The Readmore 2014

Happy Holidays to all my regular readers! Wishing you, your family and friends the best over the holidays.A Coffield family tradition is painting Christmas cookies each year. It all started with an incredible women and family neighbor, Mrs. Martin, who lived into her 100s. Mrs....

Yesterday the West Virginia Health Care Authority issued an Order Dissolving Stay. The Order granted MCHCR's (Carlyle Group) Motion to Dissolve Stay but denied the Motion to Affirm the Initial CON Decision.The Authority set January 7 as the date for initial briefs to be submitted by both parties as a result of the Reconsideration Hearing held on December...

The last week has been tough for all West Virginians with the untimely departure of Rich Rodriguez for what he believes is greener grass in Michigan.Today I got the email below from my partner and friend, Chris Brumley, loyal Mountaineer Fan and all around good guy.He is heading...

In yesterday's Charleston Daily Mail, Steve Roberts, president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, was quoted as calling for a statewide electronic health record system to reduce health care costs and increase the value of care.The full article, Chamber of Commerce promotes electronic record-keeping, can be read via the Charleston Daily Mail.For...

Matthew Holt of The Health Care Blog sent me a message that they are close to announcing the agenda for the March 2008 Health 2.0 Spring Fling in San Diego. In preparation for the conference the planners are out seeking real life examples of Health 2.0 technologies in action.Below is Matthew's summary of the panel format and information on how you...

Check out the final 2007 edition of Health Wonk Review, a round up of the best health policy blog posts, hosted by fellow health law blogger, David Harlow at HealthBlawg.Check out the Health Wonk Review blog for more information on how to be a hos...

A colleague pointed out this WSJ Law Blog post via the WSJ Health Blog reporting on a ruling made by the Massachusetts's Supreme Judicial Court. The ruling found a physician liable for failing to warn his patient about the side effects of the medications and the potential danger of driving while taking them.The Boston Globe reports on the case and...

HealthBlog by Bill Crounse, MD, a new (at least to me) health care IT blog to follow. Dr. Crounse is the Worldwide Health Director for Microsoft. I've added HealthBlog to my RSS reader and look forward to the great green content being generated by Dr. Crounse.I picked up a reference to HealthBlog via a post by Jay Parkinson, MD giving his impression...

Dr. David Kibbee provides great insight on the meeting by the Markle Foundation and what it might mean for Health 2.0, consumer driven health care and how health data is managed by traditional health care providers and payors. Well worth the read for anyone interested in where health information might be headed.I look forward to reading the public...

Last week's Sunday Gazette-Mail featured an article, Blogging for Dollars: talky web journals keep customers in the loop, providing insight into some local business bloggers. I want to thank the reporter, Sarah Winn, for contacting me and allowing me the opportunity to be interviewed...

Eric Eyre reports in today's Sunday Gazette-Mail that Governor Manchin has rejected the proposed new Certificate of Need CT Standards approved by the West Virginia Health Care Authority last month.The article indicates Governor Manchin sent a letter to the Authority's Board on Friday, December 7, asking that they re-examine the imaging equipment proposal...

The State Journal provides background on the pending reconsideration hearing set for December 14, 2007 (9am), before the the West Virginia Health Care Authority regarding the Authority's granting of a certificate of need for the $6.3 billion buyout of HCR Manor Care by The Carlyle Group, a private global investment firm.The Authority granted HCR Manor...

iHealthBeat reports via the Washington Post that Revolution Health is expanding its online health business by acquiring HealthTalk, a site focused on chronic conditions, and an investment in SparklePeople, a web site offering diet/exercise advice and ideas.Case says in the Washington Post article:. . . We are building a platform that reaches the largest...

I like the concept behind the movie, Pay It Forward. Why not "Tech It Forward."Looking for a unique holiday gift? Why not buy and give an XO Laptop through the Give One Get One program. Take a moment and think about how much you use your computer and the power it gives you to work,...

While catching up on my RSS feeds this evening a ran across a couple of interesting posts showing Health 2.0 in action.The first takes you on a tour through the eyes of a new diabetic from Richard MacManus at Read/WriteWeb.The second, I would suggest you bring at least fifty bucks, from Page Thompson over at change:healthcare takes a look into the...

Rodriquez is running to Michigan for the $$$ and prestige. Sad ending to his career here in West Virginia. The Detroit Free Press writes:Rodriguez had a 10-minute meeting with his team early this afternoon, told the 11th-ranked Mountaineers that he was leaving for Michigan and...

Clinical Cases and Images looks at the predictability of humans courtesy of Google Trends. Below is an example of the traditions of turkey (blue), Black Friday (red) and diet (orange). Advice for the holidays from my dad, a retired family physician from Wetzel County, "everything...

Practical advice from Tony at Hospital Impact on the question of "should hospitals blog?" Good advice for anyone thinking about starting a health related or business blog.I regularly follow both Nick Jacobs at Nick's Blog and Paul Levy at Running a Hospital cited in Tony's post. Both are examples of extremely successful blogging hospital CEOs who...

West Virginia has always had a rich music history and is still creating a rich musical history through Mountain Stage (and Newsong), Vandalia, Appalachian String Band Music Festival, All Good Music Festival, and from every nook, cranny, hill and holler.Last week the first annual West Virginia Music Hall of Fame inductions occurred in Charleston. It...

Due to prior commitments and client demands I wasn't able to attend the Create West Virginia Conference held this week at Stonewall Resort.Over the past two days I received a number of emails and facebook comments from friends and colleagues about the quality of the content and...

The West Virginia Health Care Authority issued and approved on November 14, 2007, proposed amendments to the Cardiac Catheterization Standards.The Notice of Public Comment Period indicates that comments must be submitted to the Authority by December 14, 200...

