Monday, July 28, 2008

From Description to Action: The Future of Health 2.0 Tools


BRIAN KLEPPER
First published on THCB.
Health 2.0 ventures will rapidly evolve from merely describing biological, clinical and financial processes, to using knowledge and data to recommend action.


Thinker


Last week, The Health Care Blog ran two articles about new wiki sites that will develop and continuously update medical information. A wiki is a “content collaborative” that allows anyone (or anyone authorized by the site) to contribute or modify content; Wikipedia is the best known example.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Health Systems' Ferocious Challenges

BRIAN KLEPPER
First published on THCB.
 
America's health systems are facing an increasingly hostile marketplace. Keeping our hospitals intact will require changes in how we treat them and how they manage themselves.
HospitalChallenges


Lately, I've had interesting discussions with a thoughtful exec. at a major Western health system about the ferocious challenges facing hospitals and health systems. Her organization's internal conversations at the moment are centered, in part, on what they should do to become "reform ready," not only for policy changes that could be in the wings, but more importantly, for emerging market dynamics that will change the ways hospitals work. She asked me to catalog some of the trends I think health system managers will have to deal with, along with five recommendations for action. Here's some of what I told her.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Is Meaningful Health Care (Or Any Other) Reform Possible?


BRIAN KLEPPER
First published on THCB.

To fix American health care, we have to fix America first.

HCPain

Those who wait, ever hopefully, for real health reform might want to take a deep breath and take stock of a few realities.