Healthcare Innovations

Globalization of Healthcare

I think the benefits of continuity of care are going to have to fight and prove themselves.

Bangkok Post: Internet changing global healthcare models, 2007-May-23, by Sasiwimon Boonruang (via ZDNet)

IBM Global Business Services outlined in its report "Patient-Centric: The 21st Century Prescription for Healthcare":

The report noted that the pervasiveness of the Internet had spawned the growth of medical tourists who are able to source for the best medical treatments abroad. Patients are discovering world-class facilities that offer advanced surgical procedures and top quality care at a fraction of the cost. As a result, healthcare facilities in some countries will need to rationalize costs to stay competitive and to continue to attract local citizens.

Christopher Yeow, IBM Asia-Pacific and Great China Group Healthcare and Life Sciences Lead, said that by 2015, individualized care would increasingly be delivered at more convenient locations, by more affordable and effective healthcare teams.

New Ways to Collaborate

The Myelin Repair Foundation is becoming a model for new ways of organizing disease prevention and cure research.

The Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF) is a non-profit medical research foundation dedicated to accelerating basic medical research into myelin repair treatments that will dramatically improve the lives of people suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS). To achieve this goal, MRF has developed a unique business/science hybrid model for medical research that is speeding the time to drug discovery by as much as 200%. This new research model, called the Accelerated Research Collaboration™ (ARC™) model, is based on three key elements:

• Collaboration: Bringing the best researchers together
• Acceleration: Speeding up the research process
• Results: Driving discoveries into the drug pipeline

MRF’s ARC model has the potential to speed all medical research, bringing treatments to those who suffer from other chronic or debilitating diseases for which there are no effective treatments or cures.

Surgical Reliability

Geisinger Health System has made notable progress in systemizing frequent surgical procedures and getting more consistent results. Of course, it helps that their surgeons are employees....

New York Times: In Bid for Better Care, Surgery With a Warranty. 2007-May-17, by Reed Abelson

The group, Geisinger Health System, has overhauled its approach to surgery. And taking a cue from the makers of television sets, washing machines and consumer products, Geisinger essentially guarantees its workmanship, charging a flat fee that includes 90 days of follow-up treatment. Even if a patient suffers complications or has to come back to the hospital, Geisinger promises not to send the insurer another bill.

Games to Monitor Health

Digital Bamboo, established in 2004 in Beijing, is working to develop a set of computer games that monitor your vital statistics and encourage you to focus and calm yourself. Imagine that you sit down at your computer, play a few rounds of a game, and your stats are sent to your doctor...

BusinessWire: Digital Bamboo Announces Development for a New Genre of Digital Entertainment. 2007-May-15, press release

Through working with prominent neuroscientists and educational psychologists, as well as licensing patented health technologies, Digital Bamboo is creating a suite of groundbreaking software products geared to synchronize mind and body. These stand-alone products will measure heart physiology, challenging users to manipulate internal stress levels to successfully control the action onscreen.

Digital Bamboo is also applying this tech in traditional videogames to enhance the realism and immersion experienced by players, regardless of age. By incorporating heart rate measurement and stress response management into the gaming experience via Digital Bamboo’s technology, gamers will need to steady their nerves before sinking a put in a golfing game, or minimize their cortical inhibition before firing a precise shot in a first person title, bringing an unprecedented level of realism to the experience.

Over the past year and a half, Digital Bamboo has collaborated with sports, military, and educational groups, as well as Chinese medical experts to design games that help people overcome unfamiliar environments and challenges with ease. Chinese national sports teams trained using Digital Bamboo’s interactive games to improve concentration and eliminate the negative effects of stress, and demonstrated significant improvements in athletic performance during international competitions.

Google on Health

While it's important to remember that Google IS interested in healthcare products, in fact they plan to offer healthcare information as a product, they do seem to have a fresh perspective. They also would like to see everyone share their health information more freely. I guess that means the government would have to be aggressive in defending people from discrimination base on their health. Whole new meaning to Patient Bill of Rights...

WorldHealthCareBlog.org: Mr. Google comes to Washington. 2007-Apr-24, by David Williams

Google’s Adam Bosworth told the standing room crowd that came to have breakfast with him this morning that since he was in DC it was appropriate to “talk about rights,”rather than products. He enumerated a variety of rights (he also used the word “powers”) consumers should have:

• Power to discover –from whom and where to get help
• Power to own one’s own data — with complete control of how it is used. This he characterized as an “inalienable right” The right to choice: of provider of insurer of treatment –in partnership with physicians. If the physician sees their patient as a “partner” rather than a “puppet” it makes all the difference in the world in how the patient is treated
• The power of privacy –meaning the consumer can decide what to disclose to whom, and whether to withhold information without having a large red X for “meds not disclosed” appear on their chart

If consumers had all these rights, they would engage in the power of action to make better choices, though Bosworth freely offered that he doesn’t have the magic bullet.

