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Mission: To serve as a platform for provocative ideas, thoughts, and solutions in the health sphere. While the focus of the blog is on encouraging the voices of women, men are welcome to share their thoughts as well.
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Disruptive Women is a project conceived of and owned by Amplify Public Affairs.
You are currently browsing the Disruptive Women in Health Care weblog archives for October, 2010.
Photo of Disruptive Woman Alexandra Drane (courtesy of The Health Care Blog) presenting Engage with Grace at this year’s TEDMED.
You can read more about the inspiration behind Engage with Grace in Disruptive Women in Health Care’s Patient Advocacy eBook.
By Robin Strongin. During August and September we ran a series of posts on patient advocacy. These posts have been compiled into what is a very informative and engaging ebook. A big thank you to all the bloggers whose posts are included in this ebook; we greatly appreciate them sharing their perspectives and personal stories on patient advocacy.
Please feel free to share and distribute this ebook to others who would find this of interest. As always, we welcome your feedback and comments. All the posts in the ebook remain on the blog and it’s not too late to comment on specific posts.
By Robin Strongin. As a member of the National Press Club, I was invited to a private tour of the amazing exhibit: Elvis 1956. The exhibit featured remarkable photographs by Alfred Wertheimer who traveled with Elvis during his breakout year (Elvis was only 21!).
Amy Henderson, an incredible cultural historian with the Smithsonian led our tour. Her knowledge of The King was matched by her knowledge of the spectacular building in which the exhibit was housed, the Old U.S. Patent Office, now a national landmark and home to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. Fun Fact: In the 1850s, Clara Barton worked in the building as a clerk to the Patent Commissioner, the first woman federal employee to receive equal pay.
At one point during our tour, Amy explained to our group that after the White House and other buildings were burned by the British in the 1800s, three buildings were to be rebuilt first: the White House, the Treasury Building and the Patent Office. She wondered why the Patent Office. Then she explained: It was a time in our history when there was an enormous sense of Manifest Destiny, a belief in our greatness. Her words: “Our inventiveness was a barometer of our greatness….thus, the need for an enormous patent building.” Even before the inventions were born, there was a recognition by our forefathers that innovation matters.
Established in 1995, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Museum strives to educate the public about the patent and trademark systems, and the important role intellectual property protection plays in our nation’s social and economic health.
From the Patent Museum’s website: Today, America’s inventive spirit is one of our most treasured and envied assets. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office works to record, share, and preserve this inventive spirit.
Just as Elvis disrupted the music world with his innovations and genius, the Patent and Trademark Office is there for those innovators waiting to disrupt the health care status quo. And just as our forefathers saw the vast potential of innovation, so too our Disruptive Women. We will be blogging about innovations in health care; innovation broadly defined.
We will be launching this series shortly and compiling the posts into an eBook. In the meantime, I am interested in hearing what you think are the most important innovations in health care.
Thank You. Thank You. Thank You Very Much.
By Hope Ditto. It is especially appropriate that fall is finally upon us this week, seeing as how it appears the health insurance industry is “fall-ing” apart before our very eyes. Another week of politically charged health care debate, with rhetoric abounding multi-colored leaves. Put down that rake, take off your coat and settle down for a minute – we have all the health care news you can use.
You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again. Y2K, 2012, the alleged Zombie Apocalypse that keeps popping up on my Facebook newsfeed. The end of life and the world as we know it is here – at least it is if you work in the insurance industry. As Politico reported yesterday, “State insurance commissioners approved rules shaping how insurance companies will have to account for their medical spending beginning next year.” This final step comes as a means of paving the way for one of the biggest components of health care reform to be implemented – the provision that requires insurance companies to “spend 80 to 85 cents of every dollar they collect in premiums on medical care or items that improve quality.” Everyone agrees that the passing of these rules marked a bad day for the insurance industry. The Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog called it a loss for insurance brokers nationwide.
We saw two weeks ago the first midsize insurance provider (Principal Financial – for full story, see here) discontinue its health care coverage in anticipation of this law’s implementation. Two weeks ago, when the story broke, many said it was only the beginning of the descent, a foreshadowing of what was to come. Whether this is true remains to be seen. But no one will deny that the passing of the rules was a significant step towards it.
There is still one ray of hope – the final recommendations must go before and be approved by HHS. As WSJ reported, “Terry Headley, president of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, said in a statement his group is hopeful regulators and HHS ‘will side with consumers by recognizing that agents need to be compensated for the vital assistance they provide consumers in managing day-to-day health-care issues.’”
