The “consumerization” of medical technology could deliver numerous benefits to both healthcare providers and patients. Shiv Gaglani, a medical student in John Hopkins, hopes to do so with Quantified Care, a digital marketplace for clinicians and consumers. How feasible will this venture be? Find out from this Fast Company article:
To give someone a decent medical exam these days, all you need is a smartphone and a few hundred dollars. The standard equipment–electrocardiogram, otoscope, blood pressure monitor, and so on–is all available as phone attachments. For example, you can now buy a FDA-approved smartphone case that doubles as an EKG heart monitor. It costs just $200.
This consumerization of medical technology could have profound implications. It should widen access to health care in poorer parts of the world, and could allow patients to do more of their own screening. “We see a future where physicians won’t just prescribe a pill for reducing your blood pressure,” says Shiv Gaglani, editor of Medgadget, a mobile health website. “They’ll prescribe a pill and a smartphone-based blood pressure cuff, and it will show you how well the medication is working, and whether the patient is improving their health.” In other words, doctors and patients will become more like partners, with smartphones playing a role as intermediaries.
Gaglani, a medical student at Johns Hopkins, wants more clinicians to experiment with mobile health. Last year, he put together the Smartphone Physical, a showcase and 10-spot exam for visitors at the TEDMED conference. Now, he’s launching Quantified Care, a marketplace for clinicians and consumers.
“We got a lot of feedback from clinicians and started hearing the same questions over and over,” he says. “What’s the evidence that this will actually improve care? Will it be useful? And how are we going to pay for it? [The site] is about how we go from these things being toys to them being tools.”
Gaglani is looking for $20,000 to launch the full site (see the Indiegogo video above). It will include devices for sale, practical advice about how clinicians might use them, and his own range of products, like the Osler, a leather bag designed to carry m-health equipment. With a price tag of $400, it’s a new take on the classic doctor’s bag, but with more space for laptops and cabling. “We realized it was very easy to lose parts and not have a way to access them,” Gaglani says.
Gaglani is a big evangelist for m-health, and not just because he thinks it’s innovative. He actually believes it could improve care. For example, a smartphone-connected stethoscope can not only listen sounds around the body. It can also record them and establish an audio history for each patient that can be referred to at a later date. There’s also potential for mobile health to reduce costs and involve patients more in health care. But, to go mainstream, it will require both clinicians and consumers to adopt the technology.
With over 15 years of experience in healthcare operations, David Wildebrandt has seen how the medical industry has evolved through the years. More discussions on how today’s technologies are transforming healthcare delivery and management can be accessed here.
The healthcare industry is a vulnerable target to hacking, as seen in the recent data breach at Community Health Systems. This Forbes article discusses the issue at length.
According to cloud security vendor Skyhigh Networks, more than 13% of cloud services used in healthcare are high‒risk and 77% are medium risk ‒ as measured across 54 different security attributes (like data encryption and “two factor” authentication).
As if to add emphasis to this exact point, risqué celebrity photos were hacked over the weekend in what is being rumored as a potentially broader attack on Apple’s iCloud service (specifically the Photo Stream feature).
While cloud vendors have a general responsibility to encrypt data at rest and offer two‒factor authentication (iCloud does), they can’t really dictate the use of important safety measures ‒ especially on the retail/consumer side. In the case of two-factor authentication, it’s an extra, somewhat annoying step and the risks are often thought to be vague or low for casual consumer data. As a gentle reminder, if you haven’t read Mat Honan’s account of how he lost his digital life in one hour (August 2012 Wired), now would be a good time to get that chilling refresher.
Which also underscores healthcare’s broader dilemma. On the one hand, cloud services can offer advanced technical solutions at an attractive price compared to on-premise hardware and software, but issues of privacy and security are also very different for healthcare. Recent statistics from Skyhigh Networks also serve to emphasize these concerns.