Eric Eyre of the Charleston Gazette reports on the board decision by the West Virginia Health Care Authority approving new Computerized Tomography (CT) Standards under West Virginia's Certificate of Need Program. The proposed standards will now be sent to Governor Manchin for final approval.Eyre reports:A state agency cleared the way Wednesday for...

Fellow health care blogger, Amy Tenderich of Diabetes Mine asked that I help spread the word about National Diabetes Month (November) and World Diabetes Day on November 14. Here is her post, Diabetes Mine: World Diabetes Day Agenda Grows, and Grows...On November 14 landmarks around...

Yesterday HHS announced that CMS will involve physicians in a five year demonstration project encouraging small and medium physician practices to adopt electronic health records.Excerpt from Secretary Leavitt's announcement:“This demonstration is designed to show that streamlining health care management with electronic health records will reduce medical...

West Virginia and Unicare rolls out a simple solution to fighting the obesity problem in West Virginia (WV ranks as the #3 heaviest state). The project involves giving West Virginia physicians a small body mass index (BMI) calculator wheel and training in how to use the wheel to recognize obesity earlier, especially in children.Thanks to Jane Sarasohn-Kahn...

Don't miss this week's Grand Rounds hosted by Paul Levy of Running a Hospital. Paul's edition focuses on personal experiences by health care bloggers and how it caused them to change their behavior and beliefs.Take some time today out of your busy schedule and read a couple of the linked stories.While on the topic of blog carnivals - also check out...

First big lions in West Virginia, now bigfoot sightings (more details) in Pennsylvania. The "big lion" sights in West Virginia certainly give new meaning to the motto of "Wild and Wonderful." Here's hoping that it wins the election.UPDATE (10/31/07): The votes have been tabulated...

If you are interested in Dr. Parkinson's business model check out doctokr (doc-talker) based in Vienna, Virginia. For more what doctokr is and how Alan Dappen, MD. provides his unique service check out about/services.Thanks to Dr. Val for the referral. I particularly like this quote from her post:"The physical exam is a straw man for reimbursement....

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn at Health Populi looks at some early statistics of how Iowans feel about the state of our health care system. The survey was sponsored by CodeBlueNow, a consumer-led health advocacy group.I found it particularly interesting that Iowans believe "health care services should stress disease prevention over high-technology cures." I...

Larry Messina beat me to the post. I agree - quote of the day from award winning author, Pat Conroy in a letter to the editor appearing in today's Charleston Gazette."Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book banners are invariably idiots, they don’t know how the world works — but...

A welcome to John Halamka, MD and CIO of CareGroup Health System and the Chief Information Officer and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School who has launched a new blog, Life as a Healthcare CIO. Dr. Halamka is also the Chairman of the New England Health Electronic Data Interchange Network (NEHEN), CEO of MA-SHARE (the Regional Health Information...

WSAZ News, the State Journal and Charleston Gazette are reporting that data on approximately 200,000 past and current members of West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) is missing. According to the articles, the data was contained on a computer tape being mailed to a data analyst in Pennsylvania and was reported missing on October...

How big are West Virginia's mountaintop removal sites? Check out the post "How Big is MTR Mining?" over at the Charlestonian Blog to better understand the scal...

The Foundation of Research and Education arm of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) released a report titled "State Level Health Information Exchange: Roles in Ensuring Governance and Advancing Interoperability." The report was funded by ONCHIT.I've just scanned the report but it appears to give a nice overview of the current...

An attorney I work with sent me a link to the following Fox News article, Doctors, Hospital Workers Suspended for Viewing George Clooney's Medical Records. For more news check out Google News search.The article indicates that 40 employees at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, NJ were suspended for violating the hospital's HIPAA policies and...

Friend and fellow health care blogger, Fard Johnmar, today officially announced the launch of The Digital Health Revolution. A project he has been working on with the folks at Scribe Media since meeting them at the fHealthcare Blogging Summit in Las Vegas.Fard has great insight into the health care industry and I look forward to great content coming...

Last week (October 4) Microsoft rolled out a brand new vehicle that should help accelerate the growing consumer driven health care movement and creation of a national interoperable health information system. HealthVault is a new personal health record (PHR) platform that allows the user to gather, store and share health information online.There has...

David Harlow of HealthBlawg takes to the keyboard like Columbus took to the seas and explores the world of law in Blawg Review #129. Don't miss this edition by one of my fellow health law bloggers.Check out the upcoming editions at Blawg Review. If you are a new law blogger -- sign up to host or submit your favorite law related pos...

I got the opportunity at Health 2.0 to learn about peerclip, a new social bookmarking tool, information rating and peer collaboration tool exclusively for physicians. I've not personally used the tool but saw this recent review by Shahid Shah, the Healthcare IT Guy. Here is ConnectivHealth's...

NetDoc now as a mashup of Google Maps and HHS hospital data. As Shahid Shah says, these types of tools takes mountains of data and makes it more accessible and easier to digest by the average public health consumer. Here is the view/data of hospitals that are 100 miles from Charleston, West Virginia.Here is the summary of what the tool provides: When...

Just back from Health 2.0 and was reading about Dr. Parkinson who demonstrates his new (disruptive) model changing the way health care is provided. Don't miss the great discussion in the comments. Check out Dr. Parkinson's website Jay Parkinson, MD + MPH (and his blog).Dr. Parkinson's approach also highlights something of value that I think has been...

The Health 2.0: User-Generated Healthcare Conference officially gets underway today but the pre-conference gathering was a great time last evening. We started out at the Hilton San Francisco lobby bar and then moved down to Johnny Foley's Irish Pub just down O'Farrell Street.I had the opportunity to talk with Chris Sparks and Robert Hendrick of MedBillManager,...