24-09-2012 19:13 http VICTORIA -- Vancouver Island's 'Penny Girl' is frustrated with the health care system. After being told by doctors that an upcoming back operation will likely leave her paralyzed -- Jeneece Edroff wants a second opinion. The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota has specialists in her condition and may be able to provide a surgery that won't rob her of her ability to walk. The problem is, the government won't pay for her to go to the Mayo Clinic, not for the second opinion, and most certainly not for treatment. The health minister says she is asking her staff to reach out to Jeneece to see if they can help, but says the province generally doesn't fund out of province treatments that can be done here. Not even if having it done in BC could mean she won't walk again. Follow Stephanie Sherlock on Twitter:

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Island Hero Needs Help with Surgery - Video

EAST LANSING, Mich., Sept. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services (MiHIN), the state level designated entity to improve health care quality, cost, efficiency, and patient safety through electronic exchange of health information, today announced an agreement with HT Systems, a healthcare technology leader that provides the latest innovation in patient identity management, to provide the PatientSecure biometric identification solution for healthcare providers in Michigan as part of MiHIN's growing Health Information Technology (HIT) Cyber Security Program. The agreement reduces the barrier for healthcare providers in Michigan to receive the lowest price available for PatientSecure and sets the stage for integration with the Statewide Health Provider Directory and planned Patient Directory Services.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120919/FL77026)

PatientSecure scans a patient's palm vein pattern and links the patient to their unique medical record, providing accurate identification of every patient, preventing fraud and human errors, and reducing administrative cost of healthcare providers

MiHIN's evolving HIT Cyber Security program currently consists of the ability to conduct vulnerability assessments and continuous threat monitoring for health care networks. The offering allows organizations pursing the top level of vigilance when sharing data electronically to have high confidence their systems are achieving best practice levels of performance.

"As MiHIN continues to develop a robust HIT Cyber Security Program aligned with our mission as the State of Michigan designated entity, it is clear that solutions designed to raise everyone's confidence that individuals doing business over the network are who we think they are is increasingly essential," said Tim Pletcher, Executive Director of MiHIN. "As more organizations in Michigan adopt the PatientSecure solutions by HT Systems our state will see similar benefits in decreased medical and administrative errors related to identity as those major health systems in other states have already."

HT Systems' flagship solution PatientSecure is a biometric patient identification management system that captures an image of palm vein patterns and automatically links patients to their unique medical record providing accurate identification of every patient, improving patient safety, guarding against medical identity theft and insurance card fraud, reducing human errors and reducing cost associated with registration issues such as duplicate medical records and overlays. PatientSecure is currently adopted by over 160 hospitals and hundreds of affiliated clinics and physician's practices across the country. 5,000,000+ patients are currently enrolled in the PatientSecure system and tens of thousands of those same patients are successfully authenticated on a daily basis on return visits.

"The PatientSecure technology provides Michigan healthcare providers with an extremely accurate way to identify patients as they move within and between healthcare systems. It is non-invasive, easy to use and universally accepted with a 99% patient adoption across the country," said Carl Bertrams, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at HT Systems/PatientSecure. "We are extremely enthusiastic about the MiHIN-HT Systems agreement because it takes the technology to a whole new level, placing Michigan at the national forefront of positive patient identification across disparate healthcare organizations".

MiHIN announced the agreement when participating at the HIMSS Michigan Chapter Fall Conference - HITECH Status in Michigan Navigating for the Future of Electronic Health Records, September 25-26 at Detroit-Novi Crown Plaza, Novi, Michigan.

About Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services (MiHINSS) (www.mihin.org) MiHIN is dedicated to improving the healthcare experience, increasing quality and decreasing cost for Michigan's people by supporting the statewide exchange of health information and making accurate and timely health care data available at the point of care. MiHIN is the official state designated entity for health information exchange across Michigan and the future integration with the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN). MiHIN is a Michigan nonprofit entity, functioning as a public and private collaboration between the State of Michigan, sub-state Health Information Exchanges, payers, providers, and patients.

About HT SystemsHT Systems, LLCis a healthcare technology leader, providing the latest innovation in patient identity management.PatientSecure, the company's flagship Biometric Patient Identification Management System, links the biometric palm vein pattern of the patient to their medical record in any HIS registration, EMPI or EMR system. HT Systems is the first to successfully implement a large scale biometric patient identification system in the nation. PatientSecureis currently adopted by over160 hospitals and hundreds of affiliated clinics and physician practices across the country. With over 5 million patients enrolled, our clients report a 99%+ patient adoption rate of our technology. With over 30 years of healthcare and healthcare technology experience, HT Systems partners with healthcare providers to develop solutions specific to the client's environment. For more information please visit: http://www.patientsecure.com.

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Health Information Technology Cyber Security Advances in Michigan

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Mitt Romney talks with 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.

Mitt Romney talks with 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.

