Digital Media Darlings Unfazed by the Fall of the News Site Gigaom

Readers of my blog are usually 'techies' and follow many online sources for tech information. These have included industry giants such as Wired, ReadWriteWeb, Techcrunch, and Gigaom as well as  companies like Business Insider, Recode, Vice, Politico, Vox and BuzzFeed? 

Without any forewarning, GIGAOM ceased operations yesterday. Their website is still online (as of 1300 hrs, PDT) . It is a worthwhile look while it is still up.  Hopefully someone will archive it for history buffs.

In the week and a half since the technology news site Gigaom stopped publishing, it has been held up as a cautionary tale for media in a go-go era. Here was a news organization that once looked promising, but had collapsed so unexpectedly that its reporters were working on stories right up to the moment they were told they were out of jobs.

Could the same fate befall other apparent darlings of media’s new gilded age — companies like Business Insider, Recode, Vice, Politico, Vox and BuzzFeed? Many of them, like Gigaom, have raised boatloads of financing and have tried to create a mix of businesses, including advertising, conferences and subscriptions, to turn a profit.  But Gigaom’s downfall does not offer easy lessons for media start-ups. Gigaom, pronounced Giga-ohm, was special, and not in a good way, according to more than half a dozen staffers and executives, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing nondisclosure agreements with the company. It was a company troubled by poor leadership, a history of spending beyond its means and an inattention to major problems that had dogged its businesses for years.

i will miss this gem of a website. Although plagued with poor and misaligned management  it always seemed to be one of the first with breaking techie treats.

Started by Om Malik in (2009) who left the company one year ago, it had a significant following and a large research department.  Mr. Malik had a broad background in financing and publisihing, having worked for Forbes.

Malik moved to New York City in 1993 to be a writer for India Abroad and then for Forbes.^[3] He was also a senior writer forRed Herring, focusing on the telecommunications sector, and later became a senior writer there. In late 1994, he launched DesiParty.com, an events site for Indian immigrants. That same year, he co-founded the South Asian Journalists Association(SAJA). In 1995 he helped launch the now-defunct magazine, Masala, and its website Masala.com, a South Asian portal.

In 1997, Malik was on the original team at Forbes.com led by David Churbuck. In 1999 he left Forbes.com to work in theventure capital world, serving as an investment manager at Hambrecht & Quist Asia Pacific; his stay there lasted only a few months because he decided he preferred being a writer.

In 2000, he moved to San Francisco, California to write for Business 2.0 magazine. In 2001, he started GigaOM, a blogpublished by GigaOmniMedia, Inc. in San Francisco.^[4] The website has a monthly global audience of 500,000,^[4] is among the top 50 blogs worldwide by Technorati Rank,^[5] and is part of CNet's 100 Most Influential Blogs.^[6]

His first book, Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist, was released on May 15, 2003.^[7] Malik's writings have also appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The Wall Street Journal, Brandweek, and Crain's New York Business.

Malik announced on June 12, 2006, that he was going to work on GigaOM full-time, although he is still a contributing editor and writes a column for Business 2.0. In addition to GigaOM, he also writes for the blogs Web Worker Daily and Tablatronic.

On July 25, 2007, Malik started an podcast on Revision3 called The GigaOm Show hosted by himself and Joyce Kim. On March 27, 2008 he put the show on hiatus to focus on other things, among them his health. The show primarily focuses on technology and business. Malik was also a frequent guest on the former CrankyGeeks podcast with John C. Dvorak.

On March 9, 2015, Malik announced on his blog that GigaOm, the company he left about a year ago, ceased operations and "and its assets are now controlled by the company’s lenders.^[8]

We wish him well. Take care Om.  Life is short.  Thanks for the memories

Blue Button Initiative (s) 2014, 2015

Personal health records have had a lackluster adoption by patients and their families.  

The Veterans' Administration initiated the Blue Button as a method for veterans to download their VA medical history. 

The "My Health Vet" provides  the access page for downloading Vet's health records. 

My HealtheVet is VA’s online personal health record. It was designed for Veterans, active duty Servicemembers, their dependents and caregivers. My HealtheVet helps you partner with your health care team. It provides you opportunities and tools to make informed decisions and manage your health care


Sample Data available from the Blue Button 

Among the newest features available to Veterans with a Premium Account include VA Notes.  These are clinical notes that your health care team records during your appointments or hospital stays.  Also available are your VA Immunization records, more detailed lab reports and a list of your current medical issues. These features are in addition to prescription refills, VA Appointments and Secure Messaging – all very popular with Veterans!

Study: Low Awareness, Usability Limit Veterans' Blue Button Adoption

Paradoxically the awareness and use of the Blue Button has lagged. The use of personal health records by non- VA patients is also poor.

A recent study in March 2015 re-evaluated the Use of the Blue Burron Initiative.  The results were disappointing.

WEDI Survey Finds Decreased Awareness of Blue Button Tool

Details of Survey

The survey was conducted between Oct. 31, 2014, and Dec. 8, 2014. It included 274 responses from a variety of stakeholders (Clinical Innovation & Technology, 3/16).

WEDI, a designated adviser to HHS under HIPAA, sent the survey findings to HHS on Friday (WEDI release, 3/15).  

Findings

The survey found that 49% of respondents in 2014 said they were unaware of the Blue Button tool, up from 32% in 2013. Researchers attributed the change to the fact that the 2014 survey added providers that are not eligible for incentives under the meaningful use program (WEDI letter, 3/13).

Under the 2009 economic stimulus package, providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified electronic health records can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments.

