is exempt from the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government.
I’m not a lawyer, but are federal health insurance mandates constitutional, especially when...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-9-27) →
The xx (34)
The National (12)
Radiohead (11)
The Twilight Singers (10)
John Phillips (9)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Lawmakers in Some States Press to Outlaw Mandatory... →
My brother is a state representative back in St. Charles, Missouri, my hometown. He says there is lots of talk about this back home.
"Why has America become a nation that can't make... →
robot-heart-politics:
- Bill Maher (via bringtheruckuss)
Choosing to not have medical insurance →
(via cyjtsaimd)
Most health insurance payments to providers are for routine services that, strictly speaking, are not insurable events. The real purpose of insurance is to protect you against sudden, unexpected, unaffordable events, for instance, a heart attack or cancer diagnosis. Yet that’s not how most of us use our health insurance these days. We use it to pay regular, predictable...
I want health insurance based on lifestyle.
Seventy-five percent of healthcare costs comes from treating chronic disease. A significant amount of chronic disease comes from bad behavior— obesity, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, and alcohol. Mostly, these diseases stem from bad lifestyle choices. And our costs for health insurance go up. It goes up for the other people in America who choose wisely and opt-in to a healthy lifestyle full...
If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care →
evangotlib:
mattlehrer:
Funny and depressing, via MR.
How Much Money Do Insurance Companies Make? A... →
They aren’t evil raking in absurd profits. They’re just paying out an absurd amount for healthcare that costs double what it should.
Crack kills. Smoking kills. Obesity kills.
If obesity is linked so closely to so many of the top 10 diseases that kill Americans, why don’t we have PSAs saying:
Obesity Kills.
Why aren’t we, as a culture, condemning obesity just as we condemn crack and smoking?
I know what the critics will say…you are a skinny, healthy dude…you have no idea what it’s like to be obese. You have no idea what...
We invent disease.
A few days ago, I wrote:
When the cost of healthcare is directly dependent on the frequency of disease a few things will happen. Costs will mimic:
the regular rate of increasing disease
the rate of new diseases that can be invented
the rate of new therapies that can be invented to treat either invented diseases or old diseases
the rate of new tests that can be invented to treat new or old...
The Way We Die Now →
tlvx:
“In the last days of her life, Annabel Kitzhaber had a decision to make: she could be the tissue-skinned woman in the hospital with the tubes and the needles, the meds and smells and the squawk of television. Or she could go home and finish the love story with the man she’d been married to for 65 years.”
At age 88, with a weak heart, and tests that showed she most likely had cancer,...
Introducing Altius Education
mokoyfman:
bijan:
We are delighted to announce our most recent investment in Altius Education.
My partner Alex led our investment in the company. VentureBeat has the full story here.
We believe there are many innovative ideas in the education area. We now have two portfolio companies (8D World & Altius) trying to make a positive change in learning. They are doing it in very different...
NYC Health Insurance Link →
NYC launched a web app today that helps you find the health insurance plans offered in NYC for both individuals and small business.
This is a good start that eliminates some of the guesswork. However, it still looks and acts like something designed by the government.
Why can’t government agencies have taste? Did they ever think about making something beautiful with an easy, pleasurable...
Apparently making $2.5M isn't enough to encourage... →
soupsoup:
(via ninety9)
And some poor pediatrician who chose a life of primary care will start out at $90,000 with hopes of making maybe $150,000 by the time they retire (if they play their cards right). They administer vaccinations, save the kids from infections that used to kill all kinds of them through good doctoring and timely administration of antibiotics, and calm the nerves of new mothers...
Malpractice Reform: is a new paradigm needed?
matthewdipaolamd:
A better system would integrate two types of insurance: “negligence” insurance- purchased by the physician and “bad outcome” insurance - purchased by the patient. A “bad outcome” market would address the unavoidable: the risk that a patient could sustain a complication or less than desirable outcome, even after the absolute standard of care had been followed. It would be akin...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-9-20) →
The xx (48)
Micah P. Hinson (27)
Neil Young (26)
The National (25)
Yo La Tengo (19)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
How to read articles about Health. →
soupsoup:
(via katiebakes)
Probably the most important point. Many good opportunities at science are paid for by those who profit from that science:
Who paid for and conducted the study?
This is a somewhat cynical point, but one that’s worth making. The majority of trials today are funded by manufacturers of the product being tested – be it a drug, vitamin cream or foodstuff. This means they...
