America’s core fiscal challenge, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is health care. In 2011, the first of 80 million baby boomers will hit Medicare. In the twenty years to follow, the Medicare rolls will nearly double. Future obligations based on current policies leave our country technically bankrupt, and something has to give.
New Ideas About Human Behavior in Economics and Medicine, Peter Orszag, Director of the CBO, October 16, 2008
President-Elect Barack Obama, November 4, 2008:
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.
It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.
It’s the day before the biggest election in recent memory, and the Economy is the top issue as Americans have come to realize that the entire financial system at risk.
I typed the word “economy” into the search engine Google today, and saw that BarackObama.com is the third search result on the list out of 254,000,000 sites in the Google index. This is an amazing feat of Search Engine Optimization.
There are three fundamental ways to get attention on the Internet: pay for it, word of mouth, or through organic search results.
Paying for traffic by purchasing keywords from Google is expensive. It is so expensive to buy traffic that Google brought in a record $5.5 billion revenues for the three months ending September 30, 2008.
Word of mouth is the power of social networks like Facebook and Myspace. Information that we post travels through our newsfeed with lightning speed to our friends, even faster than we can email a YouTube video.
Organic search is perhaps the most important way of obtaining traffic. When we are seeking something, most of us start with a Google search. Traffic that comes in from a search result tends to be the most relevant. Rarely do we make it past the first page or two of Google results, however, before clicking on a search result or trying a new search term.
In the book Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters, Bill Tancer provides an inside view into just how much data about our online behavior is routinely collected and what those clicks reveal about the thoughts and intentions of a population. As head of Global Research for Hitwise, a web analytics company now part of credit ratings giant Experian, Bill Tancer has at his fingertips a continuous datastream from 25 million Internet users, collected anonymously through Internet Service Providers (ISPs). It must be even more fascinating to see Google’s data, as the most common act we do when we are interested in something is to type it into a search engine.
After reading Bill Tancer’s book, I put some of the ideas to the test with my own research based on web analytics made publicly available for free from Google and from Compete.com. If Internet behavior is an indicator of the intentions of a population, then what can we learn about the current political campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain? For a sense of perspective, I also included Hillary Clinton in my comparison. The Compete.com graph shows unique monthly visitors to BarackObama.com, JohnMcCain.com and HillaryClinton.com. Despite steady growth in visits to JohnMcCain.com in recent months, BarackObama.com led JohnMcCain.com in website visits for September by over 2.4 million monthly uniques visitors, with 5.5 million unique visitors to BarackObama.com compared to 3.1 million unique visitors to JohnMcCain.com.
BarackObama.com v. JohnMcCain.com v. HillaryClinton.com on Compete.com
On Google.com/Trends, Google reveals trends in the data it collects and records on what people have been typing into the search engine. I compared searches for Barack Obama, John McCain and again Hillary Clinton for all searches originating in the United States over the past 12 months. While searches for John McCain briefly overtook Barack Obama around the time of the Republican Convention, Barack Obama has had a steady lead.
Barack Obama v. John McCain v. Hillary Clinton in Google Trends
Zooming in to searches conducted in the past 30 days, we can see that interest in both candidates continues to increase as we get closer to election day on November 4. Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain in search traffic has accelerated, and by the end of October, Google searches for Barack Obama led John McCain by about 2.5 to 1.
30 Day Google Trends: Searches for Barack Obama v. John McCain v. Hillary Clinton
Google also gives us the top locations for search traffic, so we can easily see the top geographic hot spots for presidential candidate search terms, which should correlate to what people are thinking and talking about.
Top Regions for Presidential Searches on Google
Not surprisingly, there is a high overlap between the areas with the most searches for presidential candidates and the battleground states where the campaigns are the most intense. All of the key battlegrounds except Florida are in the top 10 regions in terms of presidential candidate search traffic, with the hottest races in Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri at the top of the list.
Battleground States Map from New York Times
One of the insights Bill Tancer demonstrates in the book Click is how traditional television media can drive search traffic. A television advertisement can raise awareness of an issue, and then lead us or even explicitly give us a “call to action” to go to the Internet to dig deeper.
