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Combining Telehealth And Mobile Technology To Improve The Quality Of Health Care

Bill Crounse, MD, Senior Director, Worldwide Health, Worldwide Public Sector Microsoft Corporation shares his insights and describes four leading trends and technologies that will transform health and health care in 2012 and beyond.

These leading technologies include:  cloud computing, health gaming, telehealth services and remote monitoring/mobile health.

Telehealth, Remote Monitoring, Mobile Health

I’d like to focus on telehealth and remote monitoring/mobile health since I feel telehealth is the nucleus of patient care, and telehealth can help reduce health care costs, and improve quality health care for patients. Telehealth technology combined mobile technology such as smartphones will make monitoring patients conditions easier and more efficient, and “cheaper and more scalable.

Patient Quality Health Care

Through the Accountable Care Organizational Model (ACO), the core concept is to Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

Healthcare Economics: Employers Incentivize Healthy Lifestyles With Penalties And Rewards

How do companies curb health care costs?

Do healthier employees lead to increased productivity?  Several progressive companies believe so and have committed to providing employees with programs to help engage them in a healthier lifestyle.

As part of the incentives to lead a healthier lifestyle some employers have instituted a penalty and reward system tied to the companies’ benefits.  For example, smokers may incur a significant surcharge to the cost of their health insurance plan while nonsmokers could see a reduction in cost.

According to an article in The New York Times, a growing numbers of companies including Home Depot, PepsiCo, Safeway, Lowe’s and General Mills are seeking higher premiums from some workers who smoke, similar to Wal-Mart’s addition of a $2,000-a-year surcharge for some smokers.

Escalating health care costs Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

BlogWorld Expo Features Social Media In Health Care

Social media has changed the landscape in health care.  Social media is a powerful and phenomenal platform to help educate consumers, raise awareness of health issues and connect with consumers and colleagues.

Social media gives a voice to patients and consumers and it allows the conversation to get started with doctors and other health care professionals.  Social media is all about the patient and it paves the way for new modern medicine to emerge.

Tapping into technology allows for the real-time and immediate exchange of information.

Consumers and physicians tapping into social media networking

According to a study published by Pew Internet and American Life Project, 65% of adult internet users use social networking sites and 80% of internet users gather health information online.

In a recent study by QuantiaMD and Care Continuum Alliance, over 65% of physicians Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

Nurses Symposium Includes Social Media In Its Conference Curriculum

You Can’t Ignore It…Social Media Networking Isn’t Going to Go Away…

Engaging in social media networking by health care professionals continues to cause hesitation.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding social media networking, nurses at Scripps Cancer Center in San Diego, CA embrace it.  They decided to educate themselves for a deeper understanding of this powerful form of real-time communication.

They are proactive and they step outside the box to gain knowledge to help them navigate through the social media networking maze.

In a recent interview with Guy Kawasaki, New York Times Best-Selling author, co-founder Alltop.com, and former chief evangelist of Apple, Kawasaki talked about the value of companies jumping the curve to excel.  (Kawasaki’s latest book, Enchantment:  The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.)

At the 31st Annual Scripps Oncology Nurses Symposium in San Diego, CA, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

The Power Of Social Media Networking In Health Care

In a recent Harvard Business Review Blog, David Armano writes about the six pillars of influence that lead to measurably favorable outcomes.

To achieve measurably better health, the pillars Armano explains can certainly be adopted.

He notes how the “social web can amplify signals, influence behavior and lead to action.”

Social networking has changed the landscape in health care.  Technology has paved the way for instant communication and feedback.

While some companies continue to question the value of social media networking, debating whether or not they should be on Twitter or Facebook, others have superseded the hesitation, and are presently into the next phase of social networking. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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