What Will Be the Biggest Disruption in Health Care?

Will the biggest disruption in health care be an Internet-based health care industry?  We already know that more consumers get answers to their health care questions on a daily basis from the Internet than from their doctors.  But do we think that online tools will evolve enough to allow consumers to organize and make sense [...]

Can Ix and PHRs Address the IOM’s “Crossing the Quality Chasm” Challenge?

The IxCenter published a white paper a few years ago entitled, “The Ix Evidence Base: Using Information Therapy to Cross the Quality Chasm” (available at http://www.ixcenter.org/publications/whitepapers.cfm). In it, we detailed the emprical evidence that supports the Ix role in addressing each of the 10 rules that Institute of Medicine (IOM) laid out for health care delivery [...]

Judging Web Site Quality: Combining Objective Tools & Collaborative Filtering

In response to a column in The New York Times last week (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/fashion/24Cyber.html), I wrote the following letter to the editor (for which they apparently aren’t publishing any letters):

Regarding “Visits to Doctors Who Are Not in, Ever” (May 24), democratization of information has made health content widely available—some would describe this a blessing and others [...]

Who Will Be the Next Generation of PHR Users?

Looking at how young people use the Web for virtually everything from commerce to social networking, it’s not hard to imagine an increasingly virtual future health care world. If Don Berwick is right that at least half of current in-person clinical encounters don’t require a visit, this generation likely will change the character of US health [...]

Truly Understanding Consumers’ Needs…Some Lessons in “Genchi Genbutsu”

What do consumers really want? To answer that question in health care, we might want to look at leaders in other industries that have developed great reputations with consumers.
This past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine had a cover story about Toyota and how that company–now with a market capitalization of $240 billion, which is greater [...]

MyHealth, Circa 2007…More Questions & Responses…

Following up on Tuesday’s posting, another question that came up a few times in our webcast, “MyHealth, Circa 2007: Consumer Needs and Market Responses in eHealth,” related to consumer privacy concerns.
I believe three things about privacy and security related to online personal health information (PHI).

Every provider, system, Web site or other entity that collects consumers’ [...]

Response to NYT Jane Brody Column on Understanding Doctors’ Communication

Although the New York Times took a pass on my letter in response to a Jane Brody column January 30 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/health/30brody.html?ex=1170910800&en=c1237335b6037a06&ei=5070), I thought others might be interested…
To complement the expert suggestions in “The Importance of Knowing What the Doctor Is Talking About” (January 30, 2007), keep in mind that most people are “patients” in the [...]

Next-Generation Consumer Portals

With Revolution Health launching its new consumer portal, a newspaper reporter called me earlier this week to ask what I thought about new efforts such as this….
It’s clear to me that—even though they generally don’t express it this way—consumers are clamoring for information therapy (Ix). And just to be clear, Ix is not simply a [...]

Are PHRs the next disruptive force in health care?

The Center for Information Therapy (IxCenter) holds periodic public webinars in addition to our monthly IxInsights webinars for IxAction Alliance members.  Typically, we get 20-40 participants for these sessions. Yesterday, we sent out a notice about a webinar we’re holding on January 23 on “Personal Health Records (PHRs) and Information Therapy: Transforming Health Care.“ Less than 24 [...]