It is easy to jump to conclusions, because with the free web analytics used here, we don’t know what motivates the search behavior. It might easily be buzz about a parody of a candidate on Saturday Night Live, Steven Colbert, or the Daily Show with John Stewart, with a flurry of web searches to catch the clip on YouTube or Hulu.com. Some things we know for sure. First, the objective behavioral data of the Internet has proven many previously untested assumptions to be wrong. Second, despite the fact that campaigns produce more 30 second television sound bites than ever, our ability to dig deeper and learn more for ourselves means that it is a completely new world this time around.
Yes, We Can! – Si, Se Puede!
Song & video by Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas. Inspired by Barack Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ speech.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics…they will only grow louder and more dissonant ……….. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea –
Yes. We. Can.
Featuring: Jesse Dylan, Will.i.am, Common, Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Adam Rodriquez, Kelly Hu, Adam Rodriquez, Amber Valetta, Eric Balfour, Aisha Tyler, Nicole Scherzinger and Nick Cannon
This is Bill Clinton’s speech from the TED conference in Monterrey, California. He won the TED Prize, and his wish was that the TED community would join with him in supporting Partners in Health to establish a new model of care in Rwanda that could deliver quality care with limited resources.
This is the presentation I gave for the Emerging Opportunities in Home Management and Health Applications session of the Connections Digital Living Conference hosted by Parks Associates and CEA, May 4, 2006.
HEALTH HERO NETWORK INVITED TO DEMONSTRATE AT WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON AGING
Health Buddy® System Showcased As Transforming Technology Empowering America’s Seniors to Manage Chronic Conditions from Home
Washington, DC – December 12, 2005 — Health Hero Network is demonstrating its home health monitoring technology today at the once-a-decade White House Conference on Aging (WHCoA). The hands-on technology exhibition is hosted by the Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) to show technologies available to help meet the demands of the rapidly growing population of aging Americans and their caregivers. Health Hero Network will demonstrate how its Health Buddy® system can transform care for seniors with chronic illnesses by coaching and educating them to manage their conditions at home and enabling care providers a daily connection to check on their patients.
Health Hero Network develops the Health Buddy system, which provides coaching, education and monitoring for patients with chronic conditions. A countertop appliance called the Health Buddy appliance is used in the patients’ home to provide a daily dialog of questions about the patient’s condition, as well as reminders and information for improved self-care. Care providers access the responses on a secure website, so they can monitor multiple patients simultaneously and intervene early if a condition is at risk of deteriorating.
“The White House Conference on Aging and the Center for Aging Services Technologies are calling attention to a looming crisis in this country – how to care for the largest population of older people the country has ever known,” said Steve Brown, CEO of Health Hero Network. “As the population of older people grows, so does the number of people with chronic conditions. Health Hero Network is acting now to address that issue before it becomes a crisis. We’re improving quality of chronic care by helping patients manage their own conditions, while also helping physicians care for the growing number of people with chronic illness.”
The Health Buddy system is currently being used in disease management, government, home care, hospital, Medicare, Medicaid, and research markets.
Health Hero Network will be showing its Health Buddy system at the CAST Imagine Pavilion (Booth #7) at the WHCoA on December 12-13, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.
About CAST
The Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) is leading the national charge to develop and deploy technologies that can improve the aging experience in America. CAST has four focus areas: 1) driving a national vision of how technologies can improve the quality of life for seniors while reducing healthcare costs; 2) accelerating technology R&D pilots with seniors to prove out this vision, 3) advocating to remove barriers to the rapid commercialization of proven solutions; and 4) promoting national dialogue about standards to insure interoperability and widespread access to aging services technologies. Established in 2003, CAST (www.agingtech.org) has become a national coalition of more than 400 technology companies, aging services organizations, research universities, and government representatives working together under the auspices of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (www.aahsa.org). The members of AAHSA serve 2 million people every day through mission-driven, not-for-profit organizations.
