Leading Health Care Organizations Announce Collaborative Effort to Improve Care, Lower Costs(PRNewswire, 12/15/10)

Cleveland Clinic, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Denver Health, Geisinger Health System, Intermountain Healthcare, and Mayo Clinic will join The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice to share data on outcomes, quality, and costs across a range of common and costly conditions and treatments. The group will determine best practices for delivering care for these conditions and will rapidly disseminate actionable recommendations to providers and health systems across the United States. In addition to achieving better quality and outcomes, the Collaborative intends to improve the efficiency of standard clinical care delivery to reduce the per capita cost in these conditions and to keep costs in pace with the consumer price index.

Federal Advisors Seek Advice (HealthData Management, 12/15/10)

Two federal health information technology advisory committees are seeking public comment … [to develop] concepts for future meaningful use clinical quality measures. The HIT Standards Committee has a number of questions regarding the criteria to evaluate initiatives that could use the framework … [including use of] evidence-based medicine and research support.

Evidence-based Medicine (HealthMad blog, 12/14/10)

Costs rise for Calif. workers’ comp insurers (Sacramento Business Journal, 12/10/10)

Type of Treatment is Primary Predictor of Return to Work (Work Loss Data Institute, 11/02/10)

Report showing med care exceeding cash benefits is a wake-up call, (Risk & Insurance, 10/25/10)

A frame of reference – work comp and the rest of the world (Joseph Paduda, Managed Care Matters–blog, 10/15/10)

Healthy Eats for Data-Hungry Doctors (Kibbe & Klepper on Health Care, 09/29/10)

New Study Proves Reducing Healthcare Costs While Improving Care Is Achievable (The Health Care Blog, 09/23/10)

Top 7 Myths about Workers Compensation (WorkersCompensation.com, 09/16/10)

#3. Workers comp Can be Measured by the Cost of the Premium. If an employer thinks the way to measure the cost of workers comp is by the price of the insurance premium, they are measuring only a small part of the total cost of workers compensation. The cost of workers comp not only includes the direct cost of the premium, but also includes the much larger indirect cost of lost production, lost supervisory time, temporary replacement cost or overtime cost, increased training, equipment or property damage, lower morale and unhappy customers.

Report: Workers’ Comp Payments For Medical Care Exceed Cash Benefits for the First Time (EHS Today, 09/09/10)

TotalRehab to use ProtoHIT patient treatment optimization software, 09/09/10. Occupational health clinic using ProtoHIT’s workers’ compensation software to treat international automotive safety parts manufacturer Autoliv’s injured workers.

Visibility Key to efficient revenue cycle management (Healthcare IT News, 2010)

Employer WC Costs Down, But Medical Costs Rising (National Underwriter, 2010)
For the first time, medical benefits accounted for over half (50.4 percent) of all benefits paid.

ProtoHIT lands one-two punch with investments, industry partners, 04/25/2010. NMCC commits $250,000 to ProtoHIT. Dr. Barry P. Chaiken, chair of HIMSS board, has joined ProtoHIT’s board of advisers.

Dr. Barry Chaiken joins ProtoHIT’s advisory board, April 19, 2010. Former board chair of HIMSS to help guide company’s direction in delivering patient treatment optimization software for workers’ compensation clinics.

Getting Physical in Return-to-Work Programs (EHS Today, 04/01/10)
Through the use of centralized information storage, deliberate processes and old-fashioned teamwork, organizations can drastically improve their return-to-work programs, decrease lost workdays and increase overall organizational performance.

Wasteful spending accounts for $1.2 Trillion in healthcare costs (Fierce Healthcare, 03/04/10)

Another contributor to waste is how a doctor decides to care for a patient. The variety of treatment options account for an estimated $10 billion of unnecessary cost each year, according to the report… “The old belief that better care is more care, turns out it’s just not true,” James said. “Most of the savings go back to insurers or the government. We’re nearly always financially punished every time we save money.”

Scaled-Back Healthcare Reform: Is It Possible, Would It Work? (01/22/10, panel discussion at NPR)

A History of Our Healthcare Future, by John Halamka, MD, CIO, CareGroup Health System, Harvard Medical School (Healthcare IT News, 01/20/10). Three predictions:

• Clinicians will become healthcare coordinators, working in partnership with patients to manage wellness using a shared lifetime electronic health record.
• Patients will undergo fewer tests and take fewer medications because redundant and inappropriate care will be reduced. Healthcare value will improve – higher quality for less costs, since less care is often the right answer.
• Payers will reimburse providers for quality rather than quantity since electronic health records will document the care given and not given.

The Checklist Manifesto (The Week, 01/07/10)
Human error might plummet, says surgeon Atul Gawande, if we all embraced a profoundly simple tool.

Workers comp managed care – predictions for 2010 (Joseph Paduda, Managed Care Matters–blog, 12/31/09)

Healthcare Reform To Have Major Impact On Workers’ Comp Costs (Insurance Journal, 12/16/09)

Testing, Testing. The health-care bill has no master plan for curbing costs. Is that a bad thing?(New Yorker, 12/14/09)

Health-care costs are strangling our country. Medical care now absorbs eighteen per cent of every dollar we earn. Between 1999 and 2009, the average annual premium for employer-sponsored family insurance coverage rose from $5,800 to $13,400, and the average cost per Medicare beneficiary went from $5,500 to $11,900.

Work Related Injuries Underreported (New York Times, 11/16/09)

Study: U.S. Lags Behind Many Other Countries in EHR Use (11/05/09)

Healthcare Might Be Ripe For Cloud Computing (ihealthbeat, 10/27/09)

HHS Publishes Interim Final HIPAA Rule (10/30/09)

Integrate Workers Comp To Cut Health Costs: Study (10/26/09)

“Only 12% to 14% of health insurance premiums go toward administration and profit,” researchers said in the report.

“Workers compensation turns this ratio on its head, spending the majority (50-60%) of premiums on these same overhead costs,” the researchers found.

Interview with Bruce Fryer, ProtoHIT CEO, KPCW, 11/01/2009 [Audio].

Lack of Medical Records Favors Workers Compensation Claim (10/09/09)
An employee is entitled to an “inference” that her injuries are work-related because Xerox Corp. failed to produce medical records from a worksite facility she visited, a New York appellate court has ruled.

How to start a 100% virtual company, 09/01/2009.

Online Tools Help Payers Gain Insight Into Data (Health IT News, 09/01/09)
Employer groups and payers are increasingly using online tools to control healthcare costs and improve their employee and member health status.

To Cut Healthcare Costs, Let’s Start With The Secret Prices (US News, 09/15/09)

Workers’ Comp Costs Soar For Self-Employed (San Francisco Business Times 09/03/09)

Tech transfer booming at UNM, despite economy, 08/01/2009. ProtoHIT raises $90,000 in a syndicated deal that included vSpring Capital and other investors.

Dr. Dinesh Patel joins ProtoHIT’s advisory board, 06/05/2009. Venture capitalist to advise company in effort to improve occupational health clinics’ patient outcomes.

Where Healthcare costs the most and least (Money Magazine, 06/10/09)

ProtoHIT medical software steps toward commercialization at UNM, March 2009. ProtoHIT licenses technology from UNM for workers’ compensation clinics.