Strategies for Prevention: Holly Potter’s blog – Yes, she has one. And you can link to it here.
Posts Tagged ‘leadership_blogs’
Running a hospital: Tipping point? (for trasparent health care orgs)
December 3rd, 2008 | Popularity: 21% 0 comments | Leave a replyThis is a thoughtful post from Paul Levy of the Running a Hospital Blog (and, of the Chief Executive’s office of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) about achieving transparency among major health care institutions:
Running a hospital: Tipping point?
The post came because I was ribbing him a bit because of his quick mastery of the Twitter learning curve, and it goes beyond that to provide a bit of reflection.
I think I now take for granted that the BIDMC organization (through its reporting as well as through Paul and John Halamka’s blogs) is more transparent to its community. For example, I assume that if I want to download a strategic plan for a large Information Technology operation in health care, it will be available on John’s blog. I don’t know of another I.T. organization that I can download strategic plans to learn from. That’s differentiating for me, and I’ll go so far as to say that it’s probably differentiating for patients, too. I still believe that patients don’t expect us to be perfect, but they do expect us to learn from our mistakes quickly.
Upend(ing) the Cozy World of Medical Publishing?
August 1st, 2008 | Popularity: 26% 6 commentsI am always delighted to meet other physician bloggers, and such was the case with Bob Wachter, MD, who’s a physician that blogs, and from within academia. That’s rare, and welcomed, by me for sure.
He recently wrote this piece, Will Knols and Blogs Upend the Cozy World of Medical Publishing?, which echoes several ideas I have been having since I started blogging, especially around the idea of, as he calls it, “the democratization of peer review.” (I’m focusing on the comments about medical publishing – the world of Knols appears to be experiencing a rocky ride)
As I occasionally get requests to write for peer reviewed journals or books or I consider writing for them, I have been pausing to ask, “why?”
This is especially when the difference is between instant access and feedback to the people I serve, versus a smaller group of individuals with (potentially) limited experience in the ideas I’m writing about, and the medium I use to write them in. I say this without any predjudice to the publishing community – I am just not sure where physicians in my generation will fit in moving forward, unless the model is changed.
Bob refers to the difference between “Having an article peer reviewed by 3 experts is different than having 17 Joe Six-packs;” however, I’m not sure what the difference is, depending on the issue, between those two constituencies – what’s an expert in if she/he isn’t a person “just like me?” Also, what’s the value of a single (relatively speaking), private, review, that will be locked in time and space, forever? Robert Scoble speaks well to this in the post “Scoble Defends Blogging (Again), and He’s Right (Again).”
I do not work in academia, where people are incentivized/rewarded for the number of peer-reviewed publications with their names on them. I think a deeper question that should be asked, is, “What’s the best way, in this millennium, to produce portable knowledge that can be used by others?” I have talked with innovators in academia who have not shared their knowledge because of the effort required to publish to medical journals. That’s unfortunate.
How could the reward/incentive system in academia be reconfigured to respect the many different ways people can share knowledge, and put them to use to help people? I think it could be, and in turn a lot of great ideas could be unleashed.
Bob mentions in his post that he submitted his piece to two medical journals, who rejected it. However, we still get to read it thanks to Web 2.0.
I’m not even going to try with this one. And I sort of don’t have to.
Oh So Close – HelloHealth
July 20th, 2008 | Popularity: 25% 0 comments | Leave a replyHow long before HelloHealth comes to Washington, DC, with the most regional-serving walkable urban places per capita in the country?
Note: There’s been some buzz about walkability for other cities as well, also fine choices for those who love living in places that support walking.
Internal Medicine 2008: Focus on the Practice
May 15th, 2008 | Popularity: 23% 2 comments
Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking at the pre-course for Internal Medicine 2008, American College of Physicians annual conference, in Washington, DC. The topic of the pre-course was the focus on the individual practice, and was facilitated by the great team at the Center for Practice Innovation, including Michael Barr, MD, MBA, FACP, Paula Woodward, MPH, BSN, RN, and Maria Rudolph, MPH.
