Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Insurance Company Asking Judge To Let Them Off the Hook and Does Not Want to Represent Their Client In A Lawsuit Over Privacy Issues Collecting Zip Codes..

Ok as a company, you think have insurance to cover you with privacy issues?  Not in this case or at least we are waiting for a judge to decide as the lawyers are calling uncle.  They want out.  You read them all the time, the privacy statements and this kind of says one thing is that one group of lawyers doesn’timage want to mess with the legal mumbo jumbo another group created.  This is interesting as now we have our real first challenge of the bull shit that we read on on these websites. People are getting tired of it and oh boy I cannot wait for a big suit to come out on this topic as banks and companies are making billions selling our data. 
Now what even makes this more interesting is that the insurer is whining and wants the judge to specially spell out exactly what defending the client, Urban Outfitters requires of them…pretty funny.  One group of lawyers wants nothing to do with the crap of a privacy policy the other lawyers wrote:)
Everybody talks about de-identified data and there’s some value there with what they do but that’s the key, what do they do and what’s left for a sharp query master to work with, a lot more than you think…
Re-Identifying Medical Records All Depends on the Query Master and How Much Money Can Be Saved or Made With Adjusting Risk, Up or Down
I’m glad people some information out there about this too and we had the case with medical records matching on zips and other small bits of information.  Now there are some that just use zip codes that are not mining but there was story out to where a store was taken to task there too assuming they were doing the same thing and why would a consumer not be nervous…we have a huge profitable data selling epidemic in the US and it’s starting to crunch portions of the economy. 

It’s easy money and the only way to regulate it is to start with an IT infrastructure, called buying a license to #1 find out who they all are and #2 to excise tax them and use the tax money for the FDA and NIH for one.  Every day on the web I see article after article with someone crying about the lack of funds, well here’s your answer to help.  Now this insurer’s attorneys want out but look what happens with other types of insurers…like your health insurance companies who can’t get enough. 
Insurance Companies Are Buying Up Consumer Spending Data-Time is Here to License and Tax the Data Sellers-As Insurers Sell Tons of Data, Gets Flawed Data When Data Buyers Uses Out of Context Too
I just wonder how much money the insurer here,image OneBeacon American is making off of their data selling efforts…look at what they underwrite…  This sector in particular caught my eye, Technology Insurance.  They underwrite medical devices for insurance and Data Privacy.   I wonder how profitable that area is today (grin) and what’s required on a claim to cover a breach…nope..didn’t have the right risk management in place, sorry…who knows.  Anyway, they want no part of this case with the zip codes being recorded.  They said their policies don’t cover this kind of action. 
This will be interesting and maybe a warning to those who sell data with their crappy privacy statements as it sounds they will be challenged sooner or later as consumers get mad having to spend more time fixing their flawed data on their own dime while and corporations make billions selling it.  BD


OneBeacon American Insurance Company doesn’t want to defend Urban Outfitters Inc. and Anthropologie Inc. in a string of customer privacy lawsuits.
Consumers are suing in California, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. over the company’s practice of collecting zip codes during credit card transactions — a practice they say is forbidden in those jurisdictions.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, OneBeacon said the retailers’ insurance doesn’t cover those privacy issues.
A general coverage policy covering both Urban Outfitters and subsidiary Anthropologie has a $1 million personal and advertising limit and a $2 million general aggregate limit.
/www.mainjustice.com/2013/09/12/insurer-wants-out-of-clients-consumer-privacy-suits/

Practice Max EHR and Practice Management Firm Buys Analytics/Clinical Trials Data Company Medi-data

Well if a medical records company doesn’t have a full on offering of analytics today I guess they buy one.  Medi-data is also involved in the clinical trial business which is where everyone wants to have access to medical records with the data being recorded with them.  image
I do have to say that I have never seen a time where there is such a glut of software in healthcare.  I know everyone needs the opportunity to build their business, no problem there but as you can see here the overcrowding I think leading to even more action in the mergers and acquisitions side of things.  I just wonder at times how the code’s all going to work.  Obviously it makes sense to have “like” or similar systems work but we don’t always see that.  It gets tougher all the time with the large groups of subsidiaries that are growing as well to really see where some huge conglomerates focus.  BD


PracticeMax, Scottsdale, Ariz., acquired Medi-Data Service, a Naperville, Ill.-based medical management firm.
Financial terms weren't disclosed. The deal expandsimage the Midwest presence of PracticeMax, which develops software and offers billing and consulting services. Medi-Data, located in Chicago's suburbs, is more than 30 years old and has provided billing and practice management services to physician groups, individual physicians and hospital-owned practices.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20130912/NEWS/309129942?AllowView=VW8xUmo5Q21TcWJOb1gzb0tNN3RLZ0h0MWg5SVgra3NZRzROR3l0WWRMWGJYZndERWxiNUtpQzMyWmVpNW40WUpiaWo=&utm_source=link-20130912-NEWS-309129942&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hits

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Health Insurance Exchange Contractors Give Update Report to House Energy & Commerce Committee–The Federal Data Hub Beta

This was nice to get some updates from the contractors involved in the process.  Again I’m still curious to see how the old COBOL servers work with some middleware to scale the results out.  After reading this article it sounds like if there no answer to “pings” at the IRS, Social Security, and Homeland Security that we have some sort of a fall over to Equifax and Serco.  Those were last minute contracts given out as contingencies just a couple  months ago. 

Back in July I wrote Will it Blend, based on information that had been given at that time. 

Obamacare Health Insurance Exchanges “Will It Blend”….Cobol Lives On With the Feds

California has since changed their web site to be a little more positive and adds a little more confidence as additional testing has occurred.  I did a walk through and site looks nice and it all at that time directed towards the idea that a lot would be manually done, in other words without the data connections with mailing in applications.  I think they also took a hard look due to complexities of insurance companies today as to how many would “really” do a complete automated shopping and full transaction and that number they indicated would be around 20% so that leaves 80% of the shoppers for insurance using other methodologies.  Amazing when you look at the potential of all the data running through what 80% might mean as far as traffic delivering up some data, maybe a little different context here?

California Insurance Exchange Website Live for Price Comparisons and Information–A Quick Walk Through…

Since this presentation was given to the Energy Commission I wonder if they are renting space from the DOE too for this project.  I think I already said that a while back on another post a while back.  I call it a beta as that’s what it is and nothing wrong with that as huge companies like Microsoft for one use betas and until all the bugs are out, and yes there will be bugs, so I’m going to refer to it as the Federal Data Hub Beta (grin). 

