UnitedHealth’s outcomes-focused research alliance with Mayo Clinic, announced Jan. 15, reminds us of big data’s central role in creating a value-driven US health care system. The tie-up claims to have created the biggest-yet trove of claims-plus-clinical patient records in the US, combining over 100 million claims records from United’s Optum’s health services division with over 5 million clinical records from Mayo. As such, it’s powerful. Collating top-level insurance claims with in-depth clinical reports is as good … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-up: July 30-Aug 3
Competition’s the theme for this week’s round-up, brought to you from Olympic city, London. While the world’s best and fastest athletes battle it out for gold (checked periodically for performance-enhancing drugs by our friends at GSK), so the competition’s hotting up among health insurers and providers, too — at least if (some) politicians get their way. The goal: ultra-efficient, cost-effective medical care. In Europe’s engine-economy, Germany (current Olympic medal-count: 18) the government’s pushing for more … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-up: July 20-27
Might Ultra-Orphans Enjoy An Easier Passage Past NICE? Perhaps. After much back-and-forth, it seems our old friend NICE will, starting in 2013, assess the cost-effectiveness of high-cost drugs for patients suffering from ultra-rare diseases (affecting fewer than 500 patients across England). These kinds of products, increasingly popular with drug firms, generally struggle to meet NICE’s general evidence requirements (given the difficulty of data collection). Thus, in the past, the agency has considered – and approved … Continue reading
The RE Healthcare Round-Up
Real Endpoints’ Weekly Healthcare Round-Up has returned. Cue Carol Anne of the ’86 cult flick Poltergeist II – or, if you prefer, the infamous, avenging nerd Lewis (Revenge of the Nerds II) or the exuberant but dorky Stu Price (The Hangover). Feel free to mock our retro-culture cool, but don’t doubt our enthusiasm…or the importance of synthesis. In the six weeks since our last Round-Up, we’ve seen the approval of Qsymia and Belviq, two new … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-Up: May 27 – June 1
Pick up your jumbo pack of toilet paper –and health insurance too. What started as a quiet partnership between club warehouse wholesaler Costco and insurance giant Aetna has now expanded to include relationships in nine states with two more pending approval. Two years ago, the two joined forces to provide Costco Personal Health Insurance, a health insurance program that offers consumers five options in terms of medical and dental coverage. Costco sees the tie-up as … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-Up: May 19-26
Real Endpoints would like to congratulate our intern, Halleh Balch, on her graduation from Swarthmore College. We expect great things from Halleh in the years to come; she is one to watch! PSA: To test – or not to test. The big news this week was the United States Preventative Services Task Force’s decision to downgrade the necessity prostate-specific antigen test. After reviewing two large studies, the task force’s working group decided the PSA test, which … Continue reading
Are We Really That Different? Transatlantic Lessons In Shopping For Value
The Americans and the English might think that their health care systems are very different: one, a commercial, private-insurer driven network whose incentives are as mis-aligned as its per-capita spend is high; the other, a state-funded, friendly-yet-inefficient model characterized by rationing. There are plenty of similarities, though. Firstly, the pressures – most obviously, spiraling costs — are the same, whether they’re hitting state-owned or private payers. England’s patchwork of regional, public payers (the Trusts) make … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-Up: 4/6 – 4/14
First ACO’s under Medicare’s Shared Savings Program: In addition to TEDMED, which this week gathered healthcare luminaries to discuss all things innovative, ACO was the other au courant acronym of the news cycle. Even as debate swirls about the fate of the healthcare reform law, there’s an obvious need to better coordinate healthcare, with ACOs being a topic of rare bipartisan politicking. Thus, its no surprise that accountable care organizations are alive—and growing rapidly—in numbers. … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-Up: 3/28 – 4/4
Reducing unnecessary care: On Wednesday April 4, nine physician societies, together with the ABIM Foundation and Consumer Reports, released a list of 45 procedures or tests (5 per specialty) that are overused and adding to soaring healthcare costs as part of a new educational initiative called Choosing Widely. Another 8 specialty boards are preparing lists of relevant tests their members should be more judicious about ordering. Once again it’s a reminder that there’s growing support … Continue reading
The Healthcare Round-Up: 3/21 -3/28
All eyes are on Capitol Hill this week as the Supremes hear oral arguments in one of the most important –and politicized—cases in decades: the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the signature piece of legislation passed thus far in Barack Obama’s presidency. It’s anybody’s guess how the Court will vote –questions on day 2 tied to the constitutionality of the individual mandate were pointed and seemed to fluster the administration’s lawyer Donald Verrilli. One … Continue reading