The recent breach at Community Health Systems (4.5 million patient records) could well be the tipping point in the on-premise versus cloud debate ‒ at least in healthcare. While the forensic analysis is still underway, it appears that the Heartbleed bug did play a leading role in the breach and that means open‒source software was a contributing factor to what is now the 2nd largest data breach in U.S. healthcare. I’m equally sure that CHS wasn’t alone in the use of free open‒source software for this critical security component.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with open‒source software, of course, but its use in healthcare for protecting patient records does make it higher risk because there is no software warranty of any kind. The pending class action lawsuit against CHS could well hinge on this one point because it could go to the heart of another legal phrase ‒ negligence. Should CHS (or really any healthcare entity) rely on open‒source software as a mission-critical component of web security in protecting patient records?
All of which highlights the broader issues around cybersecurity in healthcare.
The gap between offense and defense is growing and continues to favor the attackers. They only need one exploit or vulnerability whereas IT departments have to protect against the entire attack surface.
Cyber experts as a resource are in high demand ‒ and dwindling supply. This doesn’t bode well for healthcare generally ‒ which has tended to downplay the importance of IT infrastructure and typically under-funds security specifically.
As evidenced by CHS, “bad actors” are no longer lone hackers for quick profit ‒ but are well organized “advanced persistent threats” that are often coordinated by large groups on behalf of entire countries (Russia, Ukraine, China etc..).
Leading software security vendor Symantec SYMC +0.23% offers these five elements of an “advanced persistent threat.”
While there’s no way to know for sure at this stage, I estimate the cost of the CHS breach at somewhere between $75 million and $150 million. Whatever the final amount, its relatively easy for a 31,000 bed hospital system (with a market cap of $6 billion) to absorb, but a large data breach could easily cripple a smaller system or facility. Even small ones have millions of patient records.
In that sense, the debate between on-premise and cloud solutions could well be coming to an end. Cloud solutions may well be the only way that large segments of the healthcare industry are able to address critical IT infrastructure issues like security. Healthcare today can’t afford the talent or the resources to staff advanced security operations centers (SOC’s), but they need the advanced protection that newer technology solutions can deliver.
That’s where companies like Skyhigh Networks represent a potentially strong fit for healthcare. Founded in 2011 (with more than $66 million in venture funding to date), Skyhigh helps organizations to discover, analyze and control thousands of cloud services in use throughout an entire enterprise.
“Cloud technology is a logical imperative for healthcare because it offers compelling IT value across a wide range of services and solutions, but it also poses new security challenges and threats. We intuitively know that we can’t eliminate all risk, so organizations across the healthcare spectrum need to take a proactive, risk-informed and actively monitored approach to leveraging all the cloud benefits while maximizing for the various attributes related to security.” Rajiv Gupta – Founder, CEO of Skyhigh Networks.
Unbreakable data security doesn’t exist and isn’t likely to appear in the foreseeable future. All we really have are varying degrees of sophisticated defenses in attempts to thwart increasingly sophisticated attacks. In healthcare, being able to afford the newer defense mechanisms and lower risk profiles is likely to include a wide range of cloud options. That could logically include relatively new ones like Skyhigh Networks.
David Wildebrandt of Berkeley Research Group develops and implements strategies to improve healthcare systems. Subscribe to this blog for more discussions on healthcare reforms.
Can business students transform the American health care system? Physician and business school professor Robert Pearl, M.D. provides five tips for young entrepreneurs to change health care for the better.
Every year, ambitious students from around the world flock to America’s leading business schools, hoping to learn how to create new ventures that can change the world.
On the west coast, situated in the heart of Silicon Valley, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business attracts budding entrepreneurs with challenging and practical programs. Courses like “Entrepreneurship: Formation of New Ventures” and “Managing Growing Enterprises” encourage students to develop innovative business models that solve real problems and fill unmet needs.
Many students in these courses want to strike it rich by launching the next Google, Facebook or Apple. But more and more B-school students are expressing a new and unexpected interest: transforming the American health care system.
The Business Of Health Care
Attempting to solve the nation’s many health care challenges is far from child’s play.
It’ll take some innovative solutions to improve quality of care, decrease overall costs and navigate one of America’s most befuddling bureaucracies.
However, the magnitude of this challenge isn’t deterring today’s young, energetic business students. They know what they’re up against.
Already, 2014 marks another record year for digital health funding. (Graphic: Rock Health) | Image Source: Forbes.com
They recognize that health care accounts for 18 percent of American GDP and is growing at an unsustainable pace. They know the average family of four spends 25 percent of its income on health care and – at the current rate of inflation – that percentage will climb to 50 over the next 20 years.