Here’s what DOE has over there in computing power and this post is a couple years old so there’s probably much more over there now.  DOE runs this Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE)program to where they give time and space to environmental projects that need to crunch big numbers.  So who knows, it would not be a surprise to see if our Federal Data Hub data processing capabilities are entirely or partially supported here. 

1.7 Billion Super Computer Hours Awarded by the DOE–Biomedical Research Projects Included for Parkinson’s and Cancer

Serco, the one contractor who is set up to do a lot of the manual support says it’s ready to go and their corporate offices in the UK are currently under investigation for fraud where new contracts are frozen pending the outcome but I don’t think that has any impact on the US branch.  They are planning on 3 facilities all together so sounds like they anticipate a measureable amount of paper items coming through.

Obama Administration Doles Out Yet One More Contract to Help With Eligibility Infrastructure And to Operate One Massive Mail Room-With Insurance Exchanges - Serco The Biggest Company You Have Never Heard Of

“John Lau, program director for Serco, said his company is staffing up to handle paper applications and other tasks. It will open a service center in Kentucky on Oct. 1, followed soon by two others in Arkansas and Missouri.”

In addition Equifax added their information on the  proprietary data base they were going to use to use.  A couple weeks ago another division of Equifax just had to shell out $18 million on a court case when didn’t fix a woman’s credit information for years.  Keep in mind too this was a lawyer giving the update not a technician so she’s reliant on what the tech folks tell her.  They way the article is written it sounds like if there’s a “no ping” at the IRS for whatever reason it will kick over to Equifax. 

“Lynn Spellecy, a corporate lawyer for Equifax Workforce Solutions, said the subsidiary of the well-known credit reporting company is ready to help verifying income and employment. It will rely on a proprietary database called The Work Number, widely used by lenders, employers and government agencies. Final testing is scheduled for Sept. 15.”

As I said before so what if all the automation is not ready, the fact is you will be able to apply for health insurance on that day, whether it is the old paper and faxing methods or if the big Beta Federal Data Hub is up to the task.  This is a lot of data work and there will be updates and the states can more than likely look forward to updates to their systems for connectivity as the Hub and the rest of it will be updated.  Come on who makes a perfect data system out there today..nobody.  Just this week speaking of code issues, United had another recall on one of their medical systems.  It was the sixth one but this was the first we heard about it.  They wrote a fix and distributed the update so the exchange system can join the crowd in that respect:)

Picis Software Used in Emergency Rooms At Hospitals, Subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare Issues A Recall As Doctors Notes Relative to Prescriptions Vanished-Killer Algorithms Show Up Again..

I know it is a little odd when you hear lawyers and politicians talking about high tech and sometimes they stumble all over themselves with mistakes, as was with the NSA trying to listen to Feinstein describe the NSA incident when it happened.  One thing the exchanges have been is a lesson for both politicians and the public on the time and effort required and how IT infrastructure works, that is if you don’t get enough news out of Wall Street on that end, it’s all math models, data and code.  The whole world operates this way today and it’s all of our fears that flawed data will be used out of context, which we have read in the news with denials from insurers for years, or that the data if correct will be taken out of context.  A mathematician and I both agree we don’t have enough people trained on how to work with flawed data as well and that’s yet one more issue we need to face as well.  Here’s a post I wrote in back in November and it still holds true…

Big Data/Analytics If Used Out of Context and Without True Values Stand To Be A Huge Discriminatory Practice Against Consumers–More Honest Data Scientists Needed to Formulate Accuracy/Value To Keep Algo Duping For Profit Out of the Game

We do have a data selling epidemic in this country and some of the contractors here in this project make some of their profits that way as well, so be aware and be skeptic and question the data if you don’t think it is correct.  If youimage want a blazing example, and it’s funny too, see how Google told me my real name was not machine compliant…this stuff happens and they cut off my account in Google plus, and then had to ask me where they could verify me on the web…well it was the Google product Blogger right here and see it how it was not connected when the machines thought I was a real “duck” and booted me out?  MIT roared with the story as well:)

I mention that to help educate and again be aware that a lot of flawed data lives amongst use basically due to the huge billions of dollars companies make selling it and it impacts data everywhere, this is no different so ask questions and make sure your data as reported is correct and don’t take it for granted when you apply for health insurance. Hopefully the FTC and Congress can rise to education level needed here one day to address privacy laws for all of us consumers that get bit over and over by the Killer Algorithms.  So let’s see what October 1 brings and how it all works.  BD


WASHINGTON -- Major contractors hooking up the internal plumbing of President Barack Obama's health care law projected confidence Tuesday that they will be ready to go by an Oct. 1 deadline, even though the system is still being tested.

With just three weeks to go before new state health insurance markets launch, efforts are ongoing to reliably link up government agencies, the markets themselves and private health plans.

The congressional Government Accountability Office warned this summer that with so much work left for the last minute, the timely and smooth launch of the markets could not be guaranteed. Still, with the president's image at stake, his administration is working all out to deliver.

But the administration got a boost this week when California officials said their marketplace — the nation's largest — would start enrolling uninsured people Oct. 1 as scheduled, through a mix of online access, call center support and community helpers.

Representatives of four big contractors testified in a rare joint appearance Tuesday before the House Energy and Commerce committee. Republicans who run the panel billed the hearing as a "pulse check" on Obama's law. The contractors have routinely ignored media requests to explain their work, but they could not rebuff Congress.

Cheryl Campbell, a senior vice president of CGI Federal, Inc., said her company is "confident" its part of the job will be ready Oct.1. The Virginia-based contractor is building the federally run marketplace, with Washington running the markets or taking the lead in 35 states.

Michael Finkel, an executive vice president of QSSI, Inc., delivered a status report on the lynchpin of the system, a federal data hub that functions as the router for verifying key eligibility data. The hub will ping federal agencies such as Social Security, Homeland Security and the Internal Revenue Service to verify identity, legal residence and income.

John Lau, program director for Serco, said his company is staffing up to handle paper applications and other tasks. It will open a service center in Kentucky on Oct. 1, followed soon by two others in Arkansas and Missouri.

Lynn Spellecy, a corporate lawyer for Equifax Workforce Solutions, said the subsidiary of the well-known credit reporting company is ready to help verifying income and employment. It will rely on a proprietary database called The Work Number, widely used by lenders, employers and government agencies. Final testing is scheduled for Sept. 15.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/10/5723431/obamacare-contractors-project.html

FDA Approves Test for Faster Confirmation of Sterilization of Medical Devices From Steris

Why did the company do this, back in 2009 they had issues and this is great to see the company working to solve it and look how many years we have in this research and development, 5.  It takes time and there’s a lot of robotics and algorithms that go into a project like this. 