I really like working with this group first of all because Michael and Paula assemble entertaining and fun experts, like Gordon Moore, MD, Rodney Hornbake, MD, and Peter Basch, MD. All of these physicians, and fellow panelist, Maria Rudolph, are “current” in the field and honest and passionate about improving patient care, which includes being able to stage agreement and disagreement. It’s sort of East Coast, and I like it.
The second reason I like this group is because they represent the overwhelming majority of care environments for patients in the U.S. (over 90% get care from small practices). In terms of promoting patient-centered care for every patient in every system, these are the physicians who have both the ability to innovate and the fiduciary responsibility to make it work for their practice. Putting those two together makes for a perspective that is supportive of HIT and patient centered HIT (that’s what I observed) that succeeds for patients, and those who care for them. I think that’s what we want.
We were asked to provide some parting words for this group, and honestly, I feel a bit awkward being a teacher to this group of practitioners. In many ways they see a lot more of healthcare than I do. In any event, my parting words were that when it comes to HIT, they know more than they think they know, and are well suited to ask, “how will this work for my patient?” That and they should ask every patient if they access the Internet.
ACP enters the blogosphere this week with ACP Internist. A great move for this specialty society, in my opinion.
My visit was capped with a trip to see my colleague David Kauff, MD, from Group Health Cooperative. I have to say that I had to make my way through quite a bit of product placement (more than I would expect to see in 2008), and I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in the exhibit hall, but it was well worth the trip to meet up with one of my favorite internists.
In the Seattle Times talking about Web 2.0 and Health Care
May 11th, 2008 | Popularity: 38% 2 commentsI was interviewed by journalist Kyung Song from the Seattle Times for this article, which appeared in today’s paper:
Local News | Group Heath trolling cyberspace to learn what patients think | Seattle Times Newspaper
This was the first interview I have done representing both the organization I work for, and myself as a blogger at the same time. Usually, it’s one or the other, because the words on this blog are my own and not those of my employer (although obviously our approach to patient centered health care is well aligned). The worlds are starting to collide….
I definitely believe that there is content that’s traditionally outside of the physician-patient relationship that can and should be brought in via blogs and the like. We saw it with secure e-mail between patients and physicians to be sure. It changed our relationships, in a healthy, helpful way.
My personal belief about blogs and Web 2.0, though, needs to be coupled with an organization’s need to have a workflow and platform that brings in the right information at the right time. I definitely don’t expect a physician to review the 2,000 RSS feeds of their patients (and I don’t think the patients do, either).
That’s the fun intersection, and it is good pressure, to bring everything about a patient that matters to them into every clinical interaction.
See what you think…
Reflecting on my physician blogging 2005-2008
April 30th, 2008 | Popularity: 35% 6 commentsI am in Oakland, California, today, participating in an discussion sponsored by Kaiser Permanente about Web 2.0 applications in health care. As part of the discussion I presented my story as a physician who wrote a blog internally for our medical group, and since October, 2007, on the public Internet (here).
From 2005-2007 I managed an internal blog that ended up having 748 posts total, so for 2 years, I posted something almost every business day, along with other physician informaticists on my team with me. That’s quite a commitment. This blog has 298 posts on it since October, 2007. I actually never thought I’d keep a blog, but I’m (a) glad I’m doing it and (b) glad I have a story to share about it as a Health Information Technology leader. I want people to know how I am serving them.
I also got to moderate/interact with two industry experts in the field, Tim Collins, SVP of Experiential Marketing for Wells Fargo Bank, and Lee Aase, Manager for Syndication and Social Media for the Mayo Clinic. It’s an honor to meet other industry leaders who are embracing this technology, and they are embracing it. I know this is the future (or the present…)
Given my experience, the idea of patients bringing their user generated content into the physician patient relationship really interests me. Could an electronic health record of the future subscribe to specially tagged RSS feeds from our patients? I don’t think physicians can or would be following 2,000 lives worth of lifestreams. However, if there’s something in a patient’s life that they want us to know about and can get it to us without double entry, I think that information would change the content of our relationship a lot. And in a good way.
