Breaking Up With Meditech
“It’s not you, Meditech, it’s me.” The words almost catch in your throat as you tentatively reach across the table, taking their hand in yours for what you know will be the last time. Your eyes search theirs for any signals of emotion, any glimmer into how they are taking the news, but they seem … Continue reading
Climate Scientists Are Scrambling to Protect Their Data, Should Public Health Researchers Be Doing The Same?
**UPDATE BELOW** The scientific community has generally been appalled with the various statements/actions/threats/tweets/insinuations/insults coming out of the Trump administration. This isn’t meant to be a political statement, this is just based on the scientific community’s response to having their life’s work questioned by a small group of people that don’t know anything about what they … Continue reading
Moneyball for Healthcare
Last week I finally ended up watching the movie Moneyball, the 2011 movie detailing the pioneering efforts of Oakland A’s GM, Billy Beane’s to use Big Data to assemble a comparatively low cost, but winning team in professional baseball. I know I’m clearly 4 years off from any fresh discussion of the movie so don’t … Continue reading
Why Do We Miss The Point With EHR Research?
All in all, I think it’s safe to say that most scientific research is pretty solid. Yes, you can pick apart just about any study and point out where things could have been done differently or where the results could be interpreted slightly differently, but it’s rare that someone could [justifiably] argue that a published … Continue reading
We’re Still Waiting For Searchable EHRs
All Things Considered on NPR had a lovely snippet yesterday entitled Big Data Not A Cure-All In Medicine. Admittedly, I rolled my eyes at one of the opening lines: “…Those [Electronic Medical Records*] are available to professionals and importantly, they’re searchable.” The fact that non-healthcare people, journalists included, think software technology works like … Continue reading
Healthcare Isn’t Being Disrupted…Yet.
[dis-ruhpt] verb: 1. To cause disorder or turmoil in. 2. To destroy, usually temporarily, the normal continuance or unity of; to interrupt. 3. To break apart. I know a lot of us in the Healthcare IT industry are used to filtering out buzzwords to evaluate whether something actually has value or not. Take this buzzword heavy … Continue reading
New Survey Reveals EHRs Just Don’t Care About Patient Care
Minneapolis, MN|Aug. 27 For the past 3 years, healthcare systems across the U.S. have seen a surge in the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) primarily caused by a government incentive program called the HITECH Act, which is commonly referred to as “Meaningful Use”. However, there has also been a concurrent rise in the level … Continue reading
Revisiting the Analysis of Diagnoses in Populations
Awhile back (Forever, in internet terms) I wrote a post about how an analysis of the co-occurrence of diagnoses in a patient population. While it looked pretty cool, I had always been leery as to the statistical significance that the particular type of analysis I ran (Multidimensional scaling) had for some of the less frequent … Continue reading
The Future Of Big Data In Healthcare Delivery
Last night I attended a Minnesota HIMSS event reviewing the Quality Measures for Meaningful Use Stage 2. Much of the content matter was review for those of us who are well entrenched in executing Meaningful Use requirements, but it was a good overview of some of the more technical aspects of how the quality measures … Continue reading
Doctors, Lay Down Your Egos
If you’ve been paying attention to the healthcare news lately you might have heard that the genetics testing company 23andme has put a halt to their testing at the request of the FDA. The official reasoning? The FDA feels they “still do not have any assurance that the firm has analytically or clinically validated the … Continue reading
Aaron Berdofe, MHI - Health Informatics 