Hospitals Need To Replace The Steris System Endoscope Sterilizer in 6 Months – FDA Mandate

This process if I am reading correctly speeds up the time a bit to confirm that devices have been sterilized properly and ready for use.  All the bean counters with measuring medical staff productivity will probably be all over this one:)  BD


The FDA recently granted permission for marketing of the Verify Cronos Self Contained Biological Indicator (SCBI), a new test that can help speed the determination of the effectiveness of steam sterilization of reusable medical devices.

According to the test’s manufacturer, Steris Corporation, the Verify Cronos SCBI is the first biological indicator test that gives test results in two hours.

“This is a novel and innovative use of recombinant DNA technology in biological indicator tests,” said Christy Foreman, director of the Office of Device Evaluation in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “By providing faster confirmation of sterilization, this innovation may help health care facilities provide their medical staff with a faster turnaround of their sterilized reusable devices.”

To support its FDA petition, Steris conducted a number of tests to ensure the performance of the Verify Cronos SCBI. This included subjecting more than 300 Verify Cronos SCBIs to a partial sterilization cycle and then comparing results after two hours and at seven days of incubation. The results showed that samples that fluoresced at two hours also exhibited growth at seven days.

http://www.gastroendonews.com/ViewArticle.aspx?d=FDA%2BUpdate%2B%26%2BProduct%2BNews&d_id=183&i=September+2013&i_id=993&a_id=24045

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Bar Codes for Drugs Is Not Dead, They are Edible Now, The Battle Against Counterfeit Drugs With Tagging the Pills…

If you have followed my blog then you might remember I had quite a few posts on using bar codes to identify recalls on drugs and devices. image I finally put a bunch of it together on one page and it’s here in my archives.  Microsoft recently announced they are out of the bar code business and services will be transitioned to ScanLife.  TruTag is another company who has developed the bar coding even further so we can eat or swallow them with no harm, made out of things that are already found in our bodies or in food products we eat.   

This is pretty good that any pill could be scanned for authenticity.  How many stories have we read about counterfeit drugs..too many.  TruTag is located in Hawaii so developed right in the good old USA too.  The silica micro tag is pretty durable and in addition to drugs there’s an open door for use with other products that get copied as well.  So far from what I read they have a “specific” reader developed for the process on the drugs and it there’s a phone app for scanning too.  I’m sure the FDA if they haven’t already, will be taking a look at this technology as well.  On consumer products though, I still wouldn’t mind a bar code for recalls to be available, can’t hurt.  Sorry compliance folks this product is not for that:)  Someone will try though you can almost bet given a little time here. 

The product specifically addresses FDA’s PCID (physical-chemical identifier) guidance for anti-counterfeiting measures.  BD 


The microtags developed by TruTag Technologies are made from silica — an ingredient already found in many foods, including sweeteners — and are independent of packaging and labels and can be integrated directly into a product’s infrastructure. About the size of a dust particle and smaller than the width of a human hair, the silica “TruTags” provide aimage vast library of unique codes, allowing for improved tracking and authentication of electronics, industrial parts and consumer goods. Each tag’s coded, nano-scale pattern can be scanned using the company’s proprietary instruments. These patterns are like ID numbers that can be associated with a variety of information, such as product strength, site of manufacture, expiration date and country of authorized sale.

Putting product intelligence on a pill, instead of the package, could help drug manufactures and product security teams authenticate their product. A few years ago, GSK, one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world, was found guilty of felony distribution of adulterated drugs and paid a $750 million fine for mixing up an anti-anxiety drug and a diabetes drug in the same GSK packaging. Had the drugs been equipped with TruTag microtags, the inspectors could have determined where each pill was made to help diagnose where the problem was in their global supply chain.

TruTag has been named a 2014 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, an award given to 36 companies that are designing, developing and deploying innovative technologies that affect business and society.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/gear-and-gadgets/edible-bar-codes-choke-counterfeit-drug-market-130910.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1

Theranos, Inc. And Walgreens Partner to Offer In Store Lab Tests Requiring a Few Small Drops of Blood, The Cost For Each Test = 50% of What Medicare Charges For Any Test, Insured or Not Insured

This has been quit a story that has been developing for years with the company Walgreens is now going to business with, Theranos.  This also stands to be a bit disruption to how we perform and get lab tests.  LabCorp and Quest I’mimage sure have been watching it closer than anyone else as they are the ones who stand to be impacted by a new process here.   Elizabeth Holmes, the CEO dropped out of Stanford to create her company at 19 and she’s 29 now so we are looking at 10 yeas of development.  She’s an engineer and has the talent.  Prior to starting her company while in high school she started a business to distribute C++ sharp software to Asian universities.   She was spending all her time talking to VCs and was not making the classes so she took the break. 

 

Anyway back on track with the story the company makes inexpensive and efficient lab tests and I looked at the website and read quite a bit of what was on there.  The first location will be a Walgreen store in Palo Alto.  In addition there will be a lab on the east coast in Newark.  The economic development folksimage in Newark said this was the most secretive company they had ever worked with so lips have been sealed and due to the nature of the business I can see why.

With a few ounces of blood, hundreds of diseases can be diagnosed in a very short time.  In 2010 they raised $45 million so there was serious attention here and nice compared to seeing VC money going like that out on games.  Theranos actually selected Walgreens as a partner and with all the stores they have and are buying up, it was the biggest way to get the product out there I would guess.  They just bought yet another chain I posted earlier today.

Walgreens Makes Another Purchase, Buys Regional Pharmacy Chain In North Carolina, Kerr Drug

I read somewhere that Larry Ellison was on the board as well as some pretty other high ranking business executives so she’s connected well.  You can see who’s on the board here.  The Wellness Centers will be inside the Walgreen stores so I am guessing it might resemble something like the retails clinics as far as having an area and maybe smaller in size, and might be right inside the clinics in stores where they have them.  With what they are doing you can obviously see the military connection with a member of the DOD on the board as well. The president and CEO is a computer scientist so again this is a focused technology company and no digital illiterates in the key positions here. 

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The work appears to be done for integration with medical records as well with electronic results available from anywhere with an internet connection.  The site has a place where doctors can sign up and they can send patients to Walgreens where the Theranos wellness centers will be located. 

image

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the kicker and the huge advantage here is the price…50% less than what Medicare pays, so there would be a rush on this I would think as I don’t any insurer or Medicare or Medicaid is going to complain in this area. 