About Health Hero Network
Health Hero Network develops and markets the Health Buddy® system for health improvement. The Health Buddy system serves as the interface between patients at home and care providers, facilitating patient education and monitoring of chronic conditions. The system includes monitoring technologies, clinical information databases, Internet-enabled decision support tools, health management programs and content development tools. Through increased communication, behavior modification, and prevention, the Health Buddy system improves the quality of care. Based in Mountain View, California, Health Hero Network’s systems are protected by over 55 issued US patents. http://www.healthhero.com.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Selects Health Hero Network, American Medical Group Association, Bend Memorial Clinic, and Wenatchee Valley Medical Center for Groundbreaking Physician-led, Technology-Supported Chronic Care Demonstration
Consortium To Show Effectiveness of Remote Monitoring of Patients with Chronic Conditions
ALEXANDRIA, VA, – July 5, 2005 — The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has selected Health Hero Network, the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), and medical groups in Washington and Oregon to demonstrate how doctors can use home health monitoring technology to help Medicare patients with severe chronic illness live healthier, happier, longer lives – and reduce Medicare spending by preventing hospitalizations. The medical groups are Bend Memorial Clinic in Bend, Oregon, and Wenatchee Valley Medical Center in Wenatchee, Washington. The medical groups will implement a physician-led, technology-supported care management program for up to 2,000 Medicare beneficiaries with congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and/or diabetes.
The group has named its effort the “ACCENT Project” — Advancing Chronic Care through E*Health Networks and Technologies. It is one of six projects selected by CMS under the Care Management for High-Cost Beneficiaries Demonstration. The CMS initiative will test approaches for transforming how doctors and hospitals provide care for high-cost Medicare patients with severe, complex chronic conditions. The goal is to improve the quality of life for these patients while significantly reducing costs. The ACCENT Project is notable among awardees because it will be conducted across multiple sites and because of its robust use of health information technology.
“The ACCENT Project will demonstrate that doctors and patients with severe chronic illness, supported by information technology, can establish a new partnership to provide exceptional preventive care for patients in their homes, and keep them healthier and living independently longer while reducing costs,” said AMGA President Donald W. Fisher, Ph.D. “CMS is rightfully coming to focus on creative new approaches to managing high-risk patients with chronic conditions. They are suffering under the current, crisis-driven approach to care, and they account for most health care spending. We look forward to partnering with CMS to show how medical groups supported by health information technology will produce great results for Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers.”
CMS is requiring that Care Management for High-Cost Beneficiaries Demonstration awardees demonstrate improvements in the quality of care for high-cost Medicare patients who represent most of the program’s expenditures. Awardees are guaranteeing to CMS that they will save at least 5 percent of the total Medicare costs for the patients assigned to them.
The ACCENT Project’s key technology component is the Health Buddy system from Health Hero Network. Doctors and nurses at Bend Memorial Clinic and Wenatchee Valley Medical Center will use the Health Buddy appliance to coach patients at home about preventive behaviors that will keep them healthy. The doctors and nurses will use data generated by the Health Buddy appliance to spot problems and intervene early, before patients get so sick that they need to go to the emergency room or be hospitalized.
The ACCENT Project is slated to begin on January 1, 2006, and will last three years. CMS will assign to the ACCENT Project a patient population of approximately 2,000 patients who are already under the care of physicians at Bend Memorial Clinic and Wenatchee Valley Medical Center. Project coordinators will then actively recruit, enroll and manage CMS-assigned patients with the active cooperation of medical group physicians.
Beneficiary participation in the programs will be voluntary and will not change the amount, duration or scope of participants’ fee-for-service Medicare benefits. Fee-for-service Medicare benefits will continue to be covered, administered and paid under the traditional Fee-for-service Medicare program. Programs will be offered at no charge to the beneficiary. Organizations chosen for the demonstration will not be able to restrict beneficiary access to care or restrict beneficiaries to a limited number of physicians in a network.
