What could we do if GLP-1 weight loss drugs were free? Would our obesity epidemic be solved for good?
By CECI CONNOLY and SAMI INKINEN Unless you have been living under a rock, you likely have heard the names Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro. Or perhaps been humming the jingle. Rarely has a class of drugs (in this case, GLP-1s) achieved such widespread attention in popular culture and the media, which has people clamoring for them in every doctor’s office in the nation. And for good reason. What we know is that the efficacy and safety profile of these medications is substantially better than any weight loss drug in the past, while our obesity epidemic has only ballooned. As organizations committed to sound science and h...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 13, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy ACHP Ceci Connoly GLP-1s Obesity Sami Inkinen virta Source Type: blogs

Wait Till Health Care Tries Dynamic Pricing
By KIM BELLARD Nice try, Wendy’s. During an earnings call last month, President and CEO Kirk Tanner outlined the company’s plan to try a new form of pricing: “Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and day-part offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling.”  None of the analysts on the call questioned the statement, but the backlash from the public was immediate — and quite negative. As Reuters described it: “the burger chain was scorched on social media sites.” Less than two weeks later Wendy’s backtracked – e...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 12, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: The Business of Health Care Kim Bellard pricing Private equity Wendy's Source Type: blogs

Primary care for all Americans: What the U.S. health care system can learn from Scituate, Rhode Island
In the quaint New England town of Scituate, Rhode Island, with a population of 10,000, a health care revolution was brewing. Dr. Michael Fine, a passionate family physician, had moved to Scituate with his family in 1992 to serve a quiet, rural community with significant health care challenges. By 1999, though, Scituate’s residents had become Read more… Primary care for all Americans: What the U.S. health care system can learn from Scituate, Rhode Island originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 12, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Primary Care Source Type: blogs

Roy Schoenberg, CEO, AmWell
AmWell is a now veteran telehealth platform. It used its IPO money to re-architect its entire platform and add companies like Conversa AI chat service and mental health service Silvercloud, as well as integrating deeply with EMRs & more. That change hit its earnings….so can they recover? Roy Schoenberg, CEO, tells you why this is good for AmWell and what happens next.–-Matthew Holt (Source: The Health Care Blog)
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 11, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Tech Matthew Holt THCB Spotlights AmWell Roy Schoenberg Telehealth Source Type: blogs

The ‘Barbie Speech’ – How Much Has Really Changed For Women in America?
By MIKE MAGEE In our world where up is down, and black is white, there is a left and a right – it’s the middle we appear to be missing. Does it exist, or was it make believe all along? Into this existential despair enters Britt Cagle Grant, the 47-year old Federal Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Stanford Law graduate, blessed by the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo, and former clerk of Hon. Brett Kavanaugh, was nominated by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate on July 31, 2018. Now six years later, her words in rejecting DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act” (otherwise kno...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 11, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Barbie De Santis feminism Mike Magee Terry Sciaivo Source Type: blogs

Risk, Responsibility, Resilience, Respect: COVID-19 and the Protection of Health Care Workers
William M. Sage (Texas A&M University), Victoria L. Tiase, Risk, Responsibility, Resilience, Respect: COVID-19 and the Protection of Health Care Workers (Texas A&M U. Sch. L. Rsch. Paper forthcoming) (2023): Medicine and nursing have long professional traditions of altruism and... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - March 11, 2024 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs

Prioritizing self-care for health care workers [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Join us as we sit down with general surgeon Scott Ellner to discuss evidence-based strategies aimed at improving the well-being of those on the front lines. In this insightful conversation, Scott delves into a range of techniques, from mindfulness to cold Read more… Prioritizing self-care for health care workers [PODCAST] originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 10, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Podcast Primary Care Source Type: blogs

Psychological safety: an overlooked factor in clinician burnout and moral injury in health care
I remember when I first decided to step away from medicine. While I wasn’t burned out like some of my colleagues whom I would later coach, I did have what I now understand to be compassion fatigue. It was a familiar feeling I had felt before, and I knew that if I continued down the Read more… Psychological safety: an overlooked factor in clinician burnout and moral injury in health care originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 10, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Psychiatry Source Type: blogs