“We’re committed to making lab testing more accessible to everyone. That means pricing our tests at dramatically low rates. We can accept major insurance carriers as well as Medicare and Medicaid. And if you’re uninsured, we offer you the same discounted prices we offer everyone else. Because a test should cost the same, no matter who you are.”

Here’s a couple screenshot samples of what tests will cost:

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Glucose test for example $2.70, anyone can afford that.  The allowable error margins are less than 10%.  This also stands to save Medicare a ton of money if you have not figured that one out yet if the prices are half and stay there. 

I think the company is going to make a big stir and again how it impacts the current giants in the business will be very interesting.  Right now it has to get started and running.  Stay tuned as I’ll update this one as more information becomes available and I’m sure once the Palo Alto store opens up on Monday we will be hearing a lot more.  BD 


Theranos, Inc. and Walgreens (NYSE: WAG) (Nasdaq: WAG) today announced a long-term partnership to bring access to Theranos' new lab testing service through Walgreens pharmacies nationwide. As the service becomes available through Theranos Wellness Centers inside Walgreens stores, consumers will be able to access less invasive and more affordable clinician-directed lab testing, from a blood sample as small as a few drops, or 1/1,000 the size of a typical blood draw. The samples are either taken from a tiny finger stick or a micro-sample taken from traditional methods, eliminating the need for larger needles and numerous vials of blood required for most diagnostic lab testing.

Theranos and Walgreens are taking the first step in making this service available to consumers with the first Theranos Wellness Center location opening this month at Walgreens drugstore at 300 University Ave. in Palo Alto, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley. The companies plan to offer the service at Walgreens locations nationwide.

For the first time, Theranos is introducing CLIA-certified laboratory services with the ability to run its tests on micro-samples. Theranos' proprietary laboratory infrastructure minimizes human error through extensive automation to produce high quality results. Test results are available to physicians in a matter of hours, enabling fast diagnoses to help informed treatment choices. Theranos tests are low cost -- always 50 percent of Medicare reimbursement rates or less -- and are reimbursed by major insurance carriers, Medicare, and Medicaid. Developed to be accessible to everyone, Theranos tests cost the same amount for everyone, regardless of insurance plan or whether they are uninsured.

http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130909-904497.html

Picis Software Used in Emergency Rooms At Hospitals, Subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare Issues A Recall As Doctors Notes Relative to Prescriptions Vanished-Killer Algorithms Show Up Again..

Well if you think the market glitches were enough to enough to deal with we have some glitches over in the healthcare medical records end of things now.   As the world of software gets more complex, we end up with more issues as such.  This was a company that UnitedHealthcare purchased back in 2010, so it was not developed “in house” you could say.  The subsidiary of United formerly called Ingenix, made the purchase and now the name has been dropped a while back and Optum and/or Optum Insights replaced the name. 

Ingenix (Subsidiary of UnitedHealthGroup) Buys Picis Hospital Software Analytics Company – Algorithms of Healthcare Continue To Grow

As you can see from a prior link from a while back the software is used even at the VA and when it comes to looking at subsidiaries of health insurers, take a look as I keep telling all that this is where the actions take place in the money areas at least and now we other types of actions taking place. 

VA Awards Contract to Picis, Subsidiary of Ingenix for Anesthesia Record Keeping Software

Also noted in here was the fact that the FDA had records of of six recalls relating to electronic medical records on file.  When companies are certified by the ONC, this goes to show you can’t catch everything and sometimes other problems develop later.  There’s been an issue of who should be in control of monitoring mHealth software and electronic medical records and perhaps this issue might be what I was headed for when I commented to stop fighting and move the ONC over to the FDA as a division as this recall clearly shows the need for collaboration amongst both of them.  I wrote that up back in July after reading numerous article about “who should be in control”, answer is both, working together.  Some of the folks over there liked the idea too as noted on Twitter. 

mHealth Why Battle Over Where the Responsibility Lies, Make the ONC A Division of the FDA, Better Collaboration and Software Engineering Exposure Both Ways Around

This is not the first battle UnitedHealthcare has had with software as we can go back to the AMA  lawsuit whereby doctors and hospitals were short paid for 15 years on out of network reimbursements.  So we have a little bit of both going on in the world today, some issues by accident and some by design when it comes to models and making money for sure. 

The recall looks pretty big here and includes California, New Jersey and Florida, and the particular software was “Pulsecheck” portion of the software suite.  Just recently too in discussing the FDA I brought up the fact too that we have  insurer subsidiaries actually competing with the FDA Sentinel program too with “selling” claim and other data versus a “free contribution” as Sentinel was set up to do and all insurers a few years ago made their statements that they would donate this information.

It is interesting to follow the crosshairs when profits and money are discussed in healthcare I must say.  In this case it’s all about those SQL action queries not posting the data as it was designed to do.  Way back in my early days I spent many long nights getting bugs out for such items and sometimes you never find them all, like in this case and with complexities with interfacing with other software, that could be the culprit as well as it may have functioned perfectly as a stand alone but now some code from other software disrupts this process. 

It happens all the time and time to call in the the Query Master to figure out what when wrong with the code.  This is why HHS drive me nuts when they publicly come out and say “hurry up Health IT”..lack of digital literacy gets exploited like this and they do it to themselves:)  We also get this with the exchanges from Deparle, “all the IT work is done” while campaigning for the program…we all know that’s not true either:)

Anyway, this should be an eye opener to all to really look and see what health insurers do with their subsidiaries and you will find their businesses in  areas you never thought of before and this is kind of dangerous as we are ending up with “insurers being too big to fail”..lots of the same things that happens in markets finds its way to healthcare too and it usually profit related.  How many of you realized United was in the medical records business before this?  They have a couple other subsidiaries that sell medical records too, not just limited to this one.  Back in 2010 they bought this company too that does EHRs and HIE so they are right in the heart of things when it comes to meaningful use and physician incentives. 

Axolotl (A Subsidiary of Ingenix) Creates Reporting and Analytics Solution for Health Information Exchanges–Algorithms for HIE–Business Intelligence -Subsidiary Watch

If you read the Picis site they are talking they just went live in the middle east so their markets are international and all of this goes right down to the UnitedHealthcare bottom line profits.  Take a look at Aetna and Humana and others, doing a lot of the same but not as long and big as United is with subsidiaries.   Have you ever heard of CanReg?  This is a Untied company that consults and introduces drugs and devices to the FDA and takes their client through the processes.  Interesting at times to look and see if and how subsidiaries interface with each other, you think?  There’s also the Chinese company, ChinaGate kind of doing the same thing with drugs and devices made in China, another subsidiary. 

