...the high-info elite at least initially, be penalized by having to pay the extremely high premiums dictated by government-approved health insurance (in the US, ACA-compliant insurance a/k/a Obamacare)–or face the US tax penalties for not enrolling in same? Third, those liberating mass market smartwatches and fitness trackers aren’t clinical quality yet–fine directionally, but real clinical diagnosis needs clinical quality sensors and apps (Dr Kvedar cited here). That requires still another device like an AliveCor snap-on, which is what I suspect his patient in paragraph 5 used. Finally, Dr Topol misses the mark when it comes to mental health. US psychiatry... Continue Reading
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NYeC Digital Health: two diverging visions of a connected future (Part 1)
...Editor believes he will change his POV if that percentage changes in the next 18 years), he opens with what is a standard lament that we spend too much in the US on healthcare–but higher cost Switzerland and Norway are somehow ‘rational’. Our spend of $3.05 trillion is larger than the French economy, but we also have five times the population (not counting coverage to ‘undocumented residents’ and the money pit called Medicaid) and by far, a younger one. Healthcare costs have come down, which he credits to the ACA (a/k/a Obamacare), but dismisses the effect of high, punitive deductibles... Continue Reading
FDA tells 23andMe genomic test to stop marketing (US)
...be possible, but who knows with the influence of the Googlesphere?) and states that the agency ‘grossly overstates the risks’ (also MedCityNews). As of 2 Dec there are 3,306 signatures of the 100,000 needed; one suspects this administration has bigger slices of uncooked turkey on its plate such as Obamacare and a kind-of-achieved 30 Nov deadline on Healthcare.gov, which is now clearly seen as just one problem. The 23andMe website is still fully up and still selling kits. Editor Donna sorts through the noise for possible reasons why: While worthy, genetic testing such as 23andMe can have personal consequences beyond... Continue Reading
A fully loaded telehealthy clinic-on-wheels for rural medicine
...consult connectivity. A prototype is being constructed for test in 2014 to obtain National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation funding by fall 2014. Partners include Ford, Abbott Point of Care, HealthSTATS, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Kansas City Plant, Sprint (Wi-Fi), Voalté (telemedicine); KU Medical Center partners include the Diabetes Institute, Midwest Cancer Alliance and the Center for Telemedicine and Telehealth. According to MedCityNews, the WellCar is a reaction to ObamaCare in reducing readmissions, improving rural care and promoting telehealth/telemedicine–which is perhaps an overstatement. Also ‘Back to the Future’ (MedCityNews) and KU’s article. (Photo from MedCityNews)... Continue Reading
The Internet School of Medicine
Who needs medical school, the NHS or Obamacare? BYOD and DIY! Hat tip to reader John Nosta https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/402449937499029505... Continue Reading
The train, plane and car wreck that is Healthcare.gov and Obamacare
...This is Obamacare website riddled with garbled messages today [grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/article-2491576-1943076800000578-829_634x378.jpg” thumb_width=”600″ /] Except in the minds of White House and HHS planners, the obvious solution would be to STOP: halt the enrollment process, suspend the ACA implementation, restore the right to current coverage for the millions who have been blocked from renewing their current individual coverage and take the entire website down. Rethink all the elements including the coverage structure and the website, send it back to Congress for relegislating and implement a program that works sometime in 2015 IF a way can be found. But no, Americans get... Continue Reading
Healthcare.gov’s broken UX guidelines
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/now-panic-and-freak-out.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Given the broken Healthcare.gov website, perhaps a silver lining lesson some of us can take from it, as we (in the US) wait and wonder, is what user experience (UX) usability guidelines it broke. From UX research/consultancy Nielsen Norman group is a ‘count the ways’ to ten. (A difference–the pictures of real people have been removed and replaced with cartoons, with wags bemoaning the loss of the anonymous ‘Obamacare girl’ on the home page, not depicted here.) The contention here is that the account setup is unnecessarily complex and may be contributing to the backend technology failure.... Continue Reading
Is this Tunstall’s ‘taxgate’? Maybe not.
...nothing like the Law of Unintended Consequences! The HMRC exemption is 30 years old and was designed to stimulate foreign investment into the UK, which it has done commendably. (Read the ‘high street’ article.) Being an American, I don’t like taxes per se and find any relief a positive note; we have our own Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to deal with (now an enforcer on Obamacare via an odious taxpayer penalty scheme.) However, this American has a problem when this type of exemption is used for so many primarily public funded companies. It’s like a circular firing squad–the choice is... Continue Reading
700+ cybersquatters on Healthcare.gov, state exchanges
The Washington Examiner estimates that there are 700 or more ‘cyber-squatters’–the dodgy websites that have URLs close to a well-known name–on the Obamacare Healthcare.gov and the 14 state (plus District of Columbia) sites. Identity theft moves to a new and obvious level when it’s no hacking required. All thieves need to is to put up a legitimate-appearing website with the appropriate language and forms that ask for your name, address, income, date of birth and Social Security number, which is apparently what Obama-care.us does. “[Obama-care.us] is so well deceptively designed that I had to research the owner to verify that... Continue Reading
The sea of security ‘red flags’ that is Healthcare.gov
...‘Wildman’ John McAfee) make for interesting reading: Cross-site request forgery ‘Clickjacking’–an invisible layer over the legitimate website Cookie theft, and not by the Cookie Monster Problematic verification from state to Federal, from legitimate third-party assistance, from brokers and so on Log in fraud–the happy hunting ground of hackers and DDOS attacks Warnings were apparent as early as 2 October [TTA 8 Oct]. And as our later coverage has explained, undoing all of this is near-impossible even with funding, in the less-than-a-month window till the crash time deadline in mid-November and then early January. Obamacare website security called ‘outrageous’: How safe... Continue Reading
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