Bosworth made a couple of other interesting assertions:

• That the technical challenges involved in getting data into consumers hands are not hard to overcome
• That once consumers consumers understand what’s really going on they’ll rebel against being exposed throughout their lives to the threat of bankruptcy from medical expenses and will put the burden back on the government or others.

Capital - WSJ.com

I've been trying NOT to cite the Wall Street Journal on health care lately because they are behind a pay-wall, and their news is usually available elsewhere. But David Wessel has some unusual insight into the politics of healthcare, and I just can't pass it up.

Wall Street Journal: What's Changed In the Protracted Health-Care Debate 2007-Apr-12, by David Wessel.

It would be easy to fill a column with the ways in which the health-care debate never changes. But, without offering optimism that a grand solution is imminent, three things are now apparent that -- if not new -- at least weren't widely appreciated 15 or 20 years ago.

Employer-based health insurance is slowly dying.

...even in a growing economy with a tight labor market, employer coverage is eroding. Fifteen years ago, says Joseph Antos of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, "large employers were concerned about rising health spending, but they were not leading the march to a big solution." Now they want out....

We don't know as much about medical science as we need to know.

It ...is increasingly clear that ignorance about what treatments work well and for whom is very costly, especially as new treatments are discovered and new technologies deployed. The flap over stents versus drugs for heart disease is only the latest example.... There is surprisingly little agreement on what works and what doesn't. There is, however, a consensus that figuring that out is important and getting the health-care system to make better use of information technology is crucial to that end.

Americans want a lot of health care, are willing to pay for a lot of it and don't like their choices limited.

Maybe this isn't exactly new, but it is more certain. Americans rebelled against managed care, and particularly didn't like employers forcing them to enroll. "One of the lessons of the '90s is that every consumer insists on the right to choose a poor-quality physician," Ronald Williams, chief executive of Aetna Inc., said.... So no matter how many experts prescribe big integrated health-care plans as the best way to get medical care, Americans won't be forced into them. Some may choose such plans, but they want choice -- and politicians won't enact legislation that denies them choice.

The Scientist : ERC flooded by first round of grants

Link: The Scientist : ERC flooded by first round of grants. 2007-May-1, by Stephen Pincock

The ERC was launched two months ago, with the goal of supporting fundamental research without any of the political strings normally attached to European Union funding. Its first round of grants, targeted to young researchers beginning their own research programs, received more than 9,000 applications, ERC president Fotis Kafatos said last week. "The high response rate is a clear signal of the expectations and interest in the ERC by Europe's young scientists and a measure of the need for grants of this kind in Europe," he said in a statement. The "Starting Grants" provide support for researchers who have recently completed their doctoral studies, and want to eventually become independent research leaders. They were open to applicants worldwide, as long as they intend to set up their teams at European institutions. "From the sheer numbers you could argue that there is a lack of opportunity for young investigators to become independent," ERC secretary-general, Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, told The Scientist. "It shows that young scientists see this as a last straw to apply for funding, which is a bad sign for national activities."

When the proposals were classified broadly according to their main scientific focus, 46% were from the physical sciences and engineering, 37% were for the life sciences including medicine, and 17% were social sciences and humanities.

Doctors Learn to Feel Sick

Although some people dismiss disease simulators as a trick by big pharma to get doctors to perscribe for symptom relief, this is one case where we all may benefit. If you're going to be a caregiver for someone with MS, you really ought to try it out. The subject usually has to put on gloves or goggles and walks into a little chamber where their senses are bombarded with the same experiences as the ill person would have. I think people could gain more than just empathy--they could find valuable knowledge that they could use to help people cope with the illness.

Boston Globe: Biogen Idec, Elan use MS simulator to market drug. 2007-May-2, by Stephen Heuser

...John Mack , publisher of Pharma Marketing News, the marketing specialist, is skeptical. A cardiologist with a lot of experience treating congestive heart failure "probably knows all there is to know about being empathetic," he said.

He does, however, believe simulators and other high-tech educational tools can fill important gaps in medical education, even if they are funded by companies that stand to profit from increased drug sales. "Obviously, pharma companies have a vested interest, but medical schools are just starting to teach doctors about bedside manner and having empathy for the patients," he said.

Biogen Idec had four multiple sclerosis simulators built: Two depict the lives of a later-stage patient with advanced symptoms, and two depict recently diagnosed patients. A company spokeswoman would not discuss how much the simulators cost....