Sometimes with software you think you have a problem fixed and you do, but the fix creates other issues or other areas of the software code that also need to be checked or revised…the way it works…voice of experience here as year ago I wrote a very simple EMR before the big complexities rolled in and that’s when I quit:)  This is why too what you see here at the Quack is a lot different than what you might read else where as whether it’s me or someone else, nothing beats hands on experience.  We have problems with that today too with too may so called experts never having any hands on whether it be a simple consumer app or business software.  They read about something, become a magpie but never do any investigating hands on when if the situation allows. 

So does this situation demand a big panic and leave hospitals without software, no as I am guessing they will revert back to a prior version of it where the problem did not exist and that’s the first route any software company would take.  United is busy though on the payment software as they have a subsidiary that they created to work with Epic on being a clearinghouse to go after that business.  Ok so nobody wants to talk about subsidiaries a lot in the news maybe…I call such posts “subsidiary watch” and have been writing them for about 3 years.  Just use those search words and you will find a ton of them here as relates to all insurers and Health IT companies. 

OptumInsight (A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of United HealthCare Optum Division) Creates Medical Clearinghouse Integrated With Epic Practice Management Software-Subsidiary Watch

This situation does say something though for Epic though with keeping all their development in house and why they fly above others with those who feel confident with their software, they have control and CEO Judy know that as well (smart lady) as do some of their clients so when it comes to buying up code someone else wrote, you run into this and there’s the Allscripts story too as they did a lot of buying up someone else’s code and got into trouble when their integration process was not done on time to please the shareholders…can’t help some of this but don’t stretch the truth either as you can make the coder work any faster, public and HHS is just now learning this fact too.   It was better that United reported their issue first before it was found by the users of course.  This issue this time is somewhat critical though as I read where the doctors notes are not being included…some rogue algorithm at work here. 

There are and will be errors and we end up with flawed data too out there so be a skeptic when you need to be and the Algo Duping video page I have has some great videos that will open up your eyes as to how some of what you see out there works, relative to clinical trials, all these reports on “how much money can be saved” and so forth as it gets difficult to see what’s coded for profit and when you are being duped to some degree.  It’s not all bad out there but it’s not all good either as data selling has reached epidemic stages in the US and you do see some strange stuff out there with numbers that make one say hmmmm at times if they are presented out of context. 

I’m sure with a subsidiary of United  building the federal data hub for exchanges, this might open up some opportunities for questions there as well.  That was also another company United bought, two weeks after HHS awarded the contract.  More code…so as the markets goes with glitches, so does healthcare.  BD 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-09-10/unitedhealth-recalls-digital-health-record-software-after-error

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Your Cheating Tooth Will Tell On You..Tracking The Activity In Your Mouth, Who Knows Maybe It Will Send Data About Oral Sex Activities Too…

I swear people want to just track everything and anything they can.  Who wants crowns with tracking devices or an implant for that matter.  Tire companies have been putting chips in tires for years so no we have to check use of theimage crown or implant too?  I can it for research purposes as the article mentions for those who are grinding their teeth  as temporary tool and not put in a tooth for life.  The article says it can tell when you swallow, cough eat, you name it so why would it leave out the oral sex data (grin). 

Gosh forbid don’t let the insurers loose with this as they have an insatiable appetite for data and will do anything to get that data to work on their risk assessments.  We would be stuck for sure seeing dentists who use spying chips in tooth replacements for sure.  Again if it were used as a temporary agent to help diagnose something or to seek additional information for treatment, then ok, but as I said four years ago the next 12 step program on the horizon will be data addiction and abuse and when do you draw the line on when enough is enough sometimes.  These folks wanted to put your PHR in your tooth too…

I-Denti-Fied – Sink Your PHR Into Your Teeth And Take A Bite Out of Healthcare…

Data sellers would love to get more data to sell as well if it becomes available.  We already have insurers buying up Visa and Master card records to see (in the words of Blue Cross) to monitor to see if their members are buying clothes a size larger, so now with this they could get data on when you feed your face too?  The article says the tooth sensor can do all of that.  Technology like this is interesting but we still have to be able to live and survive like humans so how many of the Quantified Self folks are going to line up for one of these (grin)?  BD 

Health Insurers and Others Trying to Track Junk Food Consumers Purchase–Attack of the Killer Algorithms for Corporate Profits

A new invention stands to revolutionize the work of dentists and dietitians. The so-called “smart tooth” monitors an individual’s oral habits by recording gross and minute movement of the jaw. Developed by researchers from the National University of Taiwan, the innovation will allow doctors to track chewing, drinking, eating, coughing, and even smoking.

According to The Daily Mail, the device can be used detachable fake tooth or inserted in a crown. Once installed, the small motion sensor registers movement of the jaw. The data is then fed to a computer, which interprets the pattern and pairs it with an oral action.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/smart-tooth-tracks-smoking-drinking-innovation-could-help-dentists-and-dietitians-provide-better?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Program to Help Retired MDs Enter Primary Care Is Interesting But What All Does the “No Strings Attached” Cover?

I’m sure there are probably quite a few MDs that would entertain imagethis idea and there’s the cost of the program, but some doctors I have spoken to can’t wait to retire to get away from the red tape, that being the insurance side of it, the pay for performance metrics, the constant hounding and focus on analytics.  You do have to address side of it too and when you see articles like the AAFP finding carriers paying doctors less than Medicare and with having to pay $7500 for the course, is there incentive here?  Again as I said “the red tape” is probably a big factor here with making such a decision. 

The AAFP Confronts United Healthcare On Reimbursements, Some Are Below Medicare Rates In Parts of the US–Payment Algorithms/Formulas Calculated Deep Within IT Infrastructures Do the Job

Then there’s also this with insurers looking at doctor’s pay for additional savings…

UnitedHealthCare Looks at Doctor’s Pay for Savings, Nothing New There Been Doing It for Years But Keep In Mind We Have the Annual Medicare Cut Fix on the Floor Again with Congress–Timing?

One doctor in California who fought hard to get patient claims paid actually won a lawsuit against Blue Cross so he could be back in network. 

