PwC: Healthcare reform represents a $1.5T 'gold rush'MedCity News

Changes in the way health care is delivered, paid for and analyzed through big data, as well as the slow emergence of empowered patients, are creating a “modern-day gold rush,” according to three strategic consultants at PricewaterhouseCoopers. As much as $1.5 trillion in annual spending and $150 billion in profits are “up for grabs” during this health care reform, they said.

The winners will be those who can bring critical thinking and radical redesign of a broken industry, rather than people looking to make a quick buck by exploiting current flaws, said the consultants, Carl Dumont, Sundar Subramanian and Christoph Dankert, of PwC’sStrategy& consulting team.

“Confronted with the changes, incumbents will have to reconsider their competitive positions. And upstarts and those in adjacent industries will be compelled to assess where — and even whether — they can fit in,”

“Confronted with the changes, incumbents will have to reconsider their competitive positions. And upstarts and those in adjacent industries will be compelled to assess where — and even whether — they can fit in,” they wrote in PwC publication Strategy+Business. “Players that thrive in this boom town will do so by decreasing medical spending in a consumer-oriented manner, and by capitalizing on newly informed consumer choices by improving outcomes.”

They expand on the “gold rush” analogy by dividing health care companies into gold miners and bartenders. Gold miners are “vertically integrated” organizations that “take ownership of health care,” the authors said.

They profit by mining value out of a resource — for example, by managing the health of a specific population, such as patients with diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. The gold miner strategy is closely aligned with population health management, which takes a deep understanding of chronic care to promote a 360-degree, long-term management approach. Dealing primarily with people who are sick, these large institutions — insurers, hospitals, and physicians groups — profit by improving outcomes and sharing in the savings.

Theranos is a leading example about mining resources 

Walgreen is partnering with others such as MDLIVE to deliver telemedicine, as well as adopting EPIC EHR for their walk-in clinics

PwC: Healthcare reform represents a $1.5T 'gold rush'MedCity News

FCC's Latest Ruling and Its Impact on Contacting Your Patients | by Cell phone or Smart Phone

Commission’s Latest Ruling and Its Impact on Contacting Your Patients

On July 10 the FCC released its long-awaited Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) Omnibus Declaratory Ruling and Order. The order arguably both clarified and confused the circumstances around which contact centers can leverage cell phones to contact consumers.  

This is particularly concerning as not only 60-75 percent of the phone numbers provided by patients are cellular numbers, but more than 85 percent of contacts with patients are made using cell phones. These figures may be even greater as younger and more multi-channel focused patients move into the healthcare arena as a result of changing demographics and the Affordable Care Act.  

During this webinar, join legal and operations experts as they help webinar participants understand the key highlights of the latest FCC ruling, such as tracking cell phone consent, and the potential impact it may have on patient engagement and revenue cycle contact strategies.  

How would you track cell phone consent and it's role in patient engagement

AFTER THIS WEBINAR YOU’LL BE ABLE TO:

• Describe the history and purpose of the TCPA as it relates to contacting consumers (patients)
• Identify key takeaways from the latest FCC ruling as it relates to the TCPA and patient dialing approaches
• Leverage best practices in adjusting patient contact strategies to meet the latest compliance regulations
• Improve internal compliance policies leveraging cell phone contacts
• Train staff to mitigate TCPA compliance risks when speaking with patients
• Describe how certain technology uses can put patient contact center operations at a higher risk of TCPA violations  

RECOMMENDED FOR:

CFOs, chief compliance officers and directors of revenue cycle, patient financial services, and/or patient engagement

Sign up and Register for the WEBINAR

Understanding the Federal Communications Commission’s Latest Ruling and Its Impact on Contacting Your Patients | HFMA

HealthIT 2015 | Fierce Innovation Awards

One of the goals of DigitalHealth Space is to close the space between providers and patients. Our goal is to promote activity which encourages innovation in Health Informatinon Technology.

Are You a Health IT Innovator?

