All aboard for health care transformation

Dr. Marty Kohn still remembers the day he was called to the boss’s office and admonished for doing his job. During his days as a practicing physician, Kohn, now IBM Research’s chief medical scientist for care delivery systems, was treating a male patient complaining of back pain. In Kohn’s judgment, the care protocol did not call for scheduling an MRI, despite the patient’s insistence that such a test was justified.

Geeks wanted -- Big data firms push data scientist development

Guest Column/Tom Groenfeldt: Teradata TDC -0.02%, IBM IBM +0.47%, SAS and Tableau are among the big data specialists offering training for data scientists, sophisticated analysts, business intelligence experts – whatever they end up being called, but people who can work with the data they can collect and store. Teradata said it wants to ensure there are enough data experts to make good use of its technology. Companies are working with universities on data analytics programs. They are also working on certification programs to provide credentials for geeks who might not want to go through four years of sociology and readings in French literature on their way to getting a job in big data.

Despite progress on health IT interoperability, tough questions remain

Data-sharing in healthcare remains difficult, and despite assertions that the industry is on the cusp of a breakthrough, many are impatient with the slow pace of progress. Those attending the Digital Healthcare Conference in Madison, Wis., last week addressed some of the biggest questions about the sad state of interoperability, according to InformationWeek.

Press releases and other news

• Best Places to Work in IT 2013: Employee scorecard
  Source: ComputerWorld
• I.B.M. Inflates Its Cloud
  Source: New York Times

Sharing electronic medical records still too hard

The average patient can't fathom why the sharing of electronic medical records is so hard. But those inside healthcare aren't thrilled either with the state of electronic record interoperability, as several smart discussions at this week's Digital Healthcare Conference in Madison, Wis., showed. "If we're this far into this implementation across the country, and we still have this level of discordance, shame on us," said Dr. Frank Byrne, president of Wisconsin's St. Mary's Hospital. "How did we get here and how do we get out? Because we've created barriers."

Press releases and other news

• Health care tech startup COMS Interactive grabs $21M
  Source: Venture Beat
• Why you should care about Solar Impulse and renewable energy’s long, long journey
  Source: Washington Post

A little more than a mouse click away from better American health care

From the annals of “How Technology Won’t Save Us.” (Also see: “Why the United States Should Just For God’s Sake Go Ahead and Adopt a Single-Payer, Universal Health Care System Already”): Recent research and comments from health industry executives have combined to throw a bit of cold water on the promise of electronic health records, or EHRs.

Medical experts say reforms in medical education are needed

...but why are we talking about it now
In 1910, when the famed Flexner Report was published, it brought about such sweeping reforms of all 155 U.S. medical schools that about half the schools ended up closing down. Over 100 years ago, Abraham Flexner was hired by the Carnegie Foundation to visit all medical schools in the U.S. to investigate medical education. Since then, medical education has not even come close to seeing the sweeping reforms of the Flexner era.

Press releases and other news

• Enabling The Mobile-First Enterprise
  Source: ReadWriteWeb

Leaders: Electronic health records not perfect, but they are improving health practices

Electronic medical records may never connect every aspect of our lives — and it will be a few years before they start reducing costs — but they are ensuring the safety of health care, speakers told a Madison conference on Wednesday. As computerized health information has grown in recent years, one of the ideals has been to put all of a patient’s health data in one place, easily accessible to family physicians, specialists and hospitals alike.

Madison lagging behind peer cities in economic vitality

Flash back to May 2003 when Forbes magazine was hot off the press with its annual ranking of the “Best Places for Business and Careers.” To the surprise of many who knew it for left-wing politics, a meddling City Council and disdain for the private sector, there was Madison: No. 5 in the nation. Only Austin, Boise, Raleigh and Atlanta scored higher in the annual survey based on a broad number of economic measures.

Federal CIOs need more authority to better manage IT

Amid widespread agreement that the federal government has a long way to go toward improving efficiencies in its IT operations, U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel argued before a Senate committee on Tuesday that giving department and agency CIOs stronger, central authority could help eliminate or consolidate duplicative technology projects.

Wisconsin is well-positioned for explosion in health information technology

Inside Wisconsin/Tom Still: Like it or not, health-care reform is here to stay. Even if the Affordable Healthcare Act was magically repealed tomorrow, the U.S. health-care system would continue to search for ways to control costs, eliminate waste and improve quality. A major tool being applied to health care’s challenges is wider adoption of health information technologies, which collectively help patients, providers, insurers and medical practitioners as they come to grips with change.

