Insights
SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines Not an Easy Shot in the Arm
No country will be fully safe until all citizens are vaccinated. This is the only way to achieve a high enough level of heard immunity to halt the pandemic.
Using IT and Analytics to Enhance Care Delivery
https://vimeo.com/video/440788334 From Rebooting Business Interview Spring, 2020
What to Think About Once We Start Containment
Will Americans allow themselves to be tracked via their mobile phones, credit card transactions, and CCTV video to halt the pandemic? How much privacy will Americans give up to return to a semblance of normal?
We Need Data
Gut feelings and “I think” or “I believe” no longer carry weight. The regular use of data by decision makers will hopefully be one that helps prevent a crisis of this magnitude from occurring again.
COVID-19 Pandemic: Optimistic Heart and Worrying Head
With our focus on what is happening in New York, many are missing what is happening elsewhere.
Not the Time to Ease Up
I hope that the general public, while rooting for the people of NYC, understand that their own fate depends upon them maintaining social distance, washing their hands, and obeying the advice of public officials.
From Snow to Achuff: Using Analytics to Drive Clinical Change
John Snow, the English physician who removed the handle from the Broad Street pump and halted the 1854 London cholera epidemic, is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology. His work led to fundamental changes in the water and waste system of London and...
Believing is Seeing
[DISPLAY_ULTIMATE_SOCIAL_ICONS] Data collection and its use surrounds us. Our mobile phones trace where we live, work, buy our groceries, and visit friends. Today’s trip to some online shopping sites shows me ads for puppies (my children want a dog and they did a pet...
A Health IT Soothsayer
One of the best parts about predicting the future is how rarely the soothsayer is held accountable. The famous Michel de Nostredame, better known as Nostradamus, is popularly credited with predicting the rise of Hitler in Germany, the attacks of 9/11, and climate...
Musings on Patient Safety, Processes, and HIT
Information technology systems are evolving. The goal is to use healthcare information technology to identify the best care processes and use the technology to ensure that these best processes are utilized worldwide.
Analytics: Act Like an EIS Officer
Analytics software presents a growing ever-present danger to organizations that do not understand how to best utilize the reports generated. Effective data governance requires that an overall objective for the analytics be set in advance of running reports.
EMRs: Are We There Yet?
Despite the evolution and investment in EMRs over the past five decades, little evidence exists that all this digitization is making a difference in quality, safety, or cost.
Gerrymandering Pop Health
The word “gerrymander” comes from the pairing of Gerry’s name with the shape of one of the contorted districts north of Boston that resembled a salamander (see Figure 1). This gerrymandering of the Massachusetts Senate proved so successful that although the Federalist party won both the election for governor and a majority of the Massachusetts House, they failed to win the Senate, then controlled by the Democratic-Republicans.
The sophisticated analytics that allow for the gerrymandering of election districts also offer a model that can be applied in the delivery of population health services.
How Tinkering with the ACA Puts Health IT Investments at Risk
On February 27, 2017, President Trump said, ”Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated.” Well, Mr. President it is complicated and yes, we all knew.
Clinical Trials, Genetic Testing, and Personalized Medicine
Rather than considering patient information, and in particular genetic testing results, as private property to be used for private good, perhaps it is time to think of our population’s medical information as private property, owned and controlled by the patient, to be used for public good.
Clinical Care, HIT, and Mike Trout
A miscalculation by just seven milliseconds is the difference between hitting a ball fair or foul. For comparison, a blink of the eye takes about 150 milliseconds.
Why Reform Legislation Won’t Solve Healthcare’s Ills
To best understand the failures of the bill, it is important to understand its shifting of incentives that were modified by ACA.
The Merging of HIT
Although most attention to HIT focuses on the use of the EMR, other recent HIT tools successfully merge clinical and administrative activities that previously stood independent of each other.