Physicans and Blogs; Explaining the RUC; Nice Use of Second Life
March 22nd, 2008 | Popularity: 39% 4 commentsMarch 18th through March 19th:
- The ‘World Wide Computer’?Another HAL? – Businessweek’s Review of “The Big Switch” – I used it for comparison
- NPR: Doctor Blogs Raise Concerns About Patient Privacy – I agree with points raised – a patient should never seek care and then discover that they have been written about on a blog. Instead, they should receive a copy of the medical record that has been created about them. At the same time, physician bloggers are doing something very important – they are testing the boundaries of transparency, to support a more accountable health care system. If anyone saw the 60 minutes story about Dennis Quaid and his family, the rationale for this become very clear.
- What Every Physician Should Know About the RUC – January 2008 – Family Practice Management – The information is useful. As primary care providers I think we need to be careful to include our specialty colleagues in the conversation, not distance themselves from it. As a member of a large multispecialty medical group, I know that there is interest across the physician community in supporting community health and the best experience for patients.
- MindBlizzard blog: Virtual Healthcare 2: Palomar Pomerado Health – All right – More news about the utility of Second Life – testing a hospital before it launches
- What is the ROI on employee suggestion systems? – A nice example from the toothpaste industry. But not necessarily one that supports the evidence, that far less toothpaste than people think is needed to protect teeth…..Maybe a customer suggestion system might be in order.
Hoshin and S.M.A.R.T. goals; What incentivizes Medical Schools; A CIO that embraces Web2.0 (I approve)
February 21st, 2008 | Popularity: 47% 0 comments | Leave a replyFebruary 18th through February 19th:
- Graffletopia – Nice set of stencils for Mac users of diagramming software
- Lean Manufacturing Blog, Kaizen Articles and Advice | Gemba Panta Rei – Primer on Hoshin and SMART goals
- Life as a Healthcare CIO: Rapid Application Development with Facebook – Looking at innovative consumer technologies as an opportunity in the CIO role is a great thing. I’m a fan.
- Hooked: Ethics, Medicine, and Pharma: Institutional Conflicts of Interest Policies: Some Assembly Required – This tracks back to medical schools’ support of community health…
- Health Care Renewal: Medical Schools to Faculty: “Show Me the Money” – The contribution of medical education to fostering patient centered care is challenged by the current system.
Better walking in DC; BIDMC going LEAN?; CEO Blogging; Best Companies 2008
February 7th, 2008 | Popularity: 71% 0 comments | Leave a replyFebruary 4th through February 6th:
- DC Moves for Safer Sidewalks – Get There – Washington government takes a step toward promoting walkability. Sidewalks stay open for business.Walkers rejoice!
- Apple //c – a photoset on Flickr – The OOB experience of an unopened AppleIIc computer. Remember when technology was fun? It still is. And I never even learned to program in Pascal.
- Ryanair’s Changing Altitude – Efficient cost management and charging for everything keeps margins high at RyanAir – a great example of “copy how we think” in terms of being like Southwest
- Running a hospital: More on fetching and work-arounds – BIDMC launches an improvement methodology called SPIRIT. Looks like it’s at least partially based on LEAN?
- The Health Care Blog: Bad Medicine: How The AMA Undermined Primary Care in America – Brian Klepper – Analysis of RBRVS and impact on primary care.
- The ethics of CEO blogging – Nice discussion from Paul Levy about the approach that a CEO takes to blogging. I’m in support!
- Insurers Begin To Reimburse for Online Visits, Concerns Remain – Nice profile of Kaiser Permanente’s program.
- Marriot Rolls Out Web-Based PHR System to Employees Nationwide – iHealthBeat – An employer-sponsored PHR. Will the lack of connection to the health care team be an issue?