Press releases and other news

• Remember all those passwords? No need
  Source: New York Times
• State CIOs make progress on health IT
  Source: InformationWeek

Privacy hawk: Put patients at center of health information exchange

If healthcare organizations truly want to protect patient privacy and earn public trust regarding electronic health records (EHRs), they need to let go of the notion that institutions control individual data and look for technology that lets patients take charge of information flow, a well-known healthcare privacy advocate told a Madison audience Tuesday.

Marriages made in heaven? Health care consolidation heats up

When hospital CEOs look at current reimbursement rates, don't be surprised if they think, “it's never going to be better than this.” They have good reason to think this way, as the ramifications of the forthcoming low-reimbursement environment sink in, and a wave of health care consolidation intensifies.

Emerging health IT companies vie for VC at inaugural 'Start Me Up' meetup

The Midwestern health IT startup community doesn't get the press of its counterparts on the coasts, but it appears to be thriving and, in some cases, tackling more realistic healthcare problems than those in other parts of the country. Eight emerging companies showcased their wares Monday to an audience of potential investors, potential customers in the form of healthcare CIOs and fellow entrepreneurs during the first-ever Start Me Up Emerging Healthcare IT Meetup Day, prior to the start of the 11th annual WTN Media Digital Health Conference in Madison. Most were beyond seed funding and were seeking Series A venture capital, and none came from farther away than Minneapolis.

Health startups, don’t put lipstick on the pig

Want to have a successful digital health startup? Be honest. Understand the market. Know your capabilities in terms of innovation and technological and human resources. And, above all, focus on the people you have and the problems you are trying to address. “The biggest issue is focus,” Dr. Barry P. Chaiken, Boston-based CMIO at enterprise software developer Infor and a veteran of clinical transformation through health IT, said Monday in Madison, Wis. “Don’t get distracted,” Chaiken explained. “You’ve got to know when to pivot and you’ve got to know when not to pivot.”

CIO tutorial, Part II: More on the health IT “to-do” list

This is the second installment of our look at Jim Adam’s health care IT “Top 10” to-do list for 2013. Adams, executive director of research and insights for The Advisory Board Co., delivered the keynote during the 2013 Digital Healthcare Conference produced by WTN Media.

Press releases and other news

• Excel Is An Art Form: These Beautiful Images Are Proof
  Source: ReadWriteWeb
• GE Healthcare puts up $2B to invent
  Source: Healthcare IT News
• 4 ways to get personal about mHealth
  Source: Healthcare IT News

CIO tutorial: Adams outlines health IT “to-do” list

Jim Adams believes health care organizations are on an IT journey with a distant finish line and a lot of mile markers in between. Outlining many of those action steps, Adams, executive director of research and insights for The Advisory Board Co., will deliver the opening keynote during the 2013 Digital Healthcare Conference produced by WTN Media.

Bugher to retire after guiding University Research Park growth, success

Mark Bugher, who helped to mold UW-Madison’s University Research Park into an economic and technology transfer force admired nationally, plans to retire in October. “We have 3,600 jobs and 126 companies,” says Bugher, who has directed the park since 1999. “These are high-paid jobs, many of them filled by our graduates or UW System graduates. The university can be extremely proud of what’s happened here since 1984.”

Boomers! Don’t trust anyone under thirty!

Guest Column/T. Scott Gross: If you are the boss…I’m sorry. The Millennial generation is here. They feel entitled. They negotiate everything. And they‘ll tell you exactly what is on their mind…even if you don’t want to know. Let’s see you make a team and a profit out of that! And if that isn’t enough to get your heart rate up, Millennials are likely to be your biggest customer demographic…and to that challenge they bring even more quirks and seemingly oddball traits.

New tool tracks remote monitoring ROI

The Center for Connected Health and the Center for Technology and Aging have launched a new tool to gauge the return on investment for remote patient monitoring technologies for patients with heart disease. As remote care becomes more prevalent, providers and payers are looking for evidence of the effectiveness of RPM programs, officials say; the new tool is meant to analyze the ROI of established RPM programs and projecting it into the future.

Press releases and other news

• SupraNet returns as the Digital Healthcare Conference 2013 Technology Sponsor
  Source: SupraNet
• Sure, iOS 7 looks awfully familiar—It also looks like a winner
  Source: ReadWriteWeb
• Exact Sciences applies to FDA to sell colon cancer test to public
  Source: Journal Sentinel