Doctor Wins 3.8 Million Dollar Law Suit Against Anthem Blue Cross In California–He Was Turned Away for Challenging Denial of Patient Claims

You tell me, how many retired MDs would come back to work with the complexities, contracts and pressure we have out there today?  The idea of bringing some back of course to help with the shortage is a good ides but will it work?  As with anything too and this is all of us, with age we all have less patience as we age than we did when we are younger and that could be something else to think about here as far as having an impact on whether or not doctors will want to come out retirement if they don’t have to relative to their financial state.  Many independent physicians groups are no longer “independent” and are either run or owned by an insurance company or one of their subsidiaries.  Lot’s of action today with insurance subsidiaries and where a lot of the models and plans for the money side takes place with algorithms for profit today.  BD


The idea seems to be novel in the medical continuing education sphere.

After looking at the program’s website, Dr. George Mejicano, senior associate dean for education at Oregon Health & Science University, said he was not aware of any similar program in operation.

“I believe it is unique. I have not heard of another program like that,” Mejicano said.

He added that the direct involvement of Bazzo and Norcross, who are known for their work in the PACE program, help provide credibility.

“This is a legitimate group with high experience in physician assessment and they’re very well-known,” Mejicano said.

“A large percentage said they’d like to come back if they were part time, no nights, no weekends, no financial responsibilities such as paying for medical malpractice insurance, rent and overhead,” Glass said.

Glass is betting that his program, which costs $7,500, will appeal to surgeons and other types of specialists who have kept their licenses current in retirement and are itching for a chance to start seeing patients again on their own terms.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Sep/04/tp-program-seeks-to-help-retired-docs-enter/2/?#article-copy

Friday, September 6, 2013

Samsung Adds RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal to Their Lineup on the Smartwatch–Collaboration Among Data & Data Profile Sellers For More Riches/Profits

Here we go again and like I keep saying, this is an epidemic that is cutting at the roots of our economy at some point.  It’s not only in the Healthcare business but it lurks around the financial industry too as it’s such “easy money” and when their data has errors, well they have a never ending pool of free labor, you, to fix their errors after they have made their millions or billions selling your data.  Recentlyimage the Financial Times addressed this as well so now I don’t feel so alone and the article was syndicated on a few other place too like Yahoo. 

How big of a business is this?  Big enough for all to unite and figure some new math models and algorithms to make even more money.  This is not an attack but simply stating some facts and it’s up to you as it always to make your decisions today.  Here’s a post I did a while back where SAP wants to unite with Verizon and pretty much do the same thing, run some additional queries to create more “value” or create more buyers you could say, and split the profits on the extra revenue with Verizon, take a look, it’s all around you.  I wrote this post back in June. 

So Much Money and Profit in the Data Selling, Epidemic, SAP Now Coming in as a Middleman Broker to Interpret Data & Share Profits With Wireless Carriers- Banks/Companies Making Billions

So now we have the hardware folks wanting cut perhaps and adding the software.  I really don’t know what the revenue cuts are here but as the old saying goes, “follow the money”..in today’s world you can’t go wrong with that concept for sure.

It really is too bad that it seems that the apps and devices either can’t stand alone and make a profit or there’s little bit of greed here too.  If you have watched the news of late, you are seeing that the money in cell phone handsets is decreasing rapidly so income has to come from somewhere, the data.  The marketing has been great and the tools are fine for consumers but there’s that back end action that takes place too. 

Back in June RunKeeper integrated with MyFitnessPal, and people were amazed that competitors would do this but when they can make money, anything is possible.  Insurance companies want some of this action too and they contribute funding, here’s Aetna and their “private label” plan called CarePass that has a ton of these folks in there, again they want data.  Insurers are probably both the biggest consumers and sellers in the data world today.  Data as such is queried to create new “behavioral analytics” and whether or not they are marketed properly and have value is still up in the air as you get the combination of combining credible data with non credible with quants usually using some non linear models looking for connections amongst billions pieces of data.  Inequality by segmentation does exist today and here’s a great video from Cathy O’Neill who talks about this in her lectures called “Methods of Math Destruction”…good stuff.  Stay tuned for the Q and A for some bonus information on Larry Summers, she used to do his models at DE Shaw. 

On the topic of addictive behaviors I thought the timing was pretty good with HHS looking yet one more “app cure” for consumers that they probably won’t use along with the fact that HHS folks don’t touch this stuff themselves with this inpatient addiction treatment.  Apps and and the internet “are” the addiction so an app to help with that?  It’s kind of an oxymoron if you ask me and a bit of Algo Duping present here. 

Hospital in Pennsylvania Opens First Inpatient Treatment for Internet Addiction–Was I Correct Back in 2010 When I Stated “Data Addiction Was The Next Upcoming 12 Step Program”

There is value out there and I just try and show both sides of it as the value for making profits is definitely there for the data sellers too.  Moving along a little farther with this we end up seeing articles like this with people “my data is out there on the web and I don’t know how it got there”…well here you go for some of the answers.

Data Floating Around the Web and You Don’t Know How It Got There? Time to License and Excise Tax Data Sellers–Identify “Flawed Data” Epidemic At The Root of the Problem

Sadly it kind of comes back to the fact that in the process of trying regulate any of this that the government is no threat to the process as they are still trying to produce low tech solutions to address high tech problems.  If want to venture beyond healthcare a little, this is exactly what you find with Glass-Steagall too.  It’s a band aid partial solution for an epidemic of data selling.  As a side note when it comes to data knowledge I couldn’t help but address the fact that Congress needs help in this area of education and John McCain is the perfect poster child.

Glass-Steagall Revival Presents a “Low Tech” Partial Solution for an Industry that Needs “High Tech” Regulation-Consumers Get 5 More Years of Bank Modeling For Inequality With Segmentation - No Real Regulation In Sight

In the finance area and when I look at companies like The Lending Club too I have to look at the impact on data selling there too.  Everyone’s doing it and when you look at their privacy policy, well it’s long, lengthy and confusing and why would they not do it when the banks are making billions doing it.

Look at the health insurers buying your Visa and MasterCard records here to see if you are buying a size larger clothes?  Blue Cross said that, not me as their reason for buying the data and experience tells me there’s a lot more analytic going on there more than just to get an idea if you are getting fat.  A data base of such detailed information is not going to be wasted with just one type of query…come on.  I said a while back that banks and insurance companies are just software companies any more with a conversation I had with an incognito banker, he’s on the inside track and knows:) 

Insurance Companies Are Buying Up Consumer Spending Data-Time is Here to License and Tax the Data Sellers-As Insurers Sell Tons of Data, Gets Flawed Data When Data Buyers Uses Out of Context Too

While all of this is going on in the healthcare side about the best we get is “hurry up Health IT” so see what I mean about government and their knowledge being no contest to the math models and algorithms created by private industry and the banks today. 