Also this week, some Democrats, running for office, hoping and expecting to get reelected by their constituents, have been… wait for it… voicing their SUPPORT for health care reform?! It’s true! A select group of Democrats found a new way to talk about health care, according to this week’s Health on the Hill roundtable – watch the video here.
It’s even more surprising that the Dems are coming home to the party on health care reform considering these poll numbers, courtesy of Politico, showing another dip for support of health reform. (more…)
Check out the video that Philly Komen did with a bunch of retired NFL Cheerleaders. Each time you view it, United Healthcare Pennsylvania donates 10 cents to Philly Komen. For those of you who can’t access YouTube from work, forward the link to your home computer. And of course share with your friends.
Thanks!!
By Archelle Georgiou. Aren’t movies a great value? In addition to offering two hours of entertainment, they often inspire us to wander into tangential questions and dilemmas that might otherwise remain unexplored and undiscussed.
Disney’s Secretariat is a wonderful family movie about a racehorse who, in 1973, became the first Triple Crown champion in twenty-five years when he won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths. The movie is also about the his owner, Penny Tweedy.
Penny (Chenery) Tweedy is a Columbia Business School graduate turned housewife. She is married to a successful attorney and is the mother of four children. But, when she assumes responsibility for her father’s ranch, she shifts her focus away from her family and on to the horse and on to winning…at all costs. As usual, Disney glamorizes her passion and glosses over the family conflicts, but in a recent article by her Penny’s son, John Tweedy, he said, “In real life, we Tweedys were more riven and frayed…by the pressures of celebrity into which we were suddenly thrust. The wars between our parents were more bitter, the marriage more broken, and we kids were more alienated and countercultural than the movie depicts.”
During the scene when Penny turns down $8 million dollars for Secretariat and risks the family estate, David, my husband, turned to me and said, “Archelle, even though I know how this movie ends, she is really being irrational.” Or, was she?
And, at that moment, my tangential thinking began….
These are questions of utilitarianism, a moral theory centered around the basic concept that “actions are right to the degree that they tend to promote the greatest good for the greatest number.” While I don’t fully understand all the nuances, the basic concept is one that’s been on my radar for a few weeks since Athena called me to brainstorm about an essay for her freshman Ethics class. “Mom, when do the needs of the community supercede the needs of the individual?”
Her question brings me to this blog topic:
When should a health care provider get the influenza vaccine (even when they don’t want it) to prevent putting vulnerable patients at risk? (more…)
In a September 30th USA Today article the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Thomas Frieden talked about the CDC’s six priorities or “winnable battles” as he calls them.
Loading ...By Hope Ditto. Just a few weeks out from the midterm elections and tensions are high. As we approach the final stretch, news is breaking at the speed of light, but don’t you worry — we have all your health care news, political and otherwise, right here!
Three weeks from election day and it is still unclear what direction the majority of voters are leaning. The only thing we know for sure – health reform is certain to be an issue of high importance at the ballot box. This week, Kaiser released results of its latest poll. They found that, “while 57 percent of voters who do not support the Tea Party movement view the health reform law favorably, 57 percent of Tea Party supporters view the law ‘very’ unfavorably, and another 11 percent ‘somewhat unfavorably’.” I know, not really much of a surprise. But, “at the same time, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of Tea Party supporters say they feel ‘angry’ about health reform, even though most (82 percent) of these say their anger is more widely targeted at Washington as a whole rather than specific to the reform law.” Whether this anger will transfer to a more hearty Election Day turnout remains to be seen. See the full results of the Kaiser poll, see here.
This week on Health on the Hill : “A federal judge in Michigan ruled that Congress does have the power under the Constitution to require that individuals purchase health insurance — known as the ‘individual mandate’ — but legal challenges to the law are ongoing and the debate is expected to land at the Supreme Court.” Here what those in the know have to say about this issue and more.
Michigan isn’t the only place where law suits are making headway, though. According to this Washington Post article, 20 states health care lawsuits will be moving forward in the coming weeks and months. A sure indication that no matter what the outcome of the midterm elections, the battle over health care is far from over.
The battle has only just begun, but as this Politico article argues, the fate of the law (and the possibility of repeal) lies in the outcome of state races. But, “some consumer health advocates expect that even if Republicans take over many of the statehouses, the political rhetoric against the health law will cool as governors begin to understand the benefits of the legislation.” Not even a crystal ball or a tarot card could predict the outcome of this one — it seems we really will just have to wait and see.