“Our great challenge isn’t “recovering” from a financial crisis. It is...”
– Umair Haque
[via The M-Shaped Recovery]
(via ambivalence)
(via rahmin)
“Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that...”
– Clive Thompson on the New Literacy (via Jeff Atwood) (via marco)
Jason Fried: The next generation bends over →
caro:
Mint was a key leader of the next generation of game changers. And now it’s property of Intuit — the poster-child for the last generation. What a loss. Is that the best the next generation can do? Become part of the old generation? How about kicking the shit out of the old guys? What ever happened to that?
As more great new companies are absorbed into big old companies, a whole new...
1 tag
Silicon Stethoscopes - Forbes.com →
Here’s a nice article in Forbes that mentions Hello Health and a few quotes from me:
Then there’s the matter of reimbursing doctors for their time. In America, most physicians prefer to deliver a quantity of medicine due to the reimbursement model of healthcare instead of ensuring quality medicine through good communication, time and establishing personal relationships. As a result,...
Explaining Millennial Arrogance
attentionindustry:
[This post originally appeared on my old blog, BrokenGentleman.com, on Feb 18, 09]
This weekend, while doing some volunteering at OYP, I heard the now tired rant about my generation (the ‘millennial’ generation) and the apathy, entitlement, and arrogance that define us. I’m going to do my best to explain some of that, if not justify some of it.
The internet is likely the...
1 tag
“I’ve talked to many boardrooms about awesomeness.
Beancounters feel...”
– The Awesomeness Manifesto - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org
Have to agree there. Many (previously uncapitalized) attributes are nominally “fuzzy” but will be accountable in short order…
(via ethanb)
Your company? There's an app for that. →
kottke:
In terms of this competition, the iPhone at this point in its lifetime2 is analogous to the internet in the late 1990s. The internet was pretty obviously in competition with a few obvious industries at that point — like meatspace book stores — but caught (and is still catching) others off guard: cable TV, movie companies, music companies, FedEx/USPS/UPS, movie theaters,...
50 things that are being killed by the internet →
nevver:
Other than my eyesight.
Seth's Blog: The end of dumb software →
The people who make desktop software are making themselves obsolete. When you start developing on the web, your default is to be smart, to interact and to be open (with other software and with your users). Desktop software (like Word) is insanely unaware of what I do, why I do it and who I do it with. Right now, the desktop folks have the momentum of the incumbent. Not for long. Time to hurry.
Health insurers plan 10% rise in rates →
The state’s major health insurers plan to raise premiums by about 10 percent next year, prompting many employers to reduce benefits and shift additional costs to workers.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest health plan with 2.5 million members, predicted that its average premium rates will rise 10 to 11 percent before any employer “buydowns’’ - changes in coverage...
Romell Broom Execution: Reprieve Granted Over Vein... →
Do medical professionals who kill human beings on behalf of the state take the same Hippocratic Oath that I took in medical school?
A first attempt to execute Willie Francis in 1946 by electrocution in Louisiana did not work. He was returned to death row for nearly a year while the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether a second electrocution would be unconstitutional.
Apps.gov Gives Cloud Computing a Slice of the... →
This is an excellent start.
I spent the past two days at an event called Velocity in Grand Rapids at a salon discussing the future of cities. There were 40 or so other participants including Zach Frechette, the editor in chief at GOOD Magazine, Tina Roth-Eisenberg (swissmiss), and lots of other really talented thinkers.
One of the major themes was “government as platform, partner, and...
Red Dawn. Friday Night. My backyard.
Movie Night #3.
When I was a kid, my grandparents lived in Bull Shoals, Arkansas. I always spent a month or so down there every summer. I don’t think my grandpa ever bought any meat in his life. He killed it himself mostly from a tree and always with a bow and arrow.
When I was six or seven, I remember my grandpa taking me out into the woods of Arkansas for a few days to “teach me...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-9-13) →
The xx (148)
Yo La Tengo (23)
Bon Iver (17)
Beck (15)
TV on the Radio (14)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
WatchKari.
I shot this last night in my backyard. In just a few days, she’s moving to Atlanta to go back to school and accomplish her dreams. I’m so proud and happy for her. I wish you and Derry the best…
Sometimes my life just weirds me out.
I hung out all day at Russell Simmons’ penthouse overlooking the WTC with Barbara Bush (the daughter).