Theoretically by hiding and downplaying the revenue derived from data selling and with the efficient use of quant to model and create some algorithms that would do such with marketing only one side of it, this is yet one more opportunity to play around with risk with adding this income to the bottom line as far a better income or in the case of healthcare it could be modeled to show that thing are reducing risk..again it all depends on how it is modeled and marketed out there and we see a ton of marketing.  If you want to see how some of this works, scroll on down to the footer and watch the first video as Professor Siefe does a good job explaining how it works and he also wrote a great book called “Proofiness, the Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception”…just the title of that book could be an alert to let you know this exists:)

So with all of this we circle back around to the FTC and what they are not doing about it and that would be add a path to regulate.  If you have read this far then you should understand that you need IT infrastructure to regulate anything today and we don’t have it here nor do we have any transparency here and you can pretty much be assured there are lobbyists protecting this interest, it’s a lot of money that goes to corporate profits, easy money when modeled for profit and marketed in such a way that generates usage.  Addiction can make big profits with that type of consumer action.  It’s been done for years now.

Not everyone sells data though in this arena and the Tri-Coder is one as well as Sensoria who both relied on crowd funding to move forward.  Sensoria has a sensor that work with the accelerators so you get the best of both worlds without your date being sold.  It’s actually kind of cute with their slogan saying “we sell socks, (with sensors) not your data).  I also understand that their patented sensor will work in all types of other fabrics and clothes and there’s work in progress there.  The folks at Tri-Coder are working not to sell data to further strengthen the doctor-patient relationship as well so both get a tool that is helpful and yet doesn’t doesn’t demand you sell your data soul.  I’m sure there’s a few more out there I have not seen yet.  Sensoria received an unsolicited review from Guy Kawasaki about their product so tech folks are paying attention too. 

Scanadu Tricoder Scout–One mHealth Device Not Selling Data For Profit Goes To Crowdfunding, Will the FDA Consider Privacy in Their Mobile Device Approval System

I have had my informal campaign here to excise tax and license the data sellers and I write to the FTC about this too.  With a license, we can identify who the data sellers are as it would require all to identify the kind of data they sell and who they sell to and what consumer wouldn’t want to know this, healthcare or the financial business.  A federal website could be set up and the FTC has had some “casual” conversations incorporating some of this.  Funds raised from excise taxing these folks could be used to supplement funding the FDA and NIH who are all over the news crying for more money and these are “consumer” agencies so keep that in mind.

As the epidemic spreads companies and banks are exploring all kinds of routes and here’s an interesting new one with Humana and Eli Lilly partnering up…and the Humana subsidiary page at least says they are in the data selling business.  Almost gives a new meaning to “drug money”:)

Pharma and Health Insurance Companies Pairing Up, Humana’s Analytics Subsidiary and Lilly To Figure Out How to Save (Make) Money and Provide Better Patient Care–Selling Research Data That Competes With FDA Sentinel Initiative

Anyway stay tuned for even more marketing announcements on how some of these companies will integrate and they may in the process provide you with some addictive data you want and that’s the plan as the consumer sell of this feeds the “quantified self” movement well, which is not all bad but there’s some cross overs to the “over quantified self” in all of it as with anything you have those who take it to the extreme. When you compare the data sellers apps and devices to those that don’t, the privacy statements of those that don’t sell data are pretty simple…a few lines basically saying “we don’t sell your data” versus looking through 1-10 pages of a complex privacy statement.

I try to offer education here as best I can rather than promote “bliss” or create OMG or Soap opera type articles so they are not as exciting as what else you might read out there and some of this stuff is scary too, scare me enough to write about it:)  There’s also this Plos One study, which I wrote about kind of tongue and cheek but the more I see today with Algo Duping, it really does confirm what a lot of mathematicians say, consumers don’t like math and this study one step further and says is gives you real physical pain..so something to it..maybe:)  We know one thing is that Wall Street feels no pain and got over it a long time ago, dollar show it:)

Look at this game called Data Dealer, created by someone in the know to exploit and educate all on what’s going behind closed server doors.  The folks that did this are technologists conveying a message ; like I’m doing here, you can clearly see that in how they created the video.  Well done and to the point.

So this the the call of action for the FTC  and Congress to get out of low tech solutions and maybe get some knowledgeable Quants on board that can enlighten them and the rest of the government entities (besides the NSA as they have themselves already covered:) and get with the program of less bliss, more education and better consumer efforts that will use some high tech solutions here instead of partial band aid low tech solutions that private industry just models the heck out of to find loopholes and keep the data selling game alive.  You get some real action looking for high tech solutions and you won’t have John McCain siting around bored playing poker as often.  

FTC Tries to Bring Strong Case for Consumer Protections With Use of Data–But Nothing About Creating IT Infrastructure Path to Allow Regulation–Gov Can’t or Won’t Model?

Anyway with this current announcement (and no picking on Samsun directly as the cast of characters here with data selling is so large) this is what to expect, more of this and more of your data and data profiles out there and private industry socking more money away with bigger profits…software builds on software and in this case it’s money building on intangible algorithms with more money.  BD

http://mobihealthnews.com/25240/samsung-adds-runkeeper-myfitnesspal-to-smartwatch/

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Senator John McCain: Another Demonstration of Why Congress Should Reinstitute the Office of Technology Assessment, When Education Takes Place, Less Distractions With Boredom And More Respect for Consumers…

Yes it has been all over the news and yesterday when I saw the tweet, I tweeted and thought his Twitter account had been hacked..nope…it was him, bragging on how he got busted.  What a discourtesy to all of us and we keep seeing it but maybe not quite as outrageous as this, the response “bragging” is what the real impact was, like a kid who got busted, so what do we have in DC, a bunch of kids at heart?  Is this as good as it gets? 

McCain

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Office of Technology Assessment is non partisan tool that Gingrich and his bunch got rid of a number of years ago and now with complexities at an all time high and education being the focus, it boggles my mind why we have role models like this, you think?  This is why you can’t expect  more than “low tech partial band aid solutions” for high tech problems that need to be solved.  The folks are out of touch.  A good example of this is the Glass Steagall bill to bring it back and certainly it’s better than nothing but it’s low tech problem solving that is inadequate for high tech problems. These folks on the Hill are no competition for the thousands of Quants and Business Analytics experts out there modeling for profit, it shows big time.