They’re also aware that America’s health care system isn’t producing better results.Life expectancy and childhood mortality ratesaren’t nearly where they should be given how much the U.S. is spending.
But instead of lamenting these harsh realities, today’s students ask: “How can I make a difference?”
In my work as a health care CEO, physician and business school professor, I’ve come up with five things entrepreneurs can do to change health care for the better: 1. Get Smart About Health Care’s New Economics
TheAffordable Care Act (ACA)is shifting the way doctors and hospitals are paid and how they deliver care. That means entrepreneurial success in health care won’t look quite the same in the future.
Solutions will come from innovators who figure out how to provide personalized, higher-quality medical care at lower costs.
The expansion of public and private health insurance exchanges will lead to more competitive insurance products. Already, they are putting downward pressure on prices.
And the combination ofAccountable Care Organizations,the Affordable Care Act and Medicare Advantage has begun to shift the payment paradigm, gradually moving reimbursement from a “fee-for-service” model to a “pay-for-value” system.
Health care companies that generate profits by increasing the volume of services can be profitable in the short run – even when they only offer patients limited improvements in clinical outcomes.
But that’s not where mission-driven entrepreneurs should look if they want to transform American medicine. 2. Create Technologies That Lower Costs
Within the public health care exchanges, people enrolling in silver or bronze plans face sizable deductibles. Paying the first $5,000 out-of-pocket will prove unaffordable for many.
And even patients with more comprehensive coverage want greater convenience from their health care experience as they try to balance the demands of work, home and long-distance commuting.
The next generation of health care entrepreneurs will use existing technologies to create alternatives to traditional office visits and in-patient hospital stays. They will develop new applications that are safe and reliable, building on available mobile and video platforms. Already, some are working to provide patients with virtual access to care, eliminating the need for an in-person visit while offering 24/7 access to their digital health records.
Developing new, technologically enhanced solutions will be the easy part. Ensuring these new approaches decrease the cost of care will be the real challenge.
3. Follow The Startup Money Trail
Venture capital fundingfor digital health totaled nearly $2 billion in 2013 and has more than doubled over the past two years.
Companies likeRock HealthandStartup Healthare backing hundreds of newcomers who aim to improve clinical workflows, inform clinical decisions with “big data,” create platforms for population management and engage health care consumers.
Some of these startups have promised improvements they can’t fulfill while others cling to the models of the past that increase cost without major improvements in quality.
But a few of the companies that combine data and innovative approaches can make a positive impact on the future of health care.
Take the new health insurerOscar Health. Making its debut on the 2014 New York health insurance exchanges, Oscar set out to disrupt the notoriously complicated and regulation-constrained health insurance industry.
The company promises a better and more convenient consumer experience. It gives enrollees instant access to their doctors through telemedicine while offering price comparison tools and the ability to look up alternative treatments.
And then there’sCastlight Health, a service employers can purchase for workers, which provides price comparison tools for finding doctors and diagnostic services at lower costs and with comparable quality.
While the company has had ups and downs, educating patients about comparative pricing among providers has the potential to disrupt an industry that offers little by way of quality and cost transparency.
But for every success story there are dozens of failures. And, as in other industries, these failures often happen when entrepreneurs create a new technology before figuring out how whether it’s needed.
Berkeley Research Group Director David Wildebrandt provides effective solutions for issues and concerns confronting the healthcare continuum. Visit this website to get expert advice on improving the major sectors of our economy.
The article below focuses on a new carry-over option called flexible spending arrangements or FSA which allow consumers to set aside money to cover out-of-pocket health costs.
If your employer offers health care flexible spending accounts, you may have a new option for managing the funds.
New rules could make using the money even more flexible.
Officially known as flexible spending arrangements, F.S.A.s let you set aside some of your pay, pretax, to cover out-of-pocket health costs. Roughly two-thirds of employers offer them, according to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management.
It used to be that an unspent balance in an F.S.A. had to be forfeited at the end of the year. Even though many employers allowed an additional grace period of two and a half months, the risk of losing the funds made some people wary of using the accounts.
