Couldn’t wait until Friday for this one. Happen to be in San Francisco while the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is going on.

Apple’s newest advertisement. It’s sort of a metaphor for health care, if you watch closely….

• Safari 3.1 includes hidden one-window preference - This is the holy grail of Safari as the browser of choice. That plus compatibility with blog authoring tools.
• Mac BU promises bibliography improvements to Office 2008 - Interesting discussion somewhat unrelated to the article’s title about the state of bibliographic software. I would look forward to further refinements of Zotero, and maybe a server version.
• QLPlugins - Quick Look Plugins - Great efficiency improver of one of my favorite Leopard features.
• Aetna Smartsource Demo - Aetna’s latest information tailoring system for patients. Getting closer to supporting the patient-provider relationship?
• Apple - Support - Discussions - Unresponsive Keyboard and Trackpad … - This is a real issue for MacBookPro owners - prepare yourself just in case this happens to you.
• A new snapshot of health consumerism from EBRI and The Commonwealth Fund - Nice overview from Jane Sarsohn-Kahn
• Roblog » Batch Categories - Another category management plugin, for Wordpress 2.3 and 2.5
• uwMike » WP-Cats - More preparation to migration to WP 2.5
• Disk Inventory X - Map your hard drive to avoid wasting space
• How to Fly Without ID and Skip Lines | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss - Just in case this happens to you, here is how you can fly and recover.

March 28th through March 29th:

• WordPress ? Search and Replace « WordPress Plugins - Wordpress 2.5 is out. I have a feeling this plugin will be useful to have handy
• JAMA — Preserving Confidentiality in the Peer Review Process, March 24, 2008, DeAngelis and Thornton 0 (2008): 299.16.jed80000 - With tremendous respect for Catherine DeAngelis’ leadership during a tough situation. I am left wondering if the best place to hide is out in the open - if peer review became more Web2.0 like. What would happen in a situation like this?
• Findings From the 2007 EBRI/Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Survey - EBRI - About 2 percent of the population is enrolled in a consumer directed health plans. Significant points for me: (1) almost half of the population with a chronic condition reports not filling medications or skipping doses or delaying care due to cost. Sobering reminder that patients can and do choose to do what we doctors prescribe. (2) “There have been no significant gains int he provision of information on provider cost and quality by any health plan type over the three years of the survey. There has been no increase in the share of CDHP or HDHP enrollees who say their health plans provide them with quality and cost information about their providers, and they remain no more likely to receive such information than enrollees in more comprehensive plans.” Okay, one more point - they did not ask about the impact of involvement in care in choosing a health plan - no mention of medical records access or involvement in information sharing at the level of the encounter.
• My Starbucks Idea - How about doing this for a health care org?
• Bronson Beta - Mail.appetizer - Nice Mail notification tool, Leopard

A lot of stuff going on this week…

• Apple Digital Fitness Companion System? - Mac Rumors - It was/is only a matter of time. Hello Health2.0, courtesy of iPhone
• The computer will see you now | Economist.com - A nice biographical piece about Larry Weed, father of the problem oriented medical record.
• EMC, Partners collaborate on hypertension program - Daily Business Update - The Boston Globe - An employer that thinks about population health and sets up a PHR in concert with a health system. Interesting…..
• Subscribe to ringtones via iTunes - Easy way to get ringtones - a ringcast?
• Mashable?s Guide to Upcoming Web 2.0 Conferences - A plethora of get togethers to get up to speed on the latest in Web 2.0.
• leanblog.org | Lean Blog: The Waste of Handwritten Notes | Lean Manufacturing | Lean Healthcare | Toyota Production System - Yes, Leadership. From patients and their families too. The kind of leadership that brings the patient perspective into every conversation.
• Apple - Support - Downloads - MacBook, MacBook Pro Software Update 1.1 - Help with keyboard freezing issues caused by Leopard
• Healthcare 360 -
• GHI - GHI Medical Home Pilot - I think this is very promising for supporting EHR adoption and patient access to their own clinical information. Ties in very nicely with NYC’s PCIP project.
• Public health system struggles to reach gay ?hidden population? - Washington Blade - Another vulnerable population that could benefit from outreach - many are underserved even when well insured.
• Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X - The resource for programming on MacOSX, and iPhone as well

While in New York City this week, I happened to attend the (first?) iPhone Developer Summit, thanks to a free pass and a little wiggle room in my schedule.

