23 Apr 2013

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Medicaid, a program for low-income Americans, is one of the largest health programs in the country and is  jointly administered by the Federal Government and the States.  With passage of the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid in many states will be adding millions of new beneficiaries to a program that is typically the first or second largest line item in the State's budget. It's well-known t...
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10 Apr 2013

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Well the slogan "Cheat Death" developed by the marketing firm Immortology for the CaroMont Health/Gastonia health-care system hospital that I commented on this past weekend didn't last long, just shy of one week.  The community and media had a quite a lot to say about it, resulting in the hospital announcing they were pulling the tagline and that "Immortology will work with CaroMont to c...
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06 Apr 2013

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First let me apologize for the error in the blog post I wrote below as pointed out by an individual, CaroMont is not owned by Carolinas Healthcare System and so I have revised the blog. I apology again for the error.   I couldn't help but comment on this news story from the Shelby Star in Cleveland County, North Carolina. The hospital announced a new name and slogan for one of their...
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15 Mar 2013

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This past week I  attended the Jefferson Population Health and Care Coordination Colloquium put on by David Nash, MD and his team at the Jefferson School of Population Health.  For those who don't know, the Jefferson School of Population Health is the first designated School of Population Health in the country and David its founding Dean. The School is dedicated to the exploration of pol...
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15 Mar 2013

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Before reading this, let me add a caveat that I did not visit every booth at HIMSS so I may have missed some really new or unique ideas. I spent two additional days walking around the HIMSS exhibit hall, talking with vendors, looking at products and trying to understand what these companies are working to bring to healthcare. I dug into quite a few of the products from established indust...
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04 Mar 2013

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Day one at HIMSS was an afternoon spent trying to make sense of the enormity of the exhibit hall. The number of vendors and size of the booths tells you that there is a lot of work, excitement and opportunity/money in health IT. So I stopped by Alere, Truven, Intermountain, QualcommLife; looked at WebMD's proposed system with QualcommLife, reviewed a PHR vendors product with some mHealth...
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02 Mar 2013

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Sitting less reduces one's risk for developing Type 2 Diabetes.  Well, is that really much of a shocker? Sure its a bit of a variant from telling someone that they need to exercise 150 minutes per week, but is it really that much?  Have we become so jaded that we need to publish what should be obvious. Like others, I have worked on exercise and eating to cut some excess weight and become...
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27 Feb 2013

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I just read Make patients more accountable for their own health by Shirie Leng, MD. Dr. Leng is clear in stating that patients have to be accountable, particularly for the lifestyle related health issues that they control;  but he does minimize the accountability aspect of Doctors when he says: "I don’t control what you put in your mouth." In fact Doctors do control what some/many patien...
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05 Dec 2012

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Welcome to the Accountable Health Blog site.  Just a little background. I have been in the health system business for over 25 years after receiving a Masters in Healthcare Administration from Trinity University in San Antonio.  During my career I have been a hospital administrator, health plan executive, disease management entrepreneur, president of a population health management company...
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