Jeff Novich provides a rare and honest introspective look into why his digital health startup Patient Communicator, a patient portal CRM for doctors ultimately failed.
Editors’ Note: This article was originally published in January 2013 and has been republished with permission by the author.
My father is a primary care doctor. In 2009 he asked me to help build a product that would enable his patients to access him online rather than through the phone. Patient Communicator was basically a
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
EHR Design and Dissatisfaction: EHRs Should Create Time for Patients
Dr. Edmund Billings shares his insights on the growing trend of dissatisfaction with EHR design.
As reported last year at HIMSS and by many online news and opinion sources since, physician dissatisfaction with EHRs is growing. Indeed, while this article does not focus on the broader picture, general physician career dissatisfaction is disconcertingly high.
The breakneck push for more and better EHR use as a component of regular medical care is a significant part of that malaise, but it is
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Value-Based Health Care is Antithetic to Patient-Centered Care
Value-based health care is antithetic to patient-centered care. Value-based health care is also diametrically opposed to excellence, transparency and competitive markets. And value-based health care is a shrewdly selected and disingenuously applied misnomer. Value-based pricing is not a health-care innovation. Value-based pricing is why a plastic cup filled with tepid beer costs $8 at the ballpark, why a pack of gum costs $2.50 at the airport and why an Under Armour pair of socks costs $15.
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Health IT Interoperability: The 21st Century’s Golden Fleece
Frank Speidel, MD shares his insights on how a defined IT architecture is a essential solution to achieving health IT interoperability.
Jason, mythic hero prior to the Greek Dark Ages, was tasked to find the Golden Fleece before he could claim his throne. For this quest, Jason recruited other Greek heroes, Hercules, Orpheus, Castor and Pollux, to name a few of the Argonauts.
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Is Apple Poised to Disrupt Connected Health with HealthKit?
Dr. Donald Voltz shares his insights on how Apple is poised to disrupt connected health with HealthKit and the Apple Watch changing the way patients engage with healthcare.
This week, many are talking about the announcement of a new iPhone 6 and the excitement about the payment system to protect our identity and finance. I think the bigger announcement pertains to the Apple Watch and the underlying platform targeting personal health and wellness management, HealthKit. Although HealthKit
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The Apple Watch & Digital Health: 3 Must-Ask Questions
So, the much-anticipated Apple Watch has arrived.
The tech world is still digesting Apple's big announcement. Some believe Apple's watch is the Second Coming. Others are disappointed that it does not look cooler. Left-handed people are up in arms that the device is not designed to be worn on the right hand.
My opinion: plenty of people will buy the Apple Watch and it will dramatically improve over time. Apple's great at getting people to desire its devices (remember what they said about
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How Mercy Health Is Improving Patient and Population Health
Dr. Stephen Beck, CMIO at Mercy Health (formerly Catholic Health Partners) discusses how his organization has set the bar high when it comes to improving patient and population health.
Though “population health” means different things to different people, most definitions share a focus on improving the quality of care delivered across the community.
That’s certainly in keeping with our mission at Mercy Health (formerly Catholic Health Partners), Ohio’s largest health system, which
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The Squeeze Is On For U.S. Hospitals
Lots of financial scrambling, but the numbers still don’t add up
Is healthcare a business?
In the United States, the question has been asked time and again but never satisfactorily answered. By virtue of publically financed healthcare systems, the rest of the developed world has decided, to a greater or lesser extent, that medicine and healthcare are not pure businesses—that citizens have a right to care, even when they can’t pay all associated costs.
It’s starting to look like Americans
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The Rise of EMR Innovators and Explorers
Written by Dr. Donald Voltz
There has been much discussion focusing on the need for EMR interoperability. The current state of EMR remedies for medical professionals is still frustratingly difficult. We are still being held back with the same old issues of lack of interoperability, leaving doctors to go on a scavenger hunt for often timely patient data. The worst part is there are 2.0 EMR innovators like Zoeticx and others out there who can break the data logjam and let the data
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Communication vs. Collaboration in Healthcare: What’s the Difference?
In healthcare, there has been much talk and much activity within health IT circles about communicating across institutional barriers. We are now in an era where a majority of physicians, and most hospitals, have moved from paper record keeping to Electronic Health Records (EHRs). By-and-large, these EHRs are implemented within healthcare institutions (hospitals, large delivery systems, and independent doctors’ offices), and the medical data about patients is confined to the institution that
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