- KUOW: Program Archive: Patient Safety, January, 2008 – Dr. Matt Handley, from Group Health Cooperative, is featured
- Best Companies 2008 – FORTUNE Magazine’s Top 100 Employers to Work For – The 2008 list is out. From an HR/Leadership perspective, it is interesting to look at some of the most important qualifications for being on the list, such as support for diversity.
What about Carol.com; Top HIT Predictions and more Questions about the Federal Role
February 4th, 2008 | Popularity: 56% 0 comments | Leave a reply- Health IT Pioneer Calls for Changes in Federal Health IT Strategy – iHealthBeat – More changes requested in federal involvement around Health IT
- JAY PARKINSON + MD + MPH on Carol – Jay says it isn’t going to work. I’m not sure it will either as I think about what Apple had to do to create the iPhone. I found the CEO’s ideas compelling. We should start with what’s best for those we serve and figure out a way to make it work.
- ChangeThis Newsletter: 42.05 Ideaicide: How To Avoid It And Get What You Want by Alan Parr and Karen Ansbaugh – I would call this a nice primer on “Nemawashi” – or conversations around the office to get ideas off the ground.
- A Food Fight Over Calorie Counts – Interested more in the approach to sharing information than the issue of calorie counts (per se) – that “consumer confusion” is used as the reason to not provide information.
- Chapter 70.02 RCW: Medical records ? health care information access and disclosure – Background information; Transparency Law in Washington State
- Forrester?s Top Health-IT Predictions for 2008 ? Digital Healthcare and Productivity – Clinical analytics, EHRs gain a greater toehold, RHIOs will take a little longer. My experience in the field seems to resonate.
- The Health 2.0 Blog: Carol aims to disrupt the health care market by Matthew Holt – There’s that “d” word again, in reference to Carol.com. Can they do it? If we think about creating patient-centered HIT systems, why wouldn’t we include cost information as part of the Information part of HIT?
Sign of the Times
January 30th, 2008 | Popularity: 17% 2 comments
I received this insert in the mail recently. No better time like the present than to start blogging. It’s from The Department of Health Policy News, which is described as follows:
The Department of Health Policy at Jefferson Medical College is committed to conducting research and education programs that will contribute to the quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness of health care. The Department’s activities are meant to inform decisions made by government policy makers, providers, payers, and other health system stakeholders about how best to deliver and finance care in order to improve the health of the public.
I support blogging by health system leaders to support a conversation with the people we serve. Of course I subscribed to the RSS feed.
Possible Web2 apps for the Enterprise; Regence Health Plan lets its members provide feedback to others; Being my own CIO – update
January 16th, 2008 | Popularity: 33% 0 comments | Leave a replyThis is my iPhone 1.1.3 edition blog post. The upgrade went flawlessly. I think this is a good time to reflect on how things are going in terms of being my own CIO. Green light here. I think technology is lightweight and standards based enough that it is enjoyable to e-mail, calendar, and content manage with a few simple tools that sync well with each other, in fixed locations and on the go. The software lineup I mentioned in my first post has not changed – it has only gotten better. Data detectors in Leopard work amazingly well and are a huge time saver. I recalled about 2 years ago that I could look down at my Macintosh dock and find all 4 Microsoft Office apps running on it. Since this experience, there usually aren’t any, as they have been handily replaced by Mail, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. This is not to say that I have a goal of replacing Microsoft apps on my desktop. I am really looking forward to purchasing Office 2008 and seeing what it has to offer. The Macintosh Business Unit there always does a great job with their products and are a good example of the benefit of having an in house innovation unit.
All of that aside, the next question for me has to be – how to get this lightweight technology into the enterprise, because this is what people are learning outside of work. Why not make it what they use at work? What is the cost of acquiring and supporting the monolithic suite of applications that most enterprises use? This is especially relevant for the next generation of leaders and staff (GenX and Y). Are there examples of CIO’s out there who are pioneering in this regard. Worthy of exploration…
Links for January 14-15:
- Flickr DNA: Discover someone new. Rediscover someone anew. – Another interesting social networking app based on Flickr
- flickr graph – marcos weskamp – A great visualization of a social network, this time using Flickr. This could be very useful in the enterprise – “Who is good at X?”
