NYeC | EMR and HIPAA

This Week in Health Innovation and The Coming Mobile Health Startup Revolution

After the great experience many of us had at the Dell Healthcare Think Tank event, Gregg Masters asked if Shahid Shah (my partner in Influential Networks) and I would take part in an online interview he does called This Week in Health Innovation. This is one element of the Health Innovation Broadcast Consortium that Gregg and a few others have put together. We had a great 30 minute conversation about some of the major trends we saw happening in healthcare IT and then we even went into an overtime discussion for another 10 minutes. The time flew by in our discussion, but I think there were some really good nuggets shared in the interview. You can listen to the full interview in the embed below.

Listen to This Week in Health Innovation on Blog Talk Radio

I was also recently asked to do a guest blog post for the NYEC (New York eHealth Collaborative) blog. First, I have to say that I love that their blogging. Second, as many of you know, I’ve been participating in the Digital Health Conference in NYC that the NYEC puts on every year. It is a really great event.

With that background, I think that many of my readers will enjoy my guest post titled “The Coming Mobile Health Startup Revolution.” This is really coming, but I don’t think it’s going to come as most current mobile health people expect. A long series of incremental technology advancements have us prepped for an explosion of innovation in healthcare. I just hope that the healthcare structure doesn’t slow it down.

EMR Add-On’s that Provide Physician Benefit

Written by: John Lynn

One of the companies I met in New York City at the Digital Health Conference was MedCPU. I had a great time talking with the effervescent Founder and President, Sonia Ben-Yehuda and the Founder and CEO, Eyal Ephrat, MD. MedCPU is part of the inaugural New York Digital Health Accelerator class. Plus, they’ve created a pretty interesting concept and way to simplify their message down to a single button that analyzes both free text notes and structured data to check for compliance to best practice guidelines or for deviations from expected care.

The idea of a single button that does all the work is a decent one. Sure, real time analysis is good as well, but EHR software isn’t there yet and won’t be for a while to come. Very few EHR seem to be offering real time meaningful use compliance checking. Forget about real time clinical compliance checking.

What I found even more interesting was something that MedCPU told me when they were describing their product. Dr. Ephrat told me that one hospital was using the services MedCPU provides as the benefit that doctors will receive for using EHR. I find this concept quite interesting. I won’t belabor the point that EHR is the database of healthcare, but it’s amazing to consider that a third party application could provide enough benefit to be the reason why doctors want an EHR.

Many EHR vendors realize this is true. That’s why many are trying to offer API (application interfaces) which will allow third party vendors to interact and integrate with their EHR. I wonder what apps can be created by third parties that would really take EHR software to the next level. A thriving third party eco-system of developers can be much more powerful than trying to do all the innovation in house.

Do you know of other EHR add-ons that provide the real benefits physicians want out of an EHR? I’d love to hear of ones you think fit that test.

Great Digital Health Conference in New York City

Written by: John Lynn

As many of you know, last year I made the trip to New York City for the Digital Health Conference. You can see my Digital Health Conference Twitter round up from 2011 to get a feel for the conference. It’s a great event put together by the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC).

I’m really excited to be able to attend the conference again in 2012. The 2012 Digital Health Conference is happening October 15-16, 2012 in New York, NY.

They’ve announced 2 keynote speakers: David J. Brailer, MD, Ph.D., Chairman, Health Evolution Partners and Stephen J. Dubner, Bestselling Author, Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics. As most of you know, I love hearing from former government health IT leaders, like David Brailer, once they’re out of that position. They can provide insights that they couldn’t say when working for the government. Plus, Freakonomics is just awesome. I’m excited to see Stephen Dubner speak in person.

I’ve also been asked to be part of a Healthcare Social Media panel at the conference that will include Brian Ahier, Ed Bennett, and Amy Dixon. I know Brian Ahier quite well (he moderated my HIMSS panel), but I only know of Ed Bennett and Amy Dixon. I think that often leads to the best panels since you get a number of varied viewpoints. Plus, you all know I love to talk about social media.

I’m also really excited to hear more about NYeC’s work with HIE, RECs and even a healthcare IT accelerator. It will be really interesting to get a perspective from an organization that is working in so many areas I love. I think their accelerator is fascinating and could produce some amazing results.

The organizers of the Digital Health Conference have provided a discount code for Healthcare Scene readers that provides you a 20% registration discount. All you need to do is enter the code HCS when you register.

The hash tag for the event is #DHC12 for those of you not able to attend, but want to follow the conference remotely.

While I love the healthcare IT super conferences, I also love going to a high quality conference like the Digital Health Conferences where you get a chance to dig in deep with a lot of the attendees. I love the depth and variety that I got at last year’s conference and I expect to get the same this year. Plus, I’ve already heard of a number of amazing people that are planning to attend.

If you plan to go, I’d love to know so we can meet. Maybe we’ll have to put together another Tweetup!

UPDATE: @healthcarewen took the initiative and put together a tweetup.