Is Prevention Cheaper than Treatment?

David Williams over at the Health Business Blog looks at this question and surprisingly answers it saying that studies show it's often cheaper to let people get sick. This perspective comes from a Washington Post article, In the Balance, Some Candidates Disagree, but Studies Show It's Often Cheaper to Let People Get Sick.

I have assumed (apparently wrongly) that creating a model system in the United States focused on prevention would help halt rising health care costs. Although I've not read all the links in David's post I still have to believe that focusing prevention efforts on chronic disease will have a positive benefits. I'm also wondering whether the study took into account the difficulty (and related costs) of getting people to change their habits which in turn results in prevention.

David makes some valid points in his post including his comment that "consumerism, quality and patient safety initiatives will bear fruit." Like David I'm not sure that prevention will solve the cost crisis but I still have to believe that teaching good health habits and preventative efforts especially early on in childhood before bad habits are formed will ultimately lead to cost savings for our health system.

If you are interested in where the presidential candidates stand on a variety of health care issues -- check out the Washington Posts PoliGraph covering topics on healthcare reform, uninsured, drug prices, prevention, technology and stem cell. Interesting graph.

The Value of Wiki Collaboration

A great graphic from Wikinomics of why wiki collaboration beats email collaboration. A picture says a 1,000 words.

For me the graphic also demonstrates where we may be headed with cloud computing.

Tip to Doug Cornelius' post "Wikis and Happiness" at KM Space.

Dartmouth Atlas Health Care Stats on End of Life Care Costs

The WSJ Health Blog posts (WSJ article, More Choices Drive Cost of Health Care) interesting statistics on end of life care costs according to the latest Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care edition (due out today).

The report shows:

. . . that the cost of individual medical services isn’t the big driver of Medicare spending, at least for chronically ill patients in their last two years. It’s the intensity of care, such as the number of specialist visits and days in the ICU. . .

According to the map graphic West Virginia comes in low in the "below $37,500" category showing the average Medicare Spending during the last two years of life for chronically ill patients.

As the costs of our health care system increase over the coming years we will likely see an increased focus on looking at the end of life care issue vs. costs of health care in those remaining years. These bring to the front a variety of medical, ethical and legal questions.

Virtual Medical Dangers of Web 2.0

Thought provoking post by Bertalan Mesko at ScienceRoll on one of the dangers of web 2.0. Bertalan is a Hungarian medical student who plans to become a clinical geneticist and specialize in personalized genomics.

Bertalan highlights a danger of virtual medicine and gives us a glimpse at what might be the reality of the future as real and artificial life start to merge and blend. His post raises practical implications regarding the potential liability of a health care professional offering artificial (but real) advice online. The post also highlights to potential of the virtual world for training.

I've not spent anytime understanding what happens in Second Life and have only a superficial view of what it is and how it works. For those who know even less - it is a 3-D virtual world entirely created by its residents. There is a vibrant virtual community (including health care and medicine) growing that most don't even know about.

Thoughts on HIPAA and Privacy: NYT Article on PatientsLikeMe

First, an apology to my regular blog visitors for the lack of posts over the last month. Busy, busy, busy at work and home. No time to blog. The last couple of days I have been experimenting a bit with micro blogging via Twitter as a result of a conversation with my firm's IT director and blogger.

Quick post to this interesting NYT article, Practicing Patients, about PatientsLikeMe. The article covers some ground on some of the questions that periodically swirl in my brain regarding HIPAA, privacy rights, who is (should be) the steward of medical information, pro/cons of patients (consumers) self treatment, etc.

I particularly found interesting Alan Westin's taxonomy of Americans' attitudes toward privacy. The article states:

In 1990, Alan Westin, a political scientist at Columbia University and an expert in privacy issues, offered a useful taxonomy of Americans’ attitudes toward privacy. On one end of the spectrum were what he called privacy fundamentalists — the 25 percent of Americans who feel that their privacy is paramount and that no one, not the government or corporations or their family, should have access to their personal information without explicit permission. At the other end of the spectrum were the privacy-unconcerned — about 15 percent of Americans — who paid no mind to privacy issues and didn’t figure they had anything to hide. In the middle were the vast majority, the 60 percent whom Westin called privacy pragmatists: those who felt that they could give a company they trusted some information — birth date, ZIP code, telephone number — for particular benefits.

Google Sites: Collaboration from Google

Need to create a team site to centralize all types of data and information (think wiki)? Check out Google Sites a part of Google Apps. Here is Google's short summary of what it does:

Google Sites makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. You can quickly gather a variety of information in one place — including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and gadgets — and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, your entire organization, or the world.

I yet to try out the features -- but plan to test it for a couple of projects. I'm interested in thinking (and hearing from others) about how law firms and lawyers can use this technology service.

A review of Google Sites with more in depth discussion of the features. Business Week, VentureBeat and others cover the release of Google Sites.

Official Google Blog: Google Health, a first look

Official Google Blog: Google Health, a first look