Cash is the Best Incentive for Health Plan Members to Shop for Services
For many years, health plans have been searching for ways to incentivize their members to search for lower priced services such as imaging and surgical procedures like total hip replacement. I believe that the best incentive for this searching and cost-saving behavior is some sort of benefit like cash. A recent article covered this topic (see:How employers save money by paying employees to shop for healthcare) and below is an excerpt from it: According to a new RAND Corp. study published in Health Affairs, paying employees between $25 and $500 for using a transparency tool, and encouraging them to select a lowe...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 1, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Hospital Financial Medical Consumerism Medical Research Public Health Quality of Care Radiology Source Type: blogs
The Clinicians' Wristwatch and the Diagnostic Turnaround Time (DTAT)
I recently attended theDMT Conference sponsored by theUniversity of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. One of the conference faculty members wasDr. Christopher Zahner from UTMB. During his lecture, he referred to thediagnostic turnaround time (DTAT), a term he defined as the interval from the time that a clinician begins a diagnostic workup for a patient until he or she arrives at the correct diagnosis. Contrast this with the lab turnaround time (LTAT) which has been cited in the laboratory literature for decades and is defined as the time interval from when a specimen arrives in a clinical laboratory until the time...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 27, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Pathology Informatics Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Net Revenue Generation for Hospitals on the Basis of Physician Speciality
I have previously blogged about the wait time for primary care physicians in the U.S. (see:PCP and Family Physician Wait Times increasing 50% in Many Markets) and the fact that many health systems may be limiting the number of PCPs on their staff because they do not generate as much revenueper capitaas specialized physicians (see: same reference as above). This is because PCPs don't perform procedures like surgeons or interventional cardiologists who are highly reimbursed by our healthcare system. Along these same lines, I came across an article that discusses hospital revenue generated per physician by speciality and ...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 25, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Hospital Executive Management Medical Consumerism Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Cardiology as a " Collision Point " between Consumer IT and the Healthcare System
In arecent tweet, Matthew Herper, who covers science and medicine forForbes, pointed out that cardiology will be an important"collision" point between consumer IT and the practice of medicine. He's right on target as I have emphasized in a recent note about the importance of clinical information being generated by Apple watches and similar wearables (see:Apple Collaborates with Janssen on Apple Watch AFib/Stroke Clinical Trial). This note is also related to my previous notes about wearables and skin patches (see:Is Healthcare Ready to Embrace the Consumer"Wearable";Fitbit Moves into the ...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 22, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Lab Regulation Medical Consumerism Point-of-Care Testing Preventive Medicine Quality of Care Test Kit Source Type: blogs
Pathology and Radiology Collaborate with a Concordance Conference
TheUniversity Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UHCMC) is in the process of deploying a digital pathology system and therefore exploring ways to educate and prepare their pathologists for this new technology (see:Digital Pathology Pilot Predicts Prosperity: Pondering Pathology ’s Pivot). As part of the process, a pilot study was undertaken with a focus on frozen sections. In the study, pathologists ’ diagnoses using digitized slide images were compared with diagnoses using standard microscopy. Frozen sections were chosen as the focus of this study because digital pathology allows remote access by a specialized pathol...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 19, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Diagnostics Digital Imaging in Pathology Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Medical Education Medical Research Pathology Informatics Quality of Care Radiology Surgical Pathology Source Type: blogs
Diagnostic Management Teams in Multi-Hospital Health Systems
I have posted two notes recently about diagnostic management teams (DMTs) (see: A Major Change Now Occurring in Both Clinical Pathology and Anatomic Pathology; DMTs as an Example of a Team Approach to Clinical Lab Diagnostics). Generally speaking, DMTs have usually been deployed in a single hospital with the diseases covered by the team limited to the special expertise of that team. With such a scenario, communication among the DMT members does not pose much of a challenge, given that all of the team personnel work in close proximity.I think that the next major hurdle relating to the broader adoption of DMTs is...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 15, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Cost of Healthcare Diagnostics Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Information Lab Processes and Procedures Pathology Informatics Source Type: blogs
DMTs as an Example of a Team Approach to Clinical Lab Diagnostics
In a recent note, I discussed how the overall practice of clinical pathology was expanding into clinical diagnostics partly on the basis of the growing popularity ofdiagnostic management teams (DMTs) (see:A Major Change Now Occurring in Both Clinical Pathology and Anatomic Pathology). DMTs consist of a group of laboratory experts collaborating with clinicians in complex cases. Another example of the team approach in healthcare is the Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) that is most common in cancer care (see:Multidisciplinary team working in cancer: what is the evidence?). MDTs represent an example of the team approach in diagnos...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 13, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Diagnostics Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Innovations Medical Ethics Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
A Major Change Now Occurring in Both Clinical Pathology and Anatomic Pathology
