How the US Pandemic Preparedness Failed: Harvard’s Dr. Ashish Jha on the Best Way Forward Through Covid-19
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Ashish Jha, Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, who is advising state, federal and international governments on Covid-19. He laments the delayed and inadequate response by the federal government to the threat of Covid-19, how failure to deploy a cohesive testing strategy has cost lives, and how an aggressive national approach is needed to safely navigate the way through this pandemic. He predicts the coronavirus will change training of future health professionals, as well as the way the American health care system is run.
Testing, Contact Tracing, Quarantines and Physical Distancing: Tomas Pueyo on What U.S. and Others Must Do to Beat Coronavirus
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome engineer, data analyst and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tomas Pueyo, whose recent collection of articles in the online publication Medium outline what must be done to contain COVID-19, and minimize the harm to health and economies. He analyzes global data on actions taken by countries and their impact on outcomes, recommending that widespread testing, contract tracing, physical distancing, hand hygiene and widespread use of masks will help contain the pandemic.
Democratic Presidential Hopeful John Delaney on His Market-Based Approaches to Universal Health Care and Addressing Climate Change
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome another 2020 Presidential candidate to Conversations on Health Care, former Maryland Congressman and entrepreneur John Delaney. They discuss his record as a centrist Democrat who favors more market-based approaches to universal health care, which gives all Americans access to coverage, but keeps private payers in the mix, providing more consumer choice than Medicare for All. He favors a carbon tax approach to addressing climate change to foster US innovation to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Stanford Medicine Dean Lloyd Minor on Apple Heart Study, Biomedical Revolution and Precision Health
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Lloyd Minor, Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, on his strategic plan for advancing 21st century biomedicine. He discusses the transformation underway in health care using data, artificial intelligence and telehealth protocols to support health industry transformation, and how all of this will impact medical education in the future.
Ideas42.org Managing Director Ted Robertson on Transformational Potential Applying Behavioral Design in Healthcare
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Ted Robertson, Managing Director of Ideas42, a non-profit design firm that applies the disciplines of behavioral economics and behavioral design to develop scalable solutions to transform systems in health care, government, civic and corporate entities. Mr. Reynolds discusses their recent report for the Commonwealth Fund that explores the potential for transforming health care by applying behavioral economics principals and deploying behavioral design teams.
Conversations on Health Care hostsMark Masselli andMargaret Flinter discuss an important and possibly confusing topic–blockchain technology and health care.
What is It?
Though it sounds more like relating to DNA strands or chemical analysis, blockchain is actually a way to structure and secure information.
While principles were initially applied to the financial world such as Bitcoin, it has many applications for many diverse industries, including healthcare.
In reality, blockchain is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way,” according to The Harvard Business Review.
What Does it Mean for Patents?
Blockchain is Poised to Disrupt Health Care: Listen to CHC’s Mark Masselli and Dr. Samir Damani
It’s easy to see healthcare is drowning in data of all sorts. From patient records, complex insurance billing, clinical trials, medical research and more, medicine is complex.
It lets patients self-govern their personal health records.
The technology address the current lack of adaptable in the health system.
Provides a way to reward patients for behavior changes leading to better chronic care self-management.
Have less admin time for doctors so they can spend more time on patient care.
Even better sharing of research results to facilitate new drug and treatment therapies for disease.
Electronic and Secure Sharing
One major improvement is in electronic medical records, Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter of Community Health Centerconcedes.
Specifically, blockchain allows patients’ records to be securely viewed by any provider who needs it. This saves time, money and duplication in procedures, streamlines the process, avoids confusion and sometimes helps in life-threatening issues to share health information across many different providers.
The goal is to give patients and their providers easy access to their entire medical history across all providers they have ever seen.
Reduce Counterfeit Drugs
Bblockchains could help new drug development by streamlining patient results and share them quickly. Also, it could help stop counterfeit drugs.
Better Management
Blockchain could help with medical fraud.This caused more than $30 million in losses in the US, and blockchain could help minimize loses. It could reduce admin costs for billing by stopping the need for complex third party data or security systems, making the process of sharing information much more efficient.
Medical Research
Clinical trials for patients and implementing new treatments include extremely detailed procedures. There is no way to process all this data that is generated and recorded in many disparate systems–doctor’s offices, hospitals, patients, drug companies, labs. Blockchains could help “linking” all this together.
Health Care Security
Finally, Mark Masselli, Margaret Flinter and Dr. Samir Damani realize millions of patient records are invaded or hacked yearly. In the era of Smart Speakers, the Internet of Things, and of course IPads, etc., there are numerous opportunities for security breaches. Blockchain solutions potentially can keep health data secure while connecting to medical devices safely.
Listen to Mark Masselli, Margaret Flinter and Dr. Samir Damani
Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter of the Community Health Center and Dr.Samir Damani of MintHealth discuss how blockchain technology will impact health care.
