I was in a NY taxi yesterday afternoon when all traffic was halted by the police. We were on the West Side Highway, next to a heliport and a short distance from the former World Trade Center.
It took a minute to register and then I realized that George Bush was leaving NYC following his economic address to NY Business people and a visit to private fund raising event.
While waiting, the taxi driver began to talk about politics. This rather distinguished man explained that he is fluent in five languages. He recently returned from Afghanistan, employed as a translator by a division of one of the largest corporations working in the that part of the world. His contracted salary was $140,000 for a year. He stayed two months and left saying "it was not worth what I would experience there".
When talking about people and violence he said:
"It's very simple, so simple that I don't understand why people do not get it. There is an entire generation of people who have never known life without war. They don't even know what it means to sleep".
The police opened up the West Side Highway once the huge motorcade passed. We moved on and continued to talk as we drove past Ground Zero.
Sal
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
You Never Know What's in Ice Cream
I happened upon a film about the history of ice cream this evening on the Sundance channel.
It was fascinating to listen to:
1. Ben & Jerry, the well known American entrepreneurs who began their empire at a gas station.
Jerry described how after all the years of effort, struggle and success, the eventual public company board of directors decided they had no choice but to sell the company. Unilever now makes the ice cream. Jerry said that he had no say in the decision.
It was fascinating to listen to:
1. Ben & Jerry, the well known American entrepreneurs who began their empire at a gas station.
Jerry described how after all the years of effort, struggle and success, the eventual public company board of directors decided they had no choice but to sell the company. Unilever now makes the ice cream. Jerry said that he had no say in the decision.
2. The daughter of the Russian immigrant who invented Hagen Daz ice cream. Her father's vision was to create a higher end better product that people would pay for. His creative name for the product was intended to sound Danish. There is no logical construction in the Danish language for the Hagen Daz trademarked logo with the two dots above the name. Many people already know about this story and that Hagen Daz was born in the Bronx, NY.
His daughter said she never could have imagined the size that her company has become. However, Hagen Daz is now distributed by Nestle. The sad thing she said, was that these organizations "own the ice cream market in the U.S." It is unlikely that today, innovative or independent efforts can compete at that level or do what her father was able to do and grow such a business.
And a curious bit of information that only makes my imagination wonder.
According to this documentary, Margaret Thatcher, prior to taking the U K's highest office was a chemist. Her work focused on ice cream and what is called "over run" in the industry. Over run is code for adding air to the recipe in order to reduce cost and quality but sell more. Apparently, Ms. Thatcher was good at adding more air and worked hard at it.
I can't testify to the facts of the documentary and I may research, but I sense some interesting connections in this mix of a social confection.
Just enjoyable to think about and save the calories. Maybe.
Sal
His daughter said she never could have imagined the size that her company has become. However, Hagen Daz is now distributed by Nestle. The sad thing she said, was that these organizations "own the ice cream market in the U.S." It is unlikely that today, innovative or independent efforts can compete at that level or do what her father was able to do and grow such a business.
And a curious bit of information that only makes my imagination wonder.
According to this documentary, Margaret Thatcher, prior to taking the U K's highest office was a chemist. Her work focused on ice cream and what is called "over run" in the industry. Over run is code for adding air to the recipe in order to reduce cost and quality but sell more. Apparently, Ms. Thatcher was good at adding more air and worked hard at it.
I can't testify to the facts of the documentary and I may research, but I sense some interesting connections in this mix of a social confection.
Just enjoyable to think about and save the calories. Maybe.
Sal
IBM Opens New 3D Virtual Healthcare Island on Second Life
 |
| Maybe, we all will benefit the more we consider health care to be a business? Certainly, companies like IBM understand their role (and growth potential) in an industry marked by a need for re-engineering in the deepest sense. I am once again reminded of the interview with a Genome researcher who believes the first people to benefit from her research will be the Software community. This announcement from IBM is an interesting use of social networking and scenario testing among other things. Smart people using an innovative marketing device that can radiate value. Sal Here's the IBM press announcement. ORLANDO, FL - 24 Feb 2008: IBM (NYSE: IBM) debuted at HIMSS®08 its newest island in Second Life: IBM Virtual Healthcare Island.
|
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/23580.wss
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Interesting Post on a Health Care Blog
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A Creative Way to Engage Physicians
Kenneth H. Cohn, M.D., MBA, FACS
www.healthcarecollaboration.com
In response to a frequently asked question, "How can you engage physicians who do not want to have anything to do with the hospital?" a physician colleague responded:
"If they do not want to have anything to do with you, ask them why not!!.....that is a definable set of reasons and (mis)perceptions you might have to dig out of them, realizing that you might not like and may not want to hear what they say, but once understood gives you something to work with."
