An Early Look At How Iowan Voters Feel About Health Care

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn at Health Populi looks at some early statistics of how Iowans feel about the state of our health care system. The survey was sponsored by CodeBlueNow, a consumer-led health advocacy group.

I found it particularly interesting that Iowans believe "health care services should stress disease prevention over high-technology cures." I wonder if a poll in West Virginia would show a similar statistic.

Contrast this statistic with some data coming out of the Leadership West Virginia Conference saying that West Virginia's health care system is dysfunctional and in peril. Dave Campbell, CEO of Community Health Network said that "$10 billion a year is spent on health care in [West Virginia], but only 3 percent of that is spent on preventative measures." Chronic disease is a huge problem in West Virginia.

Citing respiratory disease and diabetes as two treatable problems that are causing health care rates to rise in West Virginia, Campbell goes on to say that of the "$4 billion a year spent in hospitals, we know that $1 out of every $10 is avoidable. Over $400 million would be avoidable if people had earlier access to prevention and primary care."

Guy V., this post is for you after our weekend discussion.

Hatfields & McCoys, Book Banning and The World Is Flat

Larry Messina beat me to the post. I agree - quote of the day from award winning author, Pat Conroy in a letter to the editor appearing in today's Charleston Gazette.

"Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book banners are invariably idiots, they don’t know how the world works — but writers and English teachers do."

More on the the story involving the suspension of two of his books, Beach Music and The Prince of Tides, from high school English class at Nitro High School.

The emailed letter to the editor was in response to an effort lead by Makenzie Hatfield, a George Washington High School senior who the article indicates is working to for form a coalition against censorship. Hatfield emailed the author about the situation and received the response.

Just another example of how the ease of modern communication (email, internet, blogging, etc.) can put anyone (student) in contact with anyone else (author). The world is flat.

Conroy also weaves in the Hatfields & McCoys and ends with my other favorite quote from the letter.

"I salute the English teachers of Charleston, West Virginia, and send my affection to their students. West Virginians, you’ve just done what history warned you against — you’ve riled a Hatfield."

New Health Care CIO Blog

A welcome to John Halamka, MD and CIO of CareGroup Health System and the Chief Information Officer and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School who has launched a new blog, Life as a Healthcare CIO. Dr. Halamka is also the Chairman of the New England Health Electronic Data Interchange Network (NEHEN), CEO of MA-SHARE (the Regional Health Information Organization), Chair of the US Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), and a practicing Emergency Physician.

His tag line says:

Every day I experience life in the world of healthcare IT, supporting 3000 doctors, 18000 faculty, and 3 million patients. In this blog I record my experiences with infrastructure, applications, policies, management, and governance as well as muse on such topics such as reducing our carbon footprint, standardizing data in healthcare, and living life to its fullest.

Check out the great content in these recent posts, Top 10 Things a CIO Can Do to Enhance Security and the pro/cons of Flexible Work Arrangements. Looking forward to reading more of his posts. Tip to David Williams at Health Business Blog for pointing out this new health care CIO blog.

Data Missing on 200,000 West Virginia PEIA Members

WSAZ News, the State Journal and Charleston Gazette are reporting that data on approximately 200,000 past and current members of West Virginia Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) is missing. According to the articles, the data was contained on a computer tape being mailed to a data analyst in Pennsylvania and was reported missing on October 18.

The data tape included names and maiden names, addresses, social security numbers, telephone numbers, and marital status of program participants and their covered dependents. The article indicates that the data tape did not contain medical or prescription claims information.

According to the article, letters will be mailed to impacted members and a hotline will be set up to answer questions about the lost data.

UPDATE: For more information check out the PEIA Data Loss Press Release and the Letter to Affected Policyholders about PEIA's Recent Data Loss.

Putting WV Mountaintop Removal In Perspective

How big are West Virginia's mountaintop removal sites? Check out the post "How Big is MTR Mining?" over at the Charlestonian Blog to better understand the scale.

AHIMA Report on State Level Health Information Exchange

The Foundation of Research and Education arm of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) released a report titled "State Level Health Information Exchange: Roles in Ensuring Governance and Advancing Interoperability." The report was funded by ONCHIT.

I've just scanned the report but it appears to give a nice overview of the current status of state level initiatives to create an interoperable health information system.

Tip from iHealthBeat.

George Clooney and HIPAA Minimum Necessary Rule

An attorney I work with sent me a link to the following Fox News article, Doctors, Hospital Workers Suspended for Viewing George Clooney's Medical Records. For more news check out Google News search.

The article indicates that 40 employees at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, NJ were suspended for violating the hospital's HIPAA policies and procedures.

Based on the information in the article I suspect that the employees were found to have violated the minimum necessary provisions under the HIPAA Privacy Rule. This section of the rule provides:

For uses of protected health information, the covered entity’s policies and procedures must identify the persons or classes of persons within the covered entity who need access to the information to carry out their job duties, the categories or types of protected health information needed, and conditions appropriate to such access.

As more news comes out about this I suspect this might serve as a good example of application of the minimum necessary requirements under HIPAA. If the employees further disclosed the information to third parties outside the hospital (including the media) other provisions of HIPAA might also come into play.