Maybe the reason that the federal government is having trouble funding mandates created by health care reform legislation is because they’re having to dump all of their money into ad spots supporting health care reform legislation (talk about a catch 22!). According to this Politico article, this week HHS announced that it would be spending a total of $3 million on HCR ad spots, though the agency insists that the spots are “not political.”
As if health care wasn’t already enough of an issue in the upcoming election, this week another area of health politics took center stage – abortion. From California to Missouri and many places in between, House and Senate candidates squared off over the legality of abortion, and of including abortion in health care reform. For a closer look at the issue, see Kaiser’s compilation of articles and quotes here.
The National Journal Health Blog raises an interesting question this week: Will Americans Change Behavior For Reform Law? As the entry explains, “A person who takes advantage of the preventive health measures in the bill is one thing; asking individuals to live a healthier lifestyle — including making dietary changes — so they rely less on overly burdensome medical care in the future is another thing altogether.” Whether this will actually work though remains to be seen.
The White House became the Pink House on Thursday night in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness (October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month). Click here for pictures and more.
Your weekly political cartoon, courtesy of Kaiser here.
That’s it from us this week. Until next Friday, enjoy the last of the warm weather this weekend and as always, check back here for all the health care news you can use!
By Halle Tecco. It was beautiful in San Francisco last week, the perfect weather to welcome 1,000 health geeks to the fourth Health 2.0 conference.
Two themes seemed to anchor the demos and conversations at the conference: data and consumer empowerment.
On day 1, Aneesh Chopra, CTO of the United States and Todd Park, CTO of US Health & Human Services set the tone with their enthusiasm for data.gov and what this means for healthcare. They also announced the ‘Blue Button’, a program being piloted by the Department of Veterans Affairs to give veterans the ability to download their claims or medical information.
Private sector innovation was demonstrated by companies like FirstLife Research. FirstLife is mapping and analyzing user-generated medical data that’s already on the web. Then they use semantic algorithms and medical ontologies to convert these reports to actionable insights about medications. Similarly, PatientsLikeMe combs through data on 19 conditions through their army of 45,000 patients that regularly track their health.
With consumer technology comes the ability for patients to be more informed and connected. There was lots of buzz for Castlight, a new site that provides employees with individual-level views of their health care benefits and costs. Such granular detail enables employees to become informed consumers and better shop for health care services.
Wellness apps were abundant, and a team of students from Stanford won the Move Your App! Developer Challenge, sponsored by Catch and HopeLabs. They created an app, called Happy Feet, that encourages physical activity through a game-like activity tracker. Another team built an augmented-reality mobile app that displays Health Rankings information based on a GPS reading, for home-shoppers or just the curious.
It was great to see a combination of large players like Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault, alongside garage hackers and health geeks. Everyone agreed– technology is quickly making its mark on healthcare.
By Jane Sarasohn-Kahn. In a ballroom at the Hilton Union Square in San Francisco on October 6, 2010, several hundred people shared ideas, debated, and painted a multi-faceted picture of the NewPatient: the networked patient.
The meeting was convened, in “unconference” style, in conjunction between the Health 2.0 Conference and Gilles Frydman, founding father of ACOR, the Association of Cancer Online Resources. Gilles knows a lot about the NewPatient: he’s organized people focused on cancer for over 15 years through his organization, which has helped tens of thousands of health citizens connect to clinical trials, researchers, information, and each other – all seeking to cure virtually every form of known cancer, and identifying forms unknown.
As Jeremy Shane of Health Central kicked off the meeting, he set the theme: this session was, “Not Meet the Parents, but Meet the Patients.” As Health Central sees 14 million visitors to its sites on a monthly basis, Jeremy has some knowledge about the NewPatient, too.
What makes an engaged patient, he has learned, isn’t based on a demographic such as age or gender or socioeconomic status, per se; what makes an engaged patient is a desire to understand her situation and a driving curiosity – in sum, a “need for cognition and understanding,” Jeremy contends.
Jeremy notes that the average search on health has grown from 4 words just a couple of years ago to 6.5 words today — a longer tail – because people are describing their unique situation and they want an answer to their own needs.
Nine people – patients, experts – shared their perspectives with specific communities and personal histories. The goal of the sharing was to seek commonalities, shared principles, and learnings. Dr. Alan Greene, both a patient and provider, shared the vision of participatory medicine, recommending that every clinician convene a Patient Advisory Council to inform and shape their practice.