About Health Hero Network
Health Hero Network develops and markets the Health Buddy® system for health improvement. The Health Buddy system serves as the interface between patients at home and care providers, facilitating patient education and monitoring of chronic conditions. The system includes monitoring technologies, clinical information databases, Internet-enabled decision support tools, health management programs and content development tools. Through increased communication, behavior modification, and prevention, the Health Buddy system improves the quality of care. Based in Mountain View, California, Health Hero Network’s systems are protected by over 55 issued US patents. http://www.healthhero.com.
About Medical Group Association
The American Medical Group Association (AMGA) represents medical groups, including some of the nation’s largest, most prestigious integrated healthcare delivery systems. AMGA advocates for the multispecialty medical group model of healthcare delivery and for the patients served by medical groups through innovation and information sharing, benchmarking, leadership development, and continuous striving to improve patient care. The members of AMGA deliver health care to more than 50 million patients in 42 states, including 15 million capitated lives. Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, AMGA is the strategic partner for medical groups providing a comprehensive package of benefits, including political advocacy, educational and networking programs and publications, benchmarking data services, and financial and operations assistance. For more information, visit www.amga.org.
Contact: Julie Sanderson-Austin, RN, VP, Quality Management and Research, 703/838-0033, ext 356, jsanderson-austin@amga.org
About Bend Memorial Clinic
Offering primary and specialty care since 1946, Bend Memorial Clinic includes 70 physicians representing 13 branches of medicine. It is the largest multi-specialty group east of the Cascades and functions as a comprehensive referral center for physicians and communities throughout the state. At Bend Memorial Clinic, your health is our passion.
Contact: Kim Barnes, Director Marketing & Business Development, 541-317-4370, kbarnes@bmcllp.com
About Wenatchee Valley Medical Center
Wenatchee Valley Medical Center, established in 1940, is a multi-specialty group with offices in seven communities in North Central Washington, serving an area of approximately 12,000 square miles. The medical center was founded on a commitment to serve patient needs by providing the highest quality healthcare and services in an atmosphere of concern and caring, with an organizational commitment of assisting in the development of one of the nation’s best rural healthcare delivery systems. Today, approximately 210 physicians and midlevel providers represent over 30 specialties and subspecialties and provide comprehensive medical and ancillary services to patients.
Contact: Richard Bennett, Assistant Administrator, 509-663-8711 ext. 5084, rbennett@wvmedical.com
SAVING DOLLARS, SAVING LIVES:
THE IMPORTANCE OF PREVENTION IN CURING MEDICARE
=========================================================
HEARING
before the
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WASHINGTON, DC
__________
JUNE 30, 2005
STATEMENT OF MR. STEPHEN J. BROWN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, HEALTH
HERO NETWORK, INC., MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA
Mr. Chairman and Committee members, I am Steve Brown, and I am the CEO of Health Hero Network, a technology company in Mountain View, CA.
We serve people struggling with chronic illness. Our technologies are designed to enable caregivers to coach and monitor patients at home. I am going to talk about some of the commonsense things that Senator Lincoln talked about, and I am also going to talk about some of the programs we are involved with, which hopefully will make the CBO happy about the results as well.
My view is that health care does not start when we are wheeled into the emergency room, and it does not start at the doctor’s office. Health care starts at home, with our own behavior and with prevention.
Most people in Medicare have a chronic illness. For them, prevention means reducing the complications of chronic illness and living independently longer. From our work with the Veterans’ Administration, we have seen that when caregivers and patients work together on daily management and prevention, they can improve the quality of life and reduce costs.
To illustrate this point, I am going to introduce Wally Browning from Huntington, WV, who recently was interviewed in his local paper. I included this in the written testimony.
HEALTH HERO NETWORK INVITED TO CAPITOL HILL TO DEMONSTRATE ITS HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY
Home Health Monitoring Technology Displayed as Example of Future of Health Care
At Tech Demonstration Day on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON, DC – June 8, 2005 – Health Hero Network, Inc. today is demonstrating its new Health Buddy® system on Capitol Hill to show health policy leaders how technologies can improve chronic care by coaching and monitoring patients at home. As one of the few companies invited to participate in the Tech Demonstration Day, Health Hero Network will show how the Health Buddy® system is playing a leading role at the Veterans Administration (VA) in improving quality of care and reducing costs for the VA’s highest risk patients with severe chronic illness. The Health Buddy system will also be included in upcoming landmark Medicare demonstration programs.