It's not so much what Mitt Romney said about whether the government should guarantee people health care in his interview on CBS's 60 Minutes Sunday that has health care policy types buzzing. It's how that compares to what he has said before.

To back up a bit, Scott Pelley asked the former Massachusetts governor if he thinks "the government has a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don't have it today?"

Romney responded:

"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance ... if someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."

That was basically Romney's way of saying that people who don't have insurance can always go to the hospital emergency room.

Yet in 2010, in an appearance on MSNBC, Romney said almost exactly the opposite: "It doesn't make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility," he said at the time.

That's because back then, Romney was defending the Massachusetts law he signed as governor. It's the one that requires most people to either have health insurance or pay a fine just like the federal law he now vows to repeal.

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Romney's Medicaid Remarks On '60 Minutes' Raise Eyebrows

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Could you end up catching a cold because you went to the hospital?

The Hospital Employees Union claims too many health care workers are being pressured to go to work while sick.

"Many health authorities have 'attendance management' programs that penalize workers who are sick but are deemed to have above-average sick time usage. They will do things like deny them access to overtime hours, reduce their hours of work, threaten them with dismissal," says Mike Old with the HEU.

He tells us these attendance management measures go against the government's request to ask staff to stay home when they are ill.

"They are trying to encourage more workers to get a flu vaccine and we support that on a voluntary basis; they also want to make workers wear a surgical mask if they don't get a flu vaccine," says Old.

But he tells us if people are under the weather, they need to look after themselves without being intimidated.

A poll conducted by the HEU finds one third of health care workers go to work even if they are experiencing cold or flu symptoms.

"Employers can't have it both ways," says Bonnie Pearson, secretary-business manager with HEU. "The first line of defense in reducing the spread of influenza in health facilities needs to be encouraging workers to stay home when they are sick -- not punishing them for accessing sick leaves."

About 800 workers were surveyed.

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Health care workers pressured to work while sick: union

VideoThis post originally appeared on O’Reilly Strata ("When data disrupts health care"). It’s republished with permission. By Mac Slocum Health care appears immune to disruption. It's a space where the stakes are high, the incumbents are entrenched, and lessons from other industries don't always apply. Yet, in a recent conversation between Tim O'Reilly [...]

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Health Care Is Poised For Disruption And Data Scientists Can Be Part Of It

While there may be truth to the old saying that there are “lies, damn lies, and statistics,” the use of claims data to detect fraud in the health care industry has often been thought to be beyond reproach. Data mining techniques and investigations that stem from billing anomalies have been [...]

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Claims Data and Health Care Fraud: The Controversy Continues

With their Riders For Health nonprofit, Andrea and Barry Coleman are tackling health care in seven African countries –starting with better motorcycle maintenance. Improving transportation, they found, can save people’s lives.

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The Surprising Link Between Motorcycles And Better African Health Care

By Alex Wayne - 2012-09-25T04:01:00Z

Medical prices accelerated faster than some projections last year and the number of uninsured is rising, according to data that show the U.S. goal of expanding health care is veering onto a more difficult road.

Costs for people with employer-sponsored insurance plans jumped 4.6 percent in 2011, more than the governments 3.9 percent estimate for the entire health system, the Health Care Cost Institute, which analyzed claims from UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), Aetna Inc. (AET) and Humana Inc. (HUM), said today. A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the number of people without insurance climbed 1.7 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

The data pose a challenge for the Obama administration as it carries out the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which promises to expand coverage to 30 million Americans starting in 2014 and trim health costs. The CDC reported that 47.3 million people lacked insurance, and the health institute said hospitals and doctors raised prices at a clip that outstripped demand.

If you dont bend the cost curve, ultimately insurance gets more expensive, said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the president of the American Action Forum, a Washington-based advocacy group that opposes the health law. Its a big problem for the Affordable Care Act.

The overhaul law may be contributing to higher costs, said Martin Gaynor, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University and chairman of the Washington-based Health Care Cost Institute. The act tries to limit insurers administrative expenses and profits by requiring companies to spend at least 80 percent of their premium revenue on medical services. To meet that threshold, they may be letting prices rise, he said.

Like anything else, sometimes these things can have unintended consequences, Gaynor said in a telephone interview.

Health-care costs for 40 million workers covered by UnitedHealth, Aetna and Humana -- three of the four largest U.S. health insurers by revenue -- increased to $4,547 a person, from $4,349 a year earlier, according to the institute. The group, created last year to analyze claims data from major insurers, found that charges for hospital emergency rooms rose 9.1 percent in 2011, after adjusting for a reduction in the intensity of care they delivered.

That means emergency rooms did less for more money, said David Newman, executive director of the institute.

The law also has encouraged consolidation among hospitals and doctors, which may lead to greater pricing power, said Holtz-Eakin, who once who ran the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office after leaving the Bush administration in 2003.

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Health-Care Price Rise Poses Challenge for U.S. Overhaul