June 24th, 2012

Supreme Court Decision On Obamacare Has Little Relevance To Healthcare Disrupters

Supreme Court

When I’m not writing for TechCrunch, my “day job” is working with healthcare providers the disruptive innovators who are reinventing healthcare and slaying the healthcare cost beast as a byproduct. In some cases, these are entrepreneurs. In most other cases, they are pioneers within existing healthcare providers fighting to make changes within otherwise slow-moving organizations. → Read More

June 4th, 2012

Mr. Obama, Tear Down This Wall(ed Garden)

Reagan Berlin Wall

Today, I participated in a meeting at the White House described as an “expert roundtable on patient access to health data” hosted by Todd Park (Chief Technology Officer of the United States), Farzad Mostashari (the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology), Leon Rodriguez (Office of Civil Rights) and Peter Levin (CTO Veterans Administration).

Being at the White House within a… → Read More

May 6th, 2012

Strategic Healthcare Investors’ Investment Thesis

IBM - Healthcare costs

This is the second part in a two-part series on strategic investors in healthcare.

Healthcare IT departments have focused much of their attention on the $19 billion portion of the stimulus bill that is providing billions of subsidies for the adoption of electronic health records. While this is logical given the available money, it is paying for health IT systems optimized for the “do more, bill… → Read More

May 2nd, 2012

Community Hospital Joins Wave Of New Strategic Venture Funds To Drive Disruptive Innovation

Rex Health Ventures

This first part of a two-part series on strategic investors in healthcare focuses on the expansion of the venture business beyond traditional venture and large strategic investors. In the second part, I will outline the backdrop for the investment thesis that strategic healthcare investors are using to guide their capital allocation.

Healthcare providers are finding their “play it safe”… → Read More

March 29th, 2012

Patients Are More Than A Vessel For Billing Codes

Patient as Billing Code Vessel

It will be virtually impossible to succeed in the new reimbursement model without recognizing what has long been said, but little done about it — “the most important member of the care team is the patient.”

Having implemented or reviewed over 100 health IT systems, there is one common purpose at the core of the architecture of these systems — how to get as big a bill out as quickly as… → Read More