WebMD news from FierceHealthIT

A class-action lawsuit was filed against WebMD Health Corp., late last week, with the plaintiffs alleging that the company was less than forthcoming about unfavorable financial issues. WebMD's stock Read more...

Site: PeerCase Created: 2010 CEO: Tony Salah Number of members: 150+ Target audience: Oncologists About the network: PeerCase runs like a hybrid of LinkedIn and Facebook, according to Salah, who Read more...

With 2010 dawning, we wonder what the future holds for the likes of the much-hyped Google Health. The decade that's drawing to a close offers plenty of cautionary tales. DrKoop.com entered the new Read more...

A group of the leading lights in the PHR world have come together to endorse a PHR standard, potentially putting to bed the initial arguments over what a PHR actually is and shifting participants' Read more...

Over the last year or so, an aggressive little health IT startup in San Francisco has drawn a fair amount of press for its size, including a mention in the New York Times. The company, Practice Read more...

Aetna has become the latest in a crowded field of PHR contenders, going up against everyone from Google and Microsoft to giant employer coalitions Dossia and WebMD. Aetna's model, called Read more...

While commercial EMR vendors say they could develop a joint Web-based health record system within a year for the VA and DoD, it increasingly seems bureaucracy makes that all but impossible. WebMD, Read more...

Giant telecommunications firm Verizon Communications is rolling out a PHR for 900,000 employees, dependents and retirees, with executives suggesting that such a platform can foster consumer-driven health system changes. The new records, known as the Verizon HealthZone PHR, is provided by WebMD, which offers Web-based, password protected access to records. When patients choose to enroll in the PHR, the record allows patients, as well as clinicians, pharmacies and labs, to enter and manage …

Read more...

First, let's ask the question on everyone's mind: What is a PHR? I'm not sure, and I bet you aren't either. But I can tell you that if the idea of adding self-reported patient health information to the mix sounds appetizing, you'll get your fill at HIMSS this year. I'm not talking about the tentative, completely voluntary efforts that are currently offered by the consumer-facing sides of companies like WebMD and Medem. In fact, not all of the PHR buzz you'll get comes from vendors with a product to plug; in fact, interestingly enough, some of the most interesting PHR efforts, like the Cleveland Clinic's MyChart, are rising up from the provider level rather than vendor engineering teams. (I particularly like MyChart's "caregiver" data collection categories, as they go beyond mere patient self-reporting to collecting data from other vitally involved parties.) Still, there are definitely some sophisticated commercial efforts underway, such as ActiveHealth's CareEngine, which is integrating a particularly long list of relevant sources--such as pharmacy benefit management systems, labs, claims data from health plans, member-contributed data and more--into a next-gen PHR model.

Basically, anyone you speak to at HIMSS who considers themselves to be in the clinical information management business is probably going pitch you on having a PHR, as it's become de rigeur almost overnight. There seems to be a consensus that patients have critical information to contribute to the health management process;  the question will be what HIMSS participants think IT can do to help the process along.

When rock stars, politicians or ordinary people getting their 15 minutes of fame end up in a healthcare facility, the unscrupulous and the curious fight to get a peek at their medical records. Worse, some try to sell access to the data. Though big companies, government leaders and insurance companies are all for EMR adoption, worries about this kind of snooping could potentially slow the adoption of digital health technology. Newly-ascendant Democrats are on record that they plan to …

Read more...