Applications Now Being Accepted for FierceHealthIT’s 3^rd Annual Fierce Innovation Awards

Does your company offer transformative solutions that enable providers to provide safer, more cost-effective care? Does your technology, service or solution enable healthcare organizations to measurably improve care? Will it enhance the exchange of healthcare information among providers?

Brought to you by the publishers of FierceHealthIT, FierceMobileHealthcare and FierceHealthcare, the Fierce Innovation Awards recognize game-changing healthcare technologies and solutions that will catapult healthcare delivery into exciting new realms.

We’re offering you the unparalleled opportunity to have your products and services thoughtfully reviewed and judged by an elite team of health system CIOs, practice managers and ACO leaders from across the country, including Neal Ganguly, Jessica Grosset and Curt Kwak. Our judges will review all submissions to determine which have the potential to make the greatest impact on savings, healthcare delivery and patient engagement. The award categories will highlight the technologies that address the most important challenges and pain-points healthcare organizations are facing today and into the future.

The goal of this our awards program is three-pronged:

• To promote the competitive spirit and initiative that spurs the development and implementation of game-changing services, technologies and solutions.
• To identify and reward the fiercest, most evolutionary technologies and services that can transform healthcare delivery and operational success.
• To provide an arena where the best and most innovative solutions providers can have their technologies and services reviewed by savvy end-users and decision-makers.

There is no better way to identify the best new innovations than to put judgment in the hands of the organization leaders who will deploy them. Winners will receive industry-wide recognition during a live Webcast on Wednesday, December 9, 2015, as well as extensive exposure to the more than 170,000 readers across FierceHealthIT, FierceHealthcare and their related publications. 

Think your product or solution has what it takes? Apply today! 

HealthIT 2015 | Fierce Innovation Awards

Open Access is Coming soon to Prominent Peer Reviewed Journals

In a move by the editorial staff of Elsevier, a major publisher of many medical and scientific journals, the entire editorial staff revolted at the refusal of the company to allow open access to Lingua.

This could be an opening move to force Elsevier to open access to many of their journals which are supported by subscriptions. Many users can no longer afford the rising subscription fees to their journal catalog. 

The open access model allows anyone, whether an academic or not, to read a journal online for free. Currently, most academic journals are funded by subscriber payments; with open access journals, the model is flipped around, with institutions paying to publish their papers

As Inside Higher Ed reports, the academics who have made Lingua into one of the top journals in its field through their editorial work all gave up their roles after telling Elsevier of the "frustrations of libraries reporting that they could not afford to subscribe to the journal and in some cases couldn't even figure out what it would cost to subscribe.".

The former Editor-in-chief plans to open his own open access journal in lieu of Lingua as a starter. Rooryck said he doesn't expect to earn anything from Glossa, which he hopes to launch early next year, and told Inside Higher Ed: "I'm doing this for purely idealistic reasons." He said that some of his colleagues are talking to editors on other journals, who may follow the example of Lingua, and launch their own open access replacements in preference to working on traditional journals that are increasingly unaffordable even for well-financed libraries.

The open access movement formally began about 15 years ago. Since then, there have been increasing calls from academics and universities to adopt its business model for publishing research results. One reason is that most such work is funded by the taxpayer, so it is unfair to expect people to pay again to read the results of the research when it is published in traditional journals.

The other reason is straight up price-gouging: science publishers have pushed up journal prices to such an extent that many libraries struggle to provide the titles their researchers need. Because of its size and fat profit margins, Elsevier has emerged as a frequent target for open access supporters. In 2012, a site called "The Cost of Knowledge" was set up to encourage academics to boycott Elsevier. Since then, over 15,000 researchers have pledged not to work with the company "unless they radically change how they operate."

This will be a boon to investigators, researchers and students of all disciplines. Elseviers catalog of journals is quite extensive.

A recent investigation of the Elsevier site reveals that Elsevier is already listing a variety of publication options to authors.

Entire editorial staff of Elsevier journalLingua resigns over high price, lack of open access