Insurer and provider respondents increased their use of Direct -- a federally sponsored messaging protocol -- to transmit data compared with 2013, while technology developer and government respondents decreased their use of Direct for such purposes.

Among all respondents, use of Direct with Secure Blue Button Trust decreased from 15% in 2013 to 8% in 2014 (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 3/16).

Meanwhile, the survey found that health care organizations are increasingly using integrated EHRs and medical device data to populate PHRs accessible through Blue Button. The survey also found that use of integrated EHR data to populate PHRs through Blue Button increased to 100% in 2014 among government respondents, up from 60% in 2013. Meanwhile, use of integrated EHRs remained consistent among providers in the same time period.

In addition, researchers found that both providers and government respondents increased their use of medical device data to populate PHRs that are accessible through Blue Button.

The survey also found that about 80% of respondents either offered or planned to offer all patients access to PHRs.

Meanwhile, health plan respondents cited the importance of privacy controls over PHRs. For example, 89% of insurers provided out-in functionality in 2014, an increase from 69% in 2013.

The survey also found that while direct mail, email and text messages remain top priorities for communication with patients, some respondents also cited the importance of providing mobile services, sharing data with other providers, and sending information to third party services and applications 

Unknown to many patients is their 'Right to Access " their medical records protected by the Federal Government

You should know you have the right to: • Ask to see and get a copy of your health records from most doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers such as pharmacies and nursing homes, as well as from your health plan; • Get either a paper or, if records are kept electronically, an electronic copy of your records; and • Have your provider or health plan send a copy of your records to someone else. 

Attestation: Meaningful or Meaningless ? That depends

The HITECH Act passed in         fueled the adaptation of EHR with a carrot and a stick. HITECH required providers to implement EHRs with several mandatory features that would allow analytics to evaluate 'BIG DATA" streaming from their EHRs/  The  carrot was accepted and now the stick is playing a bigger role for providers who have been unable to attest to the new MU regulations.

Last month, 81,500 eligible professionals attested to 2014 meaningful use requirements, up from 67,254 in January, according to CMS data. Overall, fewer than half of the 515,158 providers who registered to participate in the meaningful use program have attested to meeting the 2014 requirements. CMS expects an uptick in attestations as the  deadline approaches. Bloomberg BNA's "Health Care Blog."

Last month, CMS extended the deadline for eligible professionals to attest to the Medicare meaningful use 2014 reporting period from Feb. 28 until March 20 (iHealthBeat, 2/25).

Government deadlines seem to never be met, despite implications of incompetence, fraud, and deceit.  Nevertheless imposing inherently unobtainable deadlines undermines the credibility of health programs and others.

The roadmap to meaningful use is long, tortuous and expensive. It require(s)(d) significant investment of time and money into new healthcare software with either totally new functions or expensive patches and upgrades.  Interested parties were also given a deadline for implementation  of ICD-10 to replace the ICD-9 classification of diseases. The U.S.A has been mired in ICD-9 for decades, even after the world health organization has been using ICD-10 for some time.

Implementing MU is a task unto itself, however adding attestation adds another challenge to providers.  The charge is even more difficult for small or solo medical practices who do not have the human resources to accomplish the task. Consultants must be hired. For larger groups or institutional providers an IT department may be already at hand. Nevertheless one can only wonder how this promises to save tax payer dollars.

Meanwhile,

CMS Has Doled Out $28B in Meaningful Use Incentives

Meaningful Use Payments Reached $25.7B as of Dec. 1, CMS Says

CMS Extends Meaningful Use, Quality Reporting Deadlines

Electronic Health Records and Meaningful Use Criteria

Giving Patients Access to EHRs Does Not Increase Provider Workloads

"Doctors are overworked"  Ask any of them.

If you ask a physician if they use social media or want to begin participating at least one-half would respond with, "I don't have time " The same applies to giving patients access to their  electronic health records. In  fact the opposite may be true.

Allowing patients to view their electronic health records during hospital stays does not drastically increase nurses' and physicians' workloads, according to a University of Colorado study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, Reuters reports.

To assess what patients might learn while viewing their EHRs during hospitals stays, University of Colorado assistant professor Jonathan Pell and his team provided tablet computers to 50 individuals who knew how to use the Internet. Most of the individuals had home computers, and more than half had laptops or smartphones with them.

The average age of participating patients was 42 years old, and about 75% had annual incomes of $45,000 or less.

Researchers also questioned 42 health care providers about how they thought patients would respond to viewing their EHRs.

Findings

Overall, the study found that allowing patients to view their EHRs did not create additional work for doctors or nurses.

• 68% of surveyed doctors expected it would lead to additional work; and
• All 14 nurses who were surveyed thought it would result in more work.

However, after patients viewed their records:

• 36% of doctors reported larger workloads; and
• Half of the nurses reported additional workloads.

Researchers found that 92% of patients before the study thought that seeing their EHRs would enable them to better understand their medical conditions, while 80% said they expected the practice to help them understand their providers' instructions. (this key feature alone decreases provider time by re-inforcing what the physician says, including informed consent, education, and treatments)

However, after viewing their records, 82% percent said seeing their EHR helped them understand their medical conditions, and 60% said it helped them understand their providers' instructions.

Meanwhile, patients' fears that reviewing their medical records would increase their feelings of worry or confusion proved false. Specifically, after viewing their EHRs:

• The percentage of patients who felt worried fell from 42% to 18%; and
• The percentage of patients who felt confused fell from 52% to 32% (Rapaport, Reuters, 3/9).

What Health IT Tools Do Young Adults Support?

How Do Physicians' Digital Tools Help Patients ?