I recently returned from theDigital Management Team Conference hosted by Dr. Michael Laposata at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. It occurred to me during the conference that a major change is now occurring in the fields of anatomic pathology (AP) and clinical pathology (CP). The major change in AP is the deployment of automated tissue processing integrated with digital pathology (see:Integration and Interoperability Are Essential for Growth of Digital Pathology;Possible New Strategic Initiatives for Best-of-Breed LIS Vendors). This automation of surgical pathology will reduce the cost and increase the ...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 11, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Blood banking Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Cost of Healthcare Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Genomic Testing Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Source Type: blogs
FDA Authorizes 23andMe to Offer Pharmacogenetic Testing on Consumers
Direct access testing (DAT), also called direct to consumer (DTC) testing, is consumer-initiated testing via the web with consumer payment. Such testing has been available for many years. Here's my note about the topic from 2006:Four Categories of Direct Access Testing. The early DAT test menu covered mainly routine tests with the addition of more esoteric ones over time. Now comes news that the FDA is authorizing direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmacogenetics tests (PGx) without a physician order by 23andMe (see:FDA Authorizes 23andMe to Report Results of Direct-to-Consumer Pharmacogenetics Test to Customers without a Pres...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 6, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Source Type: blogs
AT & T Offers the LTE-M, Low-Powered Network for Uploading Wearable Health Data
So-called wearables, including wrist devices and skin patches, are continuing to have a major impact on the delivery of healthcare (see:Is Healthcare Ready to Embrace the Consumer"Wearable" Revolution?). One key aspect of the adoption of wearables is uploading data from the consumers' devices to a network where is can be monitored and analyzed with subsequent notification of health professionals about the status of the patient. Part of this process was referred to in a recent article (see:AT&T ’s new smartwatch will drive transformation in healthcare). Below is an excerpt from the article:AT&T...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 4, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Diagnostics Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Medical Research Point-of-Care Testing Telemedicine Source Type: blogs
Fitbit Moves into the Health Coaching Area with Fitbit Care
I have been posting a number of notes lately about health wearables because they are becoming increasingly important. Here's another article about the expansion of health services relating to theFitbit, one of the earliest devices on the market: Fitbit Launches Fitbit Care, A Powerful New Enterprise Health Platform for Wellness and Prevention and Disease Management. Below is an excerpt from the article; Fitbit...announced Fitbit Care, a connected health platform for health plans, employers, and health systems that combines health coaching and virtual care through the new Fitbit Plus app....Fitbit Care lever...
Source: Lab Soft News - March 1, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Insurance Medical Consumerism Point-of-Care Testing Preventive Medicine Source Type: blogs
Healthcare AI Market to Surge; Already Commonplace in Radiology
The healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) market is going to grow enormously and has the potential to increase the efficiency of all healthcare processes and procedures; it may even reduce physician burnout (see:Cerner Offers AI Tool to Combat Physician EHR Burnout). A recent article discussed how the healthcare AI market will increase in value (see:Healthcare AI market expected to surge from $2.1 to $36.1 billion by 2025). It's a long and complex article so read it in its entirely if you're interested. Below is a small excerpt from it:The healthcare artificial intelligence market is expected to grow from $2.1 bi...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 27, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Digital Imaging in Pathology Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Predictive Analytics Preventive Medicine Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Is Healthcare Ready to Embrace the Consumer " Wearable " Revolution?
Here's an important think piece about the future of health wearables: Is the Healthcare Industry Ready to Embrace a Consumer Wearable Device Revolution). It approaches the topic from the perspective of the steps that healthcare executives need to take to more fully embrace and adapt to this new technology. Below is an excerpt from it:There are at least two categories of...[wearable health] devices in existence today that relate to healthcare. One type is a consumer wearable, such as a fitness tracker or a smartwatch that has been amended with health tracking features largely controlled by a device manufacturer. A...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 25, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Medical Research Point-of-Care Testing Predictive Analytics Preventive Medicine Test Kits and Home Testing Source Type: blogs
Swapping Personal Exercise Data for a Free Apple Watch; What's the Catch?
I have previously blogged about the use of wearables to generate health data with feedback to health insurance companies (see:Apple Watch"Gifted" to Insurance Policy Holders; Any Gotcha's with the Deal?;Microsoft Publishes Guidelines for"Health Wearables"). As part of this trend,UnitedHealthcare is now offering a freeApple watch for customers who meet certain activity milestones. This was described in a recent article (see:UnitedHealthcare Offers Apple Watches to Wellness Program Participants Who Meet Fitness Goals) and some of the details are provided below....[L]everaging the popularity of m...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 22, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Innovations Healthcare Insurance Medical Consumerism Medical Ethics Point-of-Care Testing Preventive Medicine Test Kits and Home Testing Source Type: blogs
Instagram Influencers Promote Prescription Drugs; FDA's Continuing Monitoring
The FDS has warned pharmaceutical companies in the past about their use of paid surrogates on social media sites like Instagram to promote their products (see:Pharmaceutical Companies Continue to Experiment with Social Media;FDA Issues Warning Letter to Drug Company about Use of Instagram;GlaxoSmithKline Mines Social Media for Information about Adverse Drug Events). This issue has recently returned to the news (see:The latest Instagram influencer frontier? Medical promotions. Big pharma is partnering with influencers to sell new drugs and medical devices). Below is an excerpt from the article. It's long and provides ma...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 20, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Source Type: blogs