- The 2007 Medical Weblog Awards Nominees – Medgadget – www.medgadget.com – As the title says. The ranks are growing bigger…
- Is Enterprise 2.0 Bad for Business? – Yahoo! News – Lotus Notes the same as a Wiki? I don’t tihnk so….the issue is about lightweight technology that’s standards based and easy to deploy. This is what the enterprise needs.
- Report: EMI Records To Cut Workforce By 36% –
- Health Beat: Who Decides How Much Specialists Are Paid? – Historical commentary on RBRVS and its update committee. It would be interesting to see possible solutions proposed to support a more patient-centered health care world.
- PR Newswire – Healthcare/Hospitals News – Regence members in the Pacific Northwest to be able to provide feedback on their experience with providers to each other. Does this need to sit within the health plan’s web site, though?
- Report lauds VA’s focus on quality care, health IT –
HIT Resources; Blogging about “breaking up” with your company; Dr. Phil (Marshall) joins the blogosphere
January 7th, 2008 | Popularity: 28% 2 comments- Health Information Technology Toolkit – An Alliance for Health Reform Toolkit – Produced with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – a bibliography and web sites of conventional wisdom related to HIT
- The Afro American Newspaper: Washington, DC Women more likely to die from breast cancer – Access is cited as a key issue in this situation.
- TWI Job Instruction for Lean Healthcare – Fascinating materials from the 1940’s, before Training within Industry was abandoned. Let’s bring it back.
- Nathan Stoll: Breaking up with Google: a difficult, highly personal decision and a very fond farewell – Interesting both as a metaphor (“breaking up” when leaving an organization), and in using a blog to make the broader announcement.
- Dr. Phil’s Blogajawea – Dr. Phil Marshall is the VP of Product Strategy for WebMD, the co-founder of Genacy and is the Executive Director of the Oregon Crusaders Drum and Bugle Corps.
Facts are what you see on the ground; Being in your 20’s in the 2000’s; RHIO closure
November 15th, 2007 | Popularity: 37% 0 comments | Leave a reply- The Changing 20s – Brookings Institution – Information / data about being in your 20’s in the 2000’s
- Lean Manufacturing Blog, Kaizen Articles and Advice | Gemba Panta Rei – Toyota places emphasis on facts learned at the Gemba.
- Life as a Healthcare CIO: The Tyranny of the Urgent – John Halamka, MD, posts his 1 year and 5 year plan on his blog. Way to be transparent.
- Modern Healthcare Online: Patient Safety Institute Closes Its Doors – YAR (yet another rhio….)
- CDC Reports Rise In EMR Usage – Slightly more physicians are using comprehensive EMR’s – but still at 12%
Analysis of Paralysis; More health leaders’ blogs; Role Experience and Performance
November 12th, 2007 | Popularity: 30% 0 comments | Leave a replyNovember 5th through November 10th:
- Analysis of Paralysis – Chip and Dan Heath – Decision making – Leading company – Cool Motto: “We don’t want to be first but we sure as hell don’t want to be third.”
- Modern Healthcare: Get an EHR or leave the Partner’s Network – Where will the mandates come from in the future?
- MAeHC Blog – Another e-Health leader blog, from Mass e-Health Collaborative
- Life as a Healthcare CIO – John D. Halamka, MD, MS’s blog. More physician leaders are online.
- Team Familiarity, Role Experience, and Performance: Evidence from Indian Software Services ? HBS Working Knowledge – Link to paper about Wipro Software and interesting study on performance and role experience. Especially interesting in the way they quantify performance in software development.
- Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries ? HBS Working Knowledge – Great summary about what LEAN means for service (e.g. health care)