This approach is a variation on taking the first step: admitting that we do not have all the answers and seeking feedback that may hurt because we take personal pride in our efforts to care for patients.
Some times, it takes unconventional approaches to obtain breakthrough results, as the following story illustrates:
Leon Bender, President of the Medical Staff at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, was frustrated with physician hand-washing compliance. So, infection-control staff who caught physicians washing their hands gave physicians $10 Starbucks cards, which increased compliance from 65% to 80%. A breakthrough came at a meeting of physician leaders, when the epidemiologist at Cedars Sinai cultured physicians' hands, photographed the bacteria on the Petri dishes, and turned the photograph into a screen saver on every computer in the hospital that physicians used to obtain clinical information. That graphic depiction of bacteria increased physician hand-washing compliance from 80% to nearly 100%, where it has remained for several years.
Dr. Bender noted, "With people who have been in practice 25 or 30 or 40 years, it's hard to change their behavior. But when you present them with good data, they change their behavior very rapidly." (Dubner and Leavitt 2006).
The distinction between what physicians and nurses principally do (care for patients) and what administrators principally do (finance, operations, marketing) is blurring. Recent decisions, at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) not to reimburse hospitals for complications, such as catheter acquired urinary tract infections, decubiti, and falls that occur in the hospital, compel us to put aside significant differences in background, training, and outlook and place patients and families at the center of our joint universe.
Reference
Dubner SJ, Leavitt SD. 2006. "Selling Soap." [Online publication, accessed 12/8/07]. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24wwln_freak.html?_r=1&ex=1160020800&en=0c4817f1e4d7f211&ei=5070&oref=slogin#
A Creative Way to Engage Physicians
Kenneth H. Cohn, M.D., MBA, FACS
www.healthcarecollaboration.com
In response to a frequently asked question, "How can you engage physicians who do not want to have anything to do with the hospital?" a physician colleague responded:
"If they do not want to have anything to do with you, ask them why not!!.....that is a definable set of reasons and (mis)perceptions you might have to dig out of them, realizing that you might not like and may not want to hear what they say, but once understood gives you something to work with."
This approach is a variation on taking the first step: admitting that we do not have all the answers and seeking feedback that may hurt because we take personal pride in our efforts to care for patients.
Some times, it takes unconventional approaches to obtain breakthrough results, as the following story illustrates:
Leon Bender, President of the Medical Staff at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, was frustrated with physician hand-washing compliance. So, infection-control staff who caught physicians washing their hands gave physicians $10 Starbucks cards, which increased compliance from 65% to 80%. A breakthrough came at a meeting of physician leaders, when the epidemiologist at Cedars Sinai cultured physicians' hands, photographed the bacteria on the Petri dishes, and turned the photograph into a screen saver on every computer in the hospital that physicians used to obtain clinical information. That graphic depiction of bacteria increased physician hand-washing compliance from 80% to nearly 100%, where it has remained for several years.
Dr. Bender noted, "With people who have been in practice 25 or 30 or 40 years, it's hard to change their behavior. But when you present them with good data, they change their behavior very rapidly." (Dubner and Leavitt 2006).
The distinction between what physicians and nurses principally do (care for patients) and what administrators principally do (finance, operations, marketing) is blurring. Recent decisions, at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) not to reimburse hospitals for complications, such as catheter acquired urinary tract infections, decubiti, and falls that occur in the hospital, compel us to put aside significant differences in background, training, and outlook and place patients and families at the center of our joint universe.