Image Source: ahier.net
Late last year, however, the federal government changed the rules, giving employers the option to allow as much as $500 to be carried over in an F.S.A. from one year to the next. That means you do not have to worry about losing the money if it is not all spent before the end of the year; no more rushing out to buy a new pair of eyeglasses that you don’t really need. Employers must choose between offering the carry-over option or a grace period to their workers — they cannot offer both.
WageWorks, which manages pretax worker benefits for about 29,000 employers, expects roughly half of its clients to adopt the carry-over provision, based on research it conducted with Visa.
“In reality, there isn’t a logical reason why an employer wouldn’t take advantage of the carry-over provision,” said Joe Jackson, the company’s chief executive. Some employers, mostly smaller ones, have already adopted it for this year, he noted. Employees can feel comfortable putting at least $500 into their accounts, he said, without worrying that they will forfeit it.
Steven G. Auerbach, chief executive of Alegeus Technologies, which administers such accounts, advises employers that adopt the carry-over option to educate employees about the change. The company’s research indicates that many consumers remain confused about the details of F.S.A.s and other tax-advantaged savings options, like health savings accounts or H.S.A.s.
H.S.A.s, for instance, also allow pretax money to be set aside for health expenses, but are available only to workers who have certain health plans with high deductibles. Unlike the case with F.S.A.s, the money in H.S.A.s is portable; you keep it all if you don’t use it, without any cap, and it follows you if you change employers.
One catch, however, is that you cannot have both an F.S.A. and an H.S.A. unless your flexible spending account is a “limited purpose” version, for covering costs like those for dental and vision care. Edward I. Leeds, a lawyer specializing in employee benefits with Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia, said the Internal Revenue Service recently clarified that the restriction applied even if the only money left in an F.S.A. was a carry-over from the previous year. That means that if you want to contribute to a health savings account next year, it’s not enough simply to decline to put new money into your F.S.A.; you can’t have any money left over from the year before, either.
Here are some additional questions about flexible spending accounts:
■ What if I have more than $500 remaining in my F.S.A. at the end of the year?
If your employer adopts the carry-over option, you may not carry over more than $500; unspent balances over that amount will still be forfeited. And keep in mind that your employer can choose to set a carry-over limit below the $500 maximum.
■ Does the carry-over rule affect F.S.A. contribution limits?
No. The annual maximum is currently $2,500.
■ Does the carry-over option apply to other types of flexible spending accounts, like those for child care or other dependent care costs?
No. It applies to health care F.S.A.s only, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.
David Wildebrandt is the director Berkeley Research Group Director and a widely sought keynote speaker in various healthcare industries events. Read more about his healthcare management expertise on this Facebook page.
Good information governance lowers overall costs while improving quality of care. Mike Miliard ofHealthcare IT Newswrites about the importance of improving information governance in healthcare practices.
Does your organization have a comprehensive data governance program? If not, you’re not alone. But you’re also not close to where you should be if you want to provide better care at lower cost, according to a new report.
More than two-thirds of healthcare organizations still lack a comprehensive information governance strategy, a new analysis from AHIMA finds, despite the obvious importance of having one in place to improve care delivery and population health – to say nothing of an organization’s bottom line.
In the benchmarking survey of comprehensive IG practices in healthcare – billed as the first of its kind – a whopping 95 percent of more than 1,000 respondents said improving the quality and safety of patient care was the chief rationale for implementing IG strategies.
But there are plenty of other benefits to be had from smarter governance of clinical and financial data.
“Information governance is a strategic imperative for all organizations within the healthcare ecosystem,” said AHIMA Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President Deborah Green, in a press statement. “Improved quality and patient safety, cost control, care delivery redesign and responding to regulatory changes are top goals for healthcare organizations, and all are dependent on trustworthy information.”
The new report from AHIMA and Cohasset Associates, “A Call to Adopt Information Governance Practices,” takes stock of IG in healthcare and offers tips organizations should follow to better handle their data.
There are certain areas where governance is strong, AHIMA points out – most notably with regard to privacy and security. But organization-wide deployment is still a relative rarity. Among the survey’s key takeaways:
IG programs are less prevalent and less mature in healthcare organizations than is warranted, given the importance of health information.
The IG framework and its foundational components call for strengthening and expansion within organizations.
