The FEHBlog has run across several interesting articles about the HIMSS heathcare IT conference:

• A Healthcare Dive article on attendee reaction to the new HHS proposed rules of data sharing and other stuff.
• A Healthcare IT News interview with Judy Faulkner, the chief exec of the largest electronic health record distributor, Epic, and
• A Healthcare IT News article concening telehealth vendor presentations at the conference. 

Healthgrades released another round of U.S. hospital ratings. The FEHBlog personally does not put a lot of stock in ratings like this. If he had to use a hospital, he would try to ask people who worked there, particularly nurses. Old school.

Speaking of which, Accenture issued a colorful chart filled report on how U.S. generations address healthcare differently. Not surprisingly, the younger generations don’t tend to have primary care providers (“PCP”) and the older generations do. The FEHBlog did not have a regular primary care provider until 2011. Now with mortality beginning to come into clearer focus, he visits his PCP regularly and religiously follows his advice. That my friends is human nature.

Nevertheless the FEHBlog thinks that it’s a good move for health plans, etc. to encourage people to pick up the PCP habit much earlier. That habit probably will involve weaving together relationships among telehealth providers, pharmacy clincics and actual doctor offices.  The effort is complicated by the ACA induced aggregation of small medical practices into large ones but the electronic health records do facilitate handing off patients among practices and providers within practices. Hope springs eternal.