Reference
Dubner SJ, Leavitt SD. 2006. "Selling Soap." [Online publication, accessed 12/8/07]. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24wwln_freak.html?_r=1&ex=1160020800&en=0c4817f1e4d7f211&ei=5070&oref=slogin#
Friday, February 29, 2008
EMR Pushback
Here's another perspective on this important health care topic.
Sal
"Bruce Landes, MD, is a confirmed skeptic when it comes to electronic medical records. But he insists he is no technophobe. “I am not a Luddite,” Landes says, working up some steam on a topic he knows well. “Physicians are people who have been through the development of CT, MRI and robotic surgery. We are not afraid of technology, but we are afraid of bad technology.”
By that he means EMR technology. Landes is the president and chief executive officer of Southwest Physician Associates, a Dallas-based independent physician association that encompasses some 1,300 physicians, most of them in small practices with fewer than five members. Like their peers across the country, these physicians primarily use computers for their practice management functions—the scheduling, registration and billing functions that are the lifeblood of their small businesses. But they have resisted adding clinical documentation to the technology mix, relying instead on paper charts".
Published by Health Leaders Media
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/92119/topic/WS_HLM2_TEC/EMR-Pushback.html
Sal
"Bruce Landes, MD, is a confirmed skeptic when it comes to electronic medical records. But he insists he is no technophobe. “I am not a Luddite,” Landes says, working up some steam on a topic he knows well. “Physicians are people who have been through the development of CT, MRI and robotic surgery. We are not afraid of technology, but we are afraid of bad technology.”
By that he means EMR technology. Landes is the president and chief executive officer of Southwest Physician Associates, a Dallas-based independent physician association that encompasses some 1,300 physicians, most of them in small practices with fewer than five members. Like their peers across the country, these physicians primarily use computers for their practice management functions—the scheduling, registration and billing functions that are the lifeblood of their small businesses. But they have resisted adding clinical documentation to the technology mix, relying instead on paper charts".
Published by Health Leaders Media
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/92119/topic/WS_HLM2_TEC/EMR-Pushback.html
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
(Just About) All Innovation is Local
"At an innovation conference in Mexico in November of 2006, the Colombian journalist Alejandro Santos reminded us, in his eloquent summary, of the advice that the great Leo Tolstoy gave to prospective writers: "Describe your village, and you will be universal." Santos illustrated Tolstoy's maxim with the Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, whose world-renowned novel One Hundred Years of Solitude takes place in Arataca, the small river village of his childhood.
In other words, to come up with a successful innovation, capable of being appreciated by people around the world, you need something very compelling to offer those global markets. And where do you find such innovative, compelling ideas? Sometimes the answer is in world-class research labs. But often, the best new ideas are found in those areas that you know best—right around you".
AlwaysOn Daily [enewsletters@alwayson-network.com] February 27, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Change Comes From Unexpected Places - Maybe
I recently heard an interview regarding genetic medicine where an expert researcher posed a provocative notion regarding the initial benefactors of her work.
She said, the investigations would be very helpful to our health. However, we need to understand, that much of our well-being still remains within our ability to control and provide good decision making based on solid information.
This researcher went on to suggest that the people who will benefit first from genetic data and inquiry, will be software developers and providers. It's about business as much as it is about health.
No surprise, that in a health care system that seems to inhibit EMR (electronic medical records), there are many reasons that may be driving such lack of integration. Unlike the automotive parts world, sharing of information is difficult. Automotive information connectivity is excellent.We all know it's not only about privacy and that statement is not meant to be cynical. However, wellness involves a complicated set of continuous agreements between patients, medical experts and payer communities. And, the creation of new and different roles and responsibilities for health care workers.
We don't have the tolerance for a two week replacement of a front bumper. However, we easily agree to wait for appointments and medical records that take too much time to be helpful.
Here's an announcement that demonstrates where representative change is being accelerated.
Google To Store Patient Medical Records SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 21, 2008 AP
Pilot Project Could Involve Up To 10,000 People; Concerns Surround Security Of Information
"Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that's likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader.
The pilot project to be announced Thursday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google's new service, which won't be open to the general public.
Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that's also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools".
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 21, 2008 AP
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