Information lifecycle management practices related to core functions require improvement to ensure the trustworthiness of the information.
Privacy policy and practices are the most developed in healthcare followed closely by information security policy and practices.
Indeed, when it comes to patient privacy the news was very good: fully 97 percent of respondents said essential policies for maintaining secure protected personal health information are in place in their organizations. However, only 81 percent report that business associate agreements are in force and routinely audited.
To lay the groundwork for better and more widely-deployed data governance programs, AHIMA recommends approaches that are cross-functional, with senior level support. Moreover, providers’ focus shouldn’t just be on clinical information alone, but business and operations information as well.
“I encourage my colleagues in the C-suite to make a comprehensive information governance strategy an organizational priority,” said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon in a press statement.
“It’s easy to think it can be put on hold or maintained in one department while executives deal with other challenges, but this is a mistake,” she added. “Developing a strategy should be a collaborative effort and is essential to realizing the benefits of governance.”
Toward that end, AHIMA recommends an accountability framework and decision rights to ensure the effective use of information, enterprise-wide; defined processes, skills and tools to manage information throughout its entire lifecycle; and standards, rules and guidelines for functioning in an increasingly electronic environment.
Healthcare organizations experts like David Wildebrandt highlight the importance of efficient and effective tool use for health practices. Follow this Twitter page for more on the organizational aspects of healthcare.
What are the similarities in the healthcare services of the U.S. and Canada? Find out from thisHuffington Postarticle .
Both Canada and the United States are historically and practically steeped in fee-for-service medicine, and much of the power to control prices rests in the hands of the medical establishment. While provincial governments have periodic negotiations with medical and hospital groups, and there are global budgets for hospitals that try to constrain costs, the system is relatively expensive.
In 2011, the U.S. won the dubious honor of having the most expensive system in the world, spending about $8,500 per capita. Canada spent about $4,500, making it the third most expensive country among a group of OECD-developed nations.
Still, that number needs perspective. In 1970, a few years before Canada implemented its national health insurance system, both countries were spending about 7 per cent of the GDP on health care. Thirty-nine years later the U.S. was spending 50 per cent more of its national income on health care, leaving its patients with the highest out-of-pocket expenses in the world.
When I explained the high out-of-pocket expenses to Canadians on my speaking tour across the country there, that notion simply did not compute. There is some talk about imposing copays for some services as a way to help both the federal and provincial governments save money. But the idea of making people pay 50 percent of a bill or a family paying $13,000 out of pocket before insurance benefits kick in is wildly unpopular.
As in the U.S., there’s much soul searching about whether the country is getting as much bang for the bucks it spends. Does the quality of care match the country’s outlay? A number of studies, including the latest international comparison from The Commonwealth Fund, show that Canada and the U.S. both fall down on several dimensions of care. Both Canadians and Americans were more likely to report long waits for primary care and high use of emergency rooms compared to other countries such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
I asked Jeffrey Turnbull, M.D., F.R.C.P.C., chief of staff at Ottawa General Hospital, about criticisms of the quality of Canadian health care. He said that, when it comes to treating heart attacks, stroke, heart failure and pneumonia “we do relatively well.” But when you look at the broader indices that measure the inequities, the picture is very different. “Our vulnerable populations have rates like the developing world.” We can say the same for groups in the U.S.
Our two countries also share the increasing burden of providing care for their aging populations. Indeed, lack of community support is one reason why waiting lists develop at Canadian hospitals. Seniors who are admitted to acute care hospitals sometimes stay much longer than what’s medically necessary because they have no place to go.
The public, though, seems to be paying attention. Last summer the Canadian Medical Association polled residents to measure their priorities for long-term care. Ninety-three percent said the government should develop a comprehensive seniors’ strategy. The outgoing president of the CMA said the poll results sent a strong message the public wants action. In a system that’s accountable to the taxpayers who fund it, it’s easier for the federal and provincial governments to listen. Contrast that with the U.S. where long-term care is barely discussed, and the CLASS Act provision in the Affordable Care Act, a fledgling program to pay for long-term care was repealed.