Regina Holliday, of the Medical Advocacy Blog and 73 cents/21 days fame, passionately talked about the NewPatient’s need for accessing their own information.
Ian Eslick of the MIT Media Lab told the group about a fast-track approach for clinical research enabled through linking an online community of patients with researchers around the globe.
James O’Leary of the Genetic Alliance works with 1,000 genetics organizations, inspired early by his mother’s diagnosis with lung cancer when he was a teen. His passion is driven by the objective of how to get information out of the doctor’s office to patients and their families – “we need to mix services, support, and advocacy together – we’re getting the care model wrong,” he recognizes. “It should be a continuous process of care.”
By Halle Tecco. Diem Brown was battling ovarian cancer when wedding and baby registry invitations begin flooding her mailbox. While her friends were asking for blenders and dishware, all she wanted was a wig and some help covering her medical bills. But there were no resources for her to orchestrate these needs, and flat-out asking was awkward.
Fast-forward four years, and Diem is now making this resource possible for anyone in the hospital. Since entering remission a little over 4 years ago, she has been working on a medical gift registry– amply called MedGift.com– which launched this week.
I met with Diem at Health 2.0 in San Francisco. She is beautiful and confident, and radiates genuine enthusiasm and compassion for this venture. From Real World / Road Rules contestant to ovarian cancer patient to her new role as entrepreneur and executive, Diem faces adversity with grace and resilience. Check out our interview here.
By Archelle Georgiou. 10th grade Social Studies class. My first term paper. Typed on a Remington Select with bottles of White Out and typewriter correction tape by my side. The topic: The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
In case you haven’t read it lately, the language in the ERA simply states:
Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
The Amendment was originally introduced in 1923. In 1972, it finally passed in both the House and Senate but sits dormant, and is not part of the US Constitution since it has only been ratified in 35 of the necessary 38 states.
As you might expect, I took the position 30+ years ago that the Amendment should be passed. And, I still do. Not because women still need equal due process rights; the 14th Amendment takes care of that. Not because women still need equal opportunity for employment and compensation; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act (1963), theoretically at least, afford these protections.
The ERA needs to be passed so that women finally have an equal opportunity to achieve and maintain their health.
Two weeks ago, the Institute of Medicine published a report: Women’s Health Research: Progress, Pitfalls, and Promise. This report was commissioned by Health and Human Services to examine the status of women’s health research over the last 20 years and to determine how effectively findings have been put into practice. The report’s findings highlight that, indeed, there has been progress, particularly in the treatment of women with heart disease, breast and cervical cancer. There is a longer list of conditions for which progress has not been made.
Among the findings that I want to call attention to because, frankly, they are appalling, are those regarding the inclusion of women in clinical trials. Here is a brief synopsis…Comments in parentheses are my editorial comments. What are blogs for, anyway?
–Pre-1986: Women were not routinely included in clinical trials. There was an assumption that results of research on men could be extrapolated to women.
–1986: The NIH established a policy requiring the inclusion of women in clinical research.
–1990: A GAO audit identified that women were still not adequately represented in clinical trials. Why? The policy was vague, inconsistently applied and poorly communicated.
–1992: Another GAO audit found that while women were included in trials, they were underrepresented. (Oops..must have been another misinterpretation.)
–1993: The FDA issued new guidelines for requiring inclusion of women in clinical trials and required gender specific analysis of the data.
–2000: A GAO audit revealed that although women were included and adequately represented, studies were not adequately designed to permit analysis by sex.
–2001: A GAO audit of the FDA showed that 30% of studies failed to fulfill requirements for outcome data by sex. Clinical significance? Eight of 10 drugs withdrawn from the market caused more adverse effects in women.
–2001: The Institute of Medicine published Exploring the Biological Contribution to Human Health: Does Sex Matter?
Yes, Virginia…sex matters. But, it is 2010 and women are still under-represented and comprise only 39% of the participants in Phase 1 trials…the phase that assesses the safety, tolerability, and dosing of a drug.
Not outraged yet? What if you knew that:
During the height of the H1N1 vaccine shortage, researchers identified that women could be immunized with a lower dose of the vaccine and get adequate protection since we have a more pronounced immune response. Great news, right? Regulators were informed, but said they were too busy to consider this information in the vaccination guidelines
–Prominent researchers were recently discouraged from submitting any new grant proposals to the NIH for research on sex differences of mental health disorders. Does this make sense since science can’t yet explain why depression is twice as common in women, alcoholism is twice as common in men, eating disorders are three times more common is girls and autism is four times more common in boys? Nope. What are they thinking?
