Complementary Medicine

The Best of Natural and Pharmaceutical Medicine

Jacob Teitelbaum MD, internist and author of From Fatigued to Fantastic!, researches treatments for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and fibromyalgia. See full bio

September 30, 2008, Health

Comments on "Are Medical Guidelines Helpful? Plus, Obama vs. McCain Health Reform"

Are Medical Guidelines Helpful? Plus, Obama vs. McCain Health Reform

By Jacob Teitelbaum, MD on September 30, 2008 in Complementary Medicine

A recent study found: "If guidelines are universally ignored, their impact on treatment and outcomes is minimal. Certain patients may be harmed by adherence to specific guidelines." Plus, let's compare Obama and McCain to see who best moves us to the 21st century. Read More

It's More Complicated Than You Think

Submitted by SteveM on October 1, 2008 - 12:47am.

HHS is already well immersed in this. See this website for details:

http://www.hhs.gov/healthit/

The effort is headed up by Dr. Robert Kolodner, a career civil servant:

http://www.hhs.gov/healthit/seniorstaff/kolodner.html

A web search on his name will turn up many links in which he explains his philosophy.

I'm writing this for two reasons. The first is because the IT challenges to universal EHR's are immense. They involve not only information management, but change management and huge complexities in cross system integration.

Second, I worked on a consulting team that supported Dr. Kolodner when he headed up Health Informatics at the Veteran’s Health Administration. He is a fine, dedicated public servant who is not only fully immersed in the domain and very forward thinking, he also realizes that solutions to the challenges will come out of private – public partnerships. Commercial solution providers are already fully invested in developing products to address this need. HHS may best provide a coordinating rather than developmental function. Kolodner is rightfully open to all development models.

So is Obama’s plan better than McCain’s? If every day is Christmas and money is free, and the government is great at spending it efficiently, I suppose it is.

BTW...

Submitted by SteveM on October 1, 2008 - 4:14am.

Here are a couple of excellent, readable articles about clinical health informatics. They provide a good flavor for the promise and challenges that lay ahead.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/104/cerner.html

http://www.fastcompany.com/partners/microsoft/articles/20061012/mayo.html

Note that this problem is being solved outside of Washington. That's why the $10B promise of Obama scares me. He's never worked a day in his life, so throwing someone else's money at a problem seems like the right thing to do. McCain too. He just doesn't have the cojones to admit it.

BTW 2

Submitted by SteveM on October 1, 2008 - 9:09am.

If you've patented your product and think it has legs, why don't you shop it around to the Cerner's and GE's as a plug-in to their systems?

You don't even need legislation to do that!

From my standpoint as a

Submitted by Omar Epps on August 27, 2009 - 2:05pm.

From my standpoint as a healthcare informatics professional, the American public healthcare issue is an enormous headache. Although it is easy to assume that you can just offer a great plan to everybody, some people may still like the red carpet treatment of PPO plans. Funding for even a minimal coverage plan is nowhere to be seen, and other health care insurance companies are trying as hard as they can to maintain their profits.