Top health industry issues of 2011

PWC has published a brief on what it thinks the health industry will focus on in 2011. http://tinyurl.com/2d2culn

Here are a few of the things that I found most interesting:

Consumers:
-Nearly 3/4 of consumers said they would trade employer-sponsored insurance for higher pay. Contrast that thought with the fact that .... Less than half (46%) of consumers know what a health insurance exchange is.
-Overall, consumers undervalued their family coverage (versus the actual cost) ... meaning that consumers do not know what the total cost of coverage is.
-50% of patients don’t take their drugs as prescribed, which results in an estimated $290 billion in avoidable healthcare services. (avoidable hospitalizations accounts for $100 billion)

Health Plans:
-Wisconsin’s department of insurance found that 80% of policies currently sold will have to be modified to meet the coverage and cost sharing requirements under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (and the pricing of those plans will have to be revamped to meet the 3:1 premium range.

What I believe this means for Health Plans:
-Insurance provided by employers is becoming less valued by consumers and employers will leave the insurance game, meaning Health Plans will need to be ready for the individual insurance purchaser.
-Creating policies that are acceptable under the new standards and eligible for the exchanges will be hard and take time to develop.
-During the purchasing decision, the better insurance carriers will have transparency that reveals the total cost of healthcare, not just the premium. This will increase trust in the carrier and higher retention rates.
-The ACO’s that can increase engagement (adherence to medication and clinical practice guidelines) for those with chronic conditions will realize lower MLR faster.

My Blurb experience

My Blurb experience

Colorado, June...

Our Family Vacation

By Brian J. Todey

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Google Maps ... building interactive waypoints

I really like Google maps over any of the online map information systems. I have an idea of how to make it better (so I'm putting the idea on this public blog first, so that I can prove it is an original idea later)

I really appreciate how online mapping systems give the user the most direct route between two place, let's say Detroit, MI and New York City, NY. Some systems also allow you to include certain way points so that you actually have the most direct route between multiple points, let's say I wanted to stop and see a Flyers game in Philly' on my way. Those map systems would give me the route from Detroit to Philadelphia and from Philadelphia to New York. The user currently does that by entering destination points in text into a form field, hit a button and wait for the result.

I have two ideas about the interface of users and the map though:
1) I would like to be able to change how people interface with the map. Maybe they could right click on a map to add a point of interest ... and drag to another point to create the desired route. So click on Detroit and hold and drag to New York City then release and wait a moment as the system builds the route.

Is that better than typing in the destination points ... umm maybe ... it's definitely cooler.

2) Here's where it gets interesting. What if I have that route from Detroit to New York City on my screen (usually indicated by an off-color fairly straight thick line between the two points on the roads that the systems identified as best) and I click and grab a point in the line, fairly close to New York City and drag it down to Philadelphia. When I released the mouse or let go of the line ... the mapping system would re configure the most efficient route from Detroit to Philadelphia and from Philadelphia to New York City.

So, I'm not adding too much in new functionality to mapping multiple points on a trip, except that I can re-route all on the magical Google moving screen thingy.

Sound like fun?

I'll let you know what Google thinks about the idea.

Bri'

Small is Big in Healthcare too

I truly appreciate Seth Godin's focus on 'small.' I think we'll see many industries trend towards delivering their services on a small scale to gain the ultimate customer experience.

I believe that Healthcare should be delivered one community at a time and PricewaterhouseCooers Health Research Institute, which put out the
Top seven health industry trends in '07 also believes that "Small is Big"

The number 7 trend for 2007 is that Small is Big, which refers to the growth in healthcare services that are delivered on a small scale:

• Use a 'MinuteClinic' instead of a primary care physician for minor illnesses (sore throat, flu, etc.)

• Surgery centers instead of hospitals for lower cost outpatient procedures

• Ancillary centers for Imaging and Laboratory instead of hospitals for lower cost diagnostic testing.

What are you doing to create the 'small' optimal customer experience?

How long is too long?

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115439031335922852.html said that nursing home "industry transition to using electronic records is likely to take a decade or more."

A Decade????

Are you kidding. I want nothing to do with a decade of progress, where the tchnology exists today.

Is this a Blue ocean where someone could fly in and build most of the functionaliy for a nursing home EHR this in 18 months ... letting the typical EHR builders go through their usual 10 yer stage-gate? let me know if you want me to do that for you.

Cool as ....

Have you seen this? An artist named Sala selling paintings of numbers. Yes, just blue painted numbers on a white canvas. The number 112 is still available. Sala (from Switzerland as far as I have been able to tell) has found a way to reach the average non-art collector by creating a whole new category to measure what is good about art. Much like Yellow-tail did with wine by creating a wine that even beer drinkers could enjoy, which is mentioned in the book Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

By simply selling a number you get a bit of a modern and eclectic piece, one the requires no interpretation or determination of the the artists skill. He'll reach one thousand people by the time he sells all 1,000 numbers, create a potential for enormous buzz, i.e. future sales, and the buyer creates the value for the purchase.

I wonder if he sold 0?

Helping Each Other Out / Bartering

I take golf lessons, not a lot, but enough to avoid embarrassment on the course. My primary golf goal is to make the first cut and eventually the second cut at the Kent County Amateur. I wouldn't mind conducting business on the course too, but it has not presented itself as an opportunity, yet. The Kent County Amateur It is an all ages stroke play tournament with over 200 players. Not US open caliber, but enough to make me feel like I'm on of the top 50 players in my community.

So anyway, about every 24-30 months I shell out $75-$100 to have a real professional take a look at my swing and fix the 15 things that have gone awry since my previous lesson. I saw Charlie Vandenberg, a local PGA Pro in May. Charlie is a delight to work with. He's energetic, encouraging, and takes a real interest in you as a person. He has this great software called V1 that shows you the angles of your swing and really gets quite precise at potential flaws. He also has a machine that looks a bit like a piece of weight-lifting equipment that restricts your swing to only those moves that are needed.

Charlie has all this set up on a laptop and has a VCR and TV to allow you to see everything almost real-time. He gives every student a VHS tape to take home with them to help review their lesson periodically. The tape has my swings from a camcorder we used on the driving range, and voice-over from Charlie about how I can improve.

Charlie says to me during the lesson that he wants to start giving students a DVD or CD when they leave instead of a VHS tape. That way the student will be able to see all the discrete analysis that done on the computer. My mind quickly leaves my lesson and starts thinking about what Charlie needs to get that job done. I'm such a Maven, that I can't turn it off. Maven is a term that I picked up from Malcolm Gladwell in his book, "The Tipping Point."

I've gone back out to Charlie's 'office' (the golf course) twice and added 8 feet of cables and a couple sound adapters to his set up, and we've almost completed the job. What will I get paid. I don't know ... but I trust Charlie. I trust that if I work with him for 4-5 hours. He will return the effort with 4-5 hours of his time or things that he can control, like the lesson time, time in the machine, or a round of golf (or two ;-) ).

It is not about making money on the time I spent with Charlie. It is about building that relationship with Charlie and the next PGA professional that will help support my passions. If I end up making real money at the end of the day even better, but I do not approach the problem with only money as my primary objective.