Health care systems are not static, as Nicholas Timmins, the former health policy editor of The Financial Times, told a group of health care journalists at an Athens meeting a year ago. But neither do they change the fundamentals much. “Countries rarely change the way they do things,” Timmins told the group. Canadians may fix their system; we may fix ours, but neither country is rushing to embrace the other’s. Timmins added, “What systems do face is the desire to find a way to constrain costs.”
As one of the directors of Berkeley Research Group, David Wildebrandt develops and implements strategies to help guide healthcare organizations through today’s financial landscape while improving clinical outcomes and sustaining an engaged culture. For more of his expertise, click here.
On March 31, 2014, millions of Americans signed up online for private health insurance at the last minute, causing HealthCare.gov some technical issues. David Morgan of Reuters.com has the full report:
The federal website for U.S. consumers to enroll in private health insurance under Obamacare ran into problems twice on Monday because of a surge of people trying to access the site hours before a midnight deadline to sign up for coverage.
Technical issues that barred access to HealthCare.gov for several hours throughout the day underscored the frantic last-minute pace of an enrollment process that could determine the ultimate success or failure of the healthcare law that represents President Barack Obama’s domestic policy achievement.
More than 6 million people had signed up for private health coverage through the new Obamacare insurance markets by last week, surpassing a target set after a disastrous October rollout called the enrollment process into question. With daily volumes continuing to surge, analysts believe the final tally could approach or even exceed an original goal of 7 million.
“We admittedly had just a terrible start because the website wasn’t working, and despite losing effectively two months, we are going to be reasonably close to that original projection,” Obama said in a CBS Evening News interview that was taped last week and broadcast on Monday.
A successful enrollment would give an important political boost to the administration and its Democratic allies, who are locked in an election year battle with Republicans over the future of Obamacare.
“No one expected us to come back from the brink,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters before the broadcast. “But we have. And I think that merits noting in your reports.”
Analysts say the total enrollment is less important than the number of healthy policyholders in the marketplaces, which have probably attracted large numbers of older people and consumers with pre-existing medical conditions, who are costlier to insure. Obama told CBS that young people, who are generally healthy, were signing up in larger numbers late in the enrollment period, as expected.
Julissa Esparza, 2, sleeps in the arms of her grandfather Leobardo Salazar, 58, as they wait in line at a health insurance enrollment event in Cudahy, California March 27, 2014. Image Source: Reuters.com
LAST-MINUTE RUSH
In Houston on Monday, prospective enrollees again lined the sidewalks outside special city offices in hopes of obtaining private insurance coverage that comes with federal subsidies for low-income people.
“It’s madness. But it’s good madness,” said Tiffany Hogue, statewide healthcare campaign coordinator for the nonprofit Texas Organizing Project, which is helping with the 11th-hour enrollment drive in the state.
People also crowded health centers across Florida as navigators and others trained to assist with online enrollment struggled with HealthCare.gov’s access problems. Compounding the website’s challenges were long waits at a federal call center set up as an alternative route to coverage, according to health center officials.
“It’s been very, very, very busy. But the website issues haven’t been bad, and people realize they’ve waited until the last minute,” said Andrew Behrman, chief executive officer of the Florida Association of Community Health Centers, which represents facilities in nearly 350 locations.
“What can I tell you? It’s like a last-minute sale,” he added.
Texas and Florida, whose political leaders reject Obamacare, have the biggest uninsured populations among the 36 states served by HealthCare.gov. The remaining 14 states, including California and New York, have set up their own insurance marketplaces.
VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM
HealthCare.gov’s performance on the final day of a six-month enrollment period was delayed until 8 a.m. EDT after a government tech team noticed a software bug and extended an overnight maintenance schedule to deal with the problem.
A few hours later, new users logging on to the federal website that serves consumers in 36 states were suddenly unable to create accounts and begin the enrollment process as volume reached what administration officials called record levels. By early afternoon, officials reported the issue resolved.
“Record traffic continues before the midnight ET deadline. As of 2 p.m., HealthCare.gov had more than 1.6 million visits. As of 4 p.m., there were more than 840,000 calls to the call center,” said Joanne Peters, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
She said the day’s high volumes triggered the system’s virtual waiting room, a holding page where people can wait to be let into the website.
The call center volume shattered the previous record of 646,000 for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services call centers, which occurred on Medicare Part D’s last day to enroll on May 15, 2006.