I didn’t go because I am planning to learn Objective C and develop for the iPhone. I went because I wanted to see what the developer community is thinking, and I have to say I was impressed with what I saw. I sat in on a session about the new iPhone SDK and the audience looked almost to me like a group of doctors that are sitting in a room to learn about electronic health records and realizing that their lives are going to change.

There was discussion of the iPhone platform, which has far more computing power and graphics capability than any other handheld that has preceded it, coupled with the fact that Apple, Inc., has made it easier than ever for developers to distribute their applications quickly and efficiently through iTunes. Nothing like this has ever existed on other mobile platforms.

I sensed a tone of quiet resignation coupled with excitement that this will be the next revolution in computing. At the same time, the teaching was about the very basics of developing for the iPhone so it’s very early in the journey. I learned a few things, like the fact that the iPhone you use to develop on will need to be disconnected from the AT&T cellular network, so basically you will need to purchase a phone specifically for development. The SDK requires that you have a Mac running Leopard - you cannot develop on a Windows box. And an interesting revelation that was not well covered previously - the iPod Touch is also a platform for this SDK. This means that an enterprise developer could create internal applications that run off of Wi-Fi, decoupled from phone service. That’s a big deal.

After taking in this scene, I wandered with a colleague over to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, which provided more evidence of a transformation coming. The store was packed beyond all recognition. There was a long feeder line of customers waiting to buy things. And yet the store made all of the products available to customers and potential customers to enjoy at their leisure.

There’s something going on here. Click on any of the pictures to see them full size, and the video below to get a sense yourself.

Quite possibly.

I didn’t catch the iPhone SDK launch right on March 6, but I did watch it a few days later, and it’s very impressive. It is worth a watch, especially with regard to the possibilities in verticals such as health care. I have met many physicians in the past 6 months who have told me, “I will get an iPhone when…” I think the “when” has been answered. Possibilities such as secure physician-patient communication and patient activity monitoring with direct connect to electronic health records are now possible.

It was interesting to see this right after the Health2.0 Conference, to be sure.

Not to mention that the iPhone is now enterprise-worthy….

Apple Developer Connection - iPhone Dev Center - iPhone Developer Program

March 4th through March 6th:

• Steve Jobs speaks out - On his marathon Monday meetings (9) - FORTUNE - a weekly check and adjust at Apple
• S.F. equity firm launches health initiative with CalPERS, GE, others - San Francisco Business Times: - Maybe this will help California lead in Health IT.
• AMNews: March 10, 2008. Insurer finds EMRs won’t pay off for its doctors … American Medical News - Less health plans are requiring EHR adoption for P4P, and the AMA doesn’t have a policy requiring physicians to adopt them either.
• Virgin HealthMiles - As demonstrated at Health 2.0 - a pedometer program that includes a pedometer that uploads data to the Virgin HealthMiles website
• i2y - As featured at the Health 2.0 Conference. For the 68,000 GenX and GenY individuals who are diagnosed with cancer every year.

January 12th through January 13th:

• Prometheus Payment, Inc. - A new payment model that supports outcomes, evidence-based care, and transparency
• The music industry | From major to minor | Economist.com - “Then they had the money and could have built the competence by buying concert agencies and merchandise companies,”…Now it may be too late.
• Coverity Incorporated Scan - Company working with the US Govt to harden open source code for use by agencies including Homeland Security. They are finding bugs and the bugs are being fixed.
• Online Real Estate Sites Work To Get A Listing Standard - Another industry that is seeing the benefits of standards, and the challenges of disruption
• Gone Indie ? Thought Palace - Interesting insight on the work environment at Apple. LEAN production? You decide. I will say, though, that even though Apple is not embracing Web 2.0 like other companies are, I have solved many problems using their hosted discussions. These actually work well on Apple’s site I think because they do a great job of leveraging their loyal customer base. Yet another blog “goodbye” to an employer.
• Lean Manufacturing Blog: 1 Hour Kaizen - Excellent template and approach to small improvements. Just takes an hour. Can we have physicians shadowing nurses and vice versa?