Panic button: Escaping the broken health care escape room
Escape rooms have become very popular. Entering a room of seemingly unconnected clues with a group of family members or coworkers creates a sense of fear and excitement that ultimately leads, if successful, to a great sense of accomplishment and relief. The entire experience is designed to enhance trust among team members and inspire confidence Read more… Panic button: Escaping the broken health care escape room originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 10, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Practice Management Source Type: blogs

Is It Worth Buying Dexcom CGM Sensors from Best Buy Health? The only way to know with certainty is to do the math!
Last autumn, on October 9, 2023, the electronics retailer Best Buy announced (seehttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231009526652/en/Best-Buy-to-Sell-Continuous-Glucose-Monitoring-Systems/ for the press release) that it had started a mail order business called "Best Buy Health"https://wellness.bestbuyhealth.com/ which it said would sell CGM sensors among other products. Best Buy Health aims to sell more than just CGM sensors. Its LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/company/best-buy-health/ describes the business this way:" Best Buy Health aims to enrich and save lives through technology and meaningful connections. ...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 9, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 2024 Best Buy Best Buy Health Costco Source Type: blogs

Weekly Roundup – March 9, 2024
Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week. Diving Into Epic’s Partnerships with Microsoft and Nuance. John Lynn spoke to Peter Durlach, at Microsoft via Nuance, about Epic’s integration with Nuance DAX Copilot and how it reduces documentation by 50% per clinical episode. They also touched on Epic’s work with Microsoft Azure. Read more… Devoting AI to Process Improvement in the...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 9, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: Healthcare IT Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup Source Type: blogs

Health benefits under the microscope: What employers aren ’ t telling you [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Join ophthalmologist Paul Pender delves into the results of the annual KFF survey, focusing on employer attitudes towards employee satisfaction, the increasing costs of healthcare, and the emerging trends reshaping the landscape of health care benefits. Join us as we examine Read more… Health benefits under the microscope: What employers aren’t telling you [PODCAST] originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 9, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Podcast Primary Care Source Type: blogs

Putting patients first: Safeguarding health care from AI risks [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! In this thought-provoking panel discussion, orthopedic surgeon Yoshihiro Katsuura and premedical students Kie Shidara, Maria Llose, and James Schmidt come together to examine the growing influence of artificial intelligence in the health care industry. From the potential benefits of AI-driven efficiency Read more… Putting patients first: Safeguarding health care from AI risks [PODCAST] originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 8, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Podcast Health IT Source Type: blogs

From intern to witness: Working in a resource-limited health care system
A little anecdote The year was 2022, and it marked the first month of my initial rotation at one of the largest tertiary care hospitals in Punjab, Pakistan. After having assisted with several procedures in the ENT operating room one morning, I found myself on call for the next 18 hours in the emergency department Read more… From intern to witness: Working in a resource-limited health care system originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 7, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Hospital-Based Medicine Source Type: blogs

A Deep Dive Into Epic ’ s Partnership with Microsoft and Nuance Including Integration with DAX Copilot
We’ve written a number of articles on the Nuance DAX (now called Nuance DAX Copilot aligning with Microsoft’s Copilot) ambient clinical voice solution.  Nuance and Microsoft recently announced that DAX Copilot was going to be fully embedded in Epic’s Haiku and Hyperdrive to provide Epic users easy access to the DAX copilot solution. Peter Durlach, who was with Nuance a long time and is now CVP, chief strategy officer, Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, describes the benefits of the integration in this video, with a focus on their integration and partnership with Epic. Durlach says that Nuance “pio...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 7, 2024 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: AI/Machine Learning Ambulatory C-Suite Leadership Clinical EMR-EHR Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System IT Infrastructure and Dev Ops Ambient Clinical Voice DAX Copilot Epic Epic Cloud Healthcare Azure Healt Source Type: blogs