As enrollment has gathered pace, opinion polls have shown public opinion on Obamacare sharply split, with the law slowly gaining favor. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll on Monday said 49 percent of Americans now support the law, up from 40 percent in November. The latest data has a 3.5 percentage-point margin of error.
Republicans continued to pour scorn on Obamacare as a mistake that would harm consumers and small businesses.
“Republicans will continue to work to repeal this law,” House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said in statement.
“We’re achieving something today that I know has our critics gnashing their teeth,” Carney, the White House spokesman, said of the law’s political opponents. “It leaves them with the need to go back to the drawing board when it comes to other means of trying to attack.”
The system’s data services hub, which connects HealthCare.gov to federal agencies, remained fully operational, allowing people already in the system to complete their enrollment, she said.
The delays occurred as healthcare reform faced a crucial test to see how many people sign up for new insurance under the Obamacare marketplaces.
Americans have until midnight on Monday to obtain health insurance under Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or face fines. The administration has softened the deadline to accommodate those who attempt to apply for coverage by Monday night but run into technology issues.
The administration said the website “has handled record consumer demand well. Over the weekend, the site saw 2 million visits,” the government said, and more than 8.7 million visits during the past week.
HealthCare.gov’s consumer-facing technology has worked more or less smoothly since December following an emergency overhaul ordered by the White House. However, there are still some parts of the back-end systems that remain unbuilt.
David Wildebrandt, director at the Berkeley Research Group, specializes in improving efficiency of healthcare operations. Visit the company’s website to learn more about his work.
A number of factors contribute to the rising incidence of cancer worldwide. The most significant would be the so-called “industrialized lifestyle”: lack of exercise and unhealthy diet, obesity resulting from the two preceding factors, as well as tobacco use. Such lifestyle is usually associated with developed nations, but today, it is becoming prevalent, too, in many developing nations. These factors, taken collectively, account for around half of deaths due to the degenerative disease.
Moreover, most developing countries still do not have the sufficient healthcare infrastructure to treat cancer. This means that a greater emphasis should be placed on cancer prevention, which is arguably better than trying to come up with the cure, given the lack of resources.
Cancer prevention, interestingly enough, consists of numerous small changes in lifestyle. These have a myriad of health benefits for those who undertake them, in addition to lowering the risk of getting cancer. Here are a few:
Do not smoke – People have reported experiencing the health benefits that come with halting smoking activity from as early as 24 hours after quitting. Smoking, after all, has been linked to a number of cancers, including those of the lung, bladder, cervix, and kidney.
Eat healthy – Limit the intake of high-calorie foods, processed foods, and the likes. Increase the intake of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Ensure regular physical activity – Inject some form of exercise such as walking and biking in daily routine. The minimum amount of physical activity needed for substantial health benefits is 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week.
The director of Berkeley Research Group and a member of the firm’s Healthcare Performance Improvement practice, David Wildebrandt helps healthcare organizations improve clinical economics and operational management. Learn more about his expertise here.
Rising operation costs plague the promises of healthcare reform. While there are many new technologies that offer to improve overall practice, many practices cannot afford them while driving down medical fees and maximizing the return on investment.
The inefficiencies in the application of the wide toolbox of solutions in healthcare have tilted the favor toward stopgap solutions, while legal issues have left logistical and conceptual complexities that must be overcome (Blumenthal, 2012). Blumenthal adds that both the government and private medical practices should create clear and swift goals in improving quality of care through long-term solutions.
Best practices in healthcare incorporate the proper application of technology in all aspects. Healthcare can be divided into three basic parts: primary care, payment, and information. As always, the primary goal to be set at the organizational level should be helping clinicians and patients stay well-informed to make good healthcare decisions. This in turn sets the foundation for providing patients better, more effective care and streamlining the billing process to speed up turnovers of care and reduce patient problems.
Combining technology and best practices should be augmented with more efficient and astute ways of managing clinical personnel. Experts such as David Wildebrandt from the Berkeley Research Group provide healthcare practices with industry-standard expertise to inform designs that will streamline and simplify the processes.
Learn more about Wildebrandt and the Berkeley Research Group through this website.
David Wildebrandt 