The seminar and all-day technology demonstration is hosted by the eHealth Initiative and the Capitol Hill “Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics.” The event is attended by Congressional leaders and government decision makers who are committed to improving the quality of health care.
“Coaching and monitoring patients at home is a key element of transforming and improving chronic care,” said Steve Brown, Health Hero Network’s CEO. “The attendees of today’s event will have the opportunity to see first hand how information technology can enable chronic care improvement by connecting people at home with chronic illness to proactive and preventive healthcare services.”
The eHealth Initiative is a non-profit affiliated organization whose mission is to drive improvement in the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare through information and information technology. The Capitol Hill “Steering Committee on Telehealth and Healthcare Informatics” is now in its 12th year
About Health Hero Network
Health Hero Network develops and markets the Health Buddy® system for health improvement. The Health Buddy system serves as the interface between patients at home and care providers, facilitating patient education and monitoring of chronic conditions. The system includes monitoring technologies, clinical information databases, Internet-enabled decision support tools, health management programs and content development tools. Through increased communication, behavior modification, and prevention, the Health Buddy system improves the quality of care. Based in Mountain View, California, Health Hero Network’s systems are protected by over 55 issued US patents. http://www.healthhero.com.
I wrote the last blog post a month ago, just before the presidential election. The text was part of a talk I was giving at the time, urging new thinking in health care.
In the 2004 election, I had offered to help Steve Poizner campaign for a state legislature seat. Steve had an extraordinarily positive spirit that clearly served him well as an entrepreneur. He had achieved great success in business, but remained humble and dedicated, walking door to door to get to know his community and to listen to their concerns. I admired his attitude and approach, and decided to help out.
On election day, I went to my assigned polling places, checked lists to see who had voted, and called people to “get out the vote”, offering a ride if to the polling place if needed. I couldn’t see how my small effort could make a difference, but in the end, Steve lost by only a few votes. I regretted not making more calls.
We have intractable challenges in health care, which will consume $1.7 trillion in the United States this year. We seek leaders with the courage and the humility to take on the challenge of reform. Do you think that anything will change in the next four years?
Anyone who has read headlines about skyrocketing healthcare costs or has been to the doctor or hospital knows we need some fresh thinking in how we organize and deliver healthcare.
Have you ever had an experience where you go to the doctor and find yourself filling out the same three-page form asking for the same information that you have filled out many times before?
Or an experience where the one medication that really seems to work for your child is not covered by your insurance without an appeal, and each time you need a refill, they seem to have lost the results of your appeal and need to start over?
I remember one visit to a local medical center that I won’t name other than to say that it is in the heart of Silicon Valley. Without an electronic medical record, I remember the doctor asking me in earnest, “Think, Steve, think! When did you have your last tetanus shot?”
We all have stories and personal experiences of the inefficiencies of our healthcare system.
Chronic Care Improvement: How Medicare Transformation Can Save Lives, Save Money, and Stimulate an Emerging Technology Industry is an ITAA Whitepaper describing how health information technology can enable a Medicare transformation that would save lives and save money. The analysis is based on the chronic care model, telehealth technology, and results of Health Hero Network within the Veterans Administration Health System.
Statement of the eHealth Initiative
Subcommittee on Health
of the House Committee on Ways and Means
Eliminating Barriers to Chronic Care Management in
Medicare
February 25, 2003
Introduction
One of the greatest opportunities for improving care for Medicare beneficiaries is chronic disease management enabled by eHealth technologies. Effective chronic care requires systematic monitoring and management of patients by their health care providers before conditions become acute, painful and costly. The benefits of eHealth enabled chronic care have been established by leading health care institutions including the Department of Veterans Affairs, which recently published results from over two years of demonstration projects showing 63% reduction in hospital admissions and a significant improvement in the quality of life. Results were for patients enrolled in eHealth enabled disease management programs with major conditions that affect Medicare, including heart failure, diabetes, and respiratory disease.