This is Part II of a two-part guest post.
The only hope to address the need for innovation in healthcare is to reshape how care is delivered and paid for. Among other things, it’s imperative that there’s greater efficiency — an area where technology has demonstrated it can play a role time and again.
Interestingly, in the transformative models described earlier, doctors consistently tell me that half to two-thirds of their patient interaction time doesn’t need to be face-to-face (the legacy insurance reimbursement model requires face-to-face appointments for the doctor to get paid). They can deliver high quality medicine without being in the same room as them. By spending less time on insurance bureaucracy, they are able to spend 2 to 8 times more time with patients and still make a reasonable living. These longer appointments aren’t simply a luxury. They’ve demonstrated they can save money and improve outcomes. In the legacy model, a typical 7-minute appointment only allows the doctor enough time to address one symptom with limited time to address the underlying issue. → Read More
Drivers in Pennsylvania between the ages of 50 and 75 will get to test out a new program by Allstate that’ll attempt to determine whether playing video games makes for better drivers. The pilot program will be open to 100,000 people who will be asked to play at least ten hours of memory-type games aimed at improving alertness. These drivers will then be compared to other 50- to 75-year olds who haven’t gone through the training, called “InSight” to see if accident rates differ. The “brain fitness” games have been developed by a company called Posit Science, based in San Francisco. If the program works well in Pennsylvania, Allstate may roll it out to other states as well. Apparently accident rates start to creep up around the mid-sixties age range, so if these games are able to help decrease accidents in and around that age bracket, it’d likely be a worthwhile program to pursue nationwide. [Posit Science via CNN/AP] → Read More
The BBC visited five UK-based Carphone Warehouse stores to see if rumors were true concerning customers being told that if they didn’t buy insurance on their iPhone and they happened to lose it somewhere, it would cost them at least £630 and a whole new contract to replace it. While it’s true that they’d have to buy a new phone, the 18-month contract would not start over. → Read More