–Male mice, rats, and rodents are even preferentially used over females in basic clinical research!
What will it take to make women’s health a priority in clinical research? We have Federal laws, NIH policies, FDA guidelines, four separate Federal agencies with an “Office of Women’s Health,” and repeated GAO audits…but the status of women’s health research is abysmal for a nation that spends almost $3 trillion on health care. We’ve come a long way baby…but not far enough, and we may need a 28th amendment to the Constitution to finally have equal rights to a healthy life.
What can you do? Whether you are male of female…Read the report. Educate yourself on sex-based differences. Advocate for yourself..men are from mars, women are from venus, and sex matters, damn it!
*”Sexx Matters” is the creative brainchild of the Society for Women’s Health Research...an organization that works tirelessly to promote and advocate for sex-based differences research.
Originially posted on Archelle on Health, Tuesday, October 5th.
By Hope Ditto. You didn’t think we’d go a Friday without a Roundup, did you?! It’s a little late today, but of course we still have all the health care news you can use!
We start with sick children again this week, but on a good note, for a change. HHS announced this week that about $100 million of the Affordable Care Act will be allocated towards building or renovating school-based health centers. As the Modern Healthcare article explains, “the centers enable children with chronic illnesses to attend school, and they also help improve overall health and wellness for all children through health screenings, health promotion and disease-prevention activities.”
We’re taking a hiatus from the political hubbub this week (well… mostly taking a break), but if you want your fix of health care and the Midterms, take a look at this week’s Health on the Hill roundtable as they discuss how Democrats are approaching “the health care issue” on the campaign trail, reactions of employers to new laws and more. You can also take a look at Kaiser Health’s roundup of how health reform is impacting selected state races here.
The Fiscal Times tackled the issue of health care on the campaign trail this week (last election story, I promise). To read their analysis, click here.
How do you communicate with your doctor? Chances are, not by email, according to a report from the Center for Studying Health System Change. As Modern Healthcare reports, “Despite indications that e-mail access to physicians increases patient satisfaction, only 6.7% of office-based physicians routinely use e-mail to communicate with their patients.” What’s more – only about a third of respondents indicated that their doctors’ offices were equipped to handle electronic communication! Though privacy issues are cited as a major factor in this statistic, doctors also indicated a concern about the potential for an increase in their workload should they begin communicating with patients via email. As virtually all other aspects of our lives go “2.0”, it will certainly be interesting to see how the medical field reacts.
Good news for Obama on the health reform front. Per the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, “A federal judge yesterday refused to grant a request for a preliminary injunction against the health-care overhaul law, saying Congress’s imposition of the individual mandate isn’t unconstitutional.” In his amicus brief, Judge George Steeh explained that, he “found that the individual mandate, the provision that requires everyone to have health coverage, was essential to the act’s larger goal of regulating ‘the interstate business of health insurance.’”
Last week, we discussed recently announced state-level Medicare cuts – the combined result of more people needing Medicare (thanks recession/skyrocketing unemployment) and the increase in people eligible/the amount that they are eligible to receive (by 2014, per health care reform laws) – which have now stripped many states of their tax revenue. As Politico explains this week, all of this, combined with the political turmoil of election season and the preparations to begin the first expansion steps in November (as health reform legislation requires) has the potential to cause a lot of turnover in state houses across the country.
And if you are more of a visual learner, here is a graph of Medicare cuts, courtesy of Washington Post’s Ezra Klein.
Who ever thought morning sickness could be a good thing? According to Reuters, women who experience morning sickness tend to have healthier pregnancies and are less likely to miscarry. As for a medical explanation why this may be the case, Dr. Ronna Chan, one of the study’s authors, explains, “‘Some postulate nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is a mechanism to help improve the quality of a pregnant woman’s diet or a way to reduce or eliminate potentially harmful substances from the mother in order to protect the fetus.’” As for a medical explanation for pickles-and-ice-cream cravings, the jury is still out…
Finally, just like Columbus discovered America 518 years ago, I too made a discovery of an equal or possibly greater caliber – the Kaiser Health News Political Cartoon Archives! Here are two of my recent favorites to start your three-day weekend: 1 and 2.
Until next week, enjoy your pleasant health care news, unseasonably warm weather and three day weekend (hopefully you have one)!