Glass-Steagall Revival Presents a “Low Tech” Partial Solution for an Industry that Needs “High Tech” Regulation-Consumers Get 5 More Years of Bank Modeling For Inequality With Segmentation - No Real Regulation In Sight

Part of the issue too lies with what I call “non participation” and I have been using the term “non participants” for a number of years and it goes hand in hand with the old paradigm of “its for those guys over there”,  I read it loud and clear in the news all the time.  Might the fact that 84% of the Senators still use all paper methodologies for all their work when the Senate makes digital systems available?  I assume McCain is a “paper senator” from what I read.  This gets really interesting though when “Paper Senators” discuss doctors transitioning to electronic medical records…oh the gap shows big time:)  The Daily Show report on this….

We hear the conversation all the time about “paper doctors” who have not moved on to electronic medical records and now we have “paper senators” discussing “paper doctors” and how to improve things, sounds like big oxymoron to me:)

The Office of Technology restoration is a project of the Sunlight Foundation and boy have I written about it, tweeted it and more, because it’s needed and Congress could certainly entertain sharing it too with executive heads out there as it would be a huge tool to help educate those in DC.  Here’s where I first wrote about it back in February of this year.  Why overlook and discount such a valuable tool I ask? 

Congress Needs a Bigger Brain–Restore the Office of Technology Assessment And Truly Assess What is Useful And Remove The Algo Duping Permeating In Government–Fantasy Perceptions That Are Not Real Can Be A Dangerous Thing

I would like to see a government that doesn’t get Algo Duped as often as it affects all of us and the result is the Attack of the Killer Algorithms as I call it with every day examples of how it hurts consumers.  There is a reason for a lot this though as this PLOS One study pointed out and yes I published my opinion with a little satire in there just due to the nature of the study with math causing real physical pain to humans..full on study with MRI images and all.  I think there’s a lot of pain in Washington, do you?  I feel their pain everyday in how it affects me as a consumer:) 

“Algo Duping” – PLOS One Journal Publication Explains Why The Fear of Math Plays a Big Role As One Underlying Reason We All Get Duped And Those Who Don’t Fear Math Take All the Money, Gradually, Using “Mathematical Formulas & Algorithms”

This professor agrees with me about Algo Duping….a tweet…

If we could get some folks educated in DC maybe they would have a better understanding of how more sophisticated Algo Duping takes place..another PLOS One on the manipulation of “P” values with research…how many Senators know what a “P” value is..this explains a bit at the link below..do they need to know about what it is, sure they do as they make laws regarding such topics.

PLOS One Abstract–Methodology for Detecting Manipulation of “P Values” To Show Significant Statistical Value, “Inappropriate Fiddling” Which Can Lead to “Algo Duping” Situations And Numbers

This entire scenario is really sad as it was like school child that got caught..I would like to think that mentalities are higher in DC, but stuff like this kind of sets me back with my perceptions.  Let’s embed one of the best education videos I have on the Algo Duping page and take a look at this will explain how it works and how all get duped…the old saying of “throw numbers at them” still prevails, whether the numbers are correct or skewed either on purpose or by accident.  The topic of the video is it’s all about context and the context in DC is pretty scary as the duping continues in way too many areas. 

I always say education is the best cure and what’ wrong with more of that taking place with lawmakers?  We might see more interests in many topics discussed on the floors of the House and Senate if they were armed with more education instead of having to guess or get bored as again most lawmakers are no competition for all the Quants, analysts and other mathematical model builders employed by the banks and corporate structures..boy does it show, again just read the title of this blog post:) 

A long time ago and there are several posts on this blog about the idea of Congress using IBM Watson to search and get the information they need.  They didn’t see it as a tool to help them either, but Citibank did and is making more money than ever-see any correlation here with how data is used?  This post was from 2012 and there several more before that one on the same topic.  Watson would allow for speech recognition to let the paper senators and representatives to also participate and get them up to snuff even though they are still stuck on paper.  This post was Chapter 22 of my Attack of the Killer Algorithm series.

IBM Watson Going to Work At Citigroup on Wall Street–Congress Didn’t See Big Data As A Tool (Hadoop Framework) When They Had Their Chance…For Consumers The Attack of the Killer Algorithms–Chapter 22
IBM Watson Capabilities Being Pitched to Financial Industry-Congress Must Not Have Felt They Needed This So Further Behind We Fall With Effective Intelligent Lawmaking

In the footer of this blog I feature some basic education videos that explain the IT infrastructures used today and when you read the news, hardly any journalists discuss this intelligently from the education side, we just get the OMG, witch hunts, drama queens/kings, and soap opera versions, which I get as journalists today are graded on the read they get and this sucks people in so they need their jobs to meet those “hit” goals on their stories for a lot of it. 

So in summary I guess this is as good as it gets, right?  In my own heart of trying to help consumers with education material I look at what I saw yesterday as a real set back and basically exposed some attitudes and paradigms that get hidden from us most of the time.

Would it be nice if Senator McCain after this would drive an effort for better education in DC?  Again he was not even embarrassed and bragged about it…big disappointment to me as that’s not what I expect from the people we elect and appoint to represent us…kind of a slap in the face and the reality of what’s there it appears.  So we can count on a future of continued “low tech solutions for high tech problems” I guess.

Sad it has to be this way but the role models we have not been very effective, and that is non partisan.  Math models that “behave badly” (his book)to quote Emanuel Derman (former Goldman Sachs quant, now a university professor) and the “Weapons of Math Destruction” (Cathy O’Neil former quant for Larry Summers” will continue to prevail. 

It’s a fixable problem, education but nobody seems to be interested.  (Videos in the footer)  BD

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Sebelius Has Bees in Her Bonnet–Giving A Contract to Good Data to Mine HHS Employees Data So We Can See What They Think? Who Cares…Algo Duping Strikes Again…

HHS is using Yammer, a good internal social networking program for sure and it’s very helpful, but this is waste of time and if you want to know, why not use Yammer’s analytics…oh well such is life when you have someone in charge with little or no tech in their background. Wonder how the 75,000 employees feel about this…silly.  She’s been over taken by the NSA stories and hopefully she doesn’t want a little bit of the action (grin), right?

I read stuff like this in the news while the pressure is tremendous for doctors and hospitals today and when see this nonsense, all I can say is it time for a change?  Back in June of 2012 we had this…oh gosh technology is going to save us type of new article..

HHS Secretary Sebelius Still Looking for Tech Breakthroughs To Save the Day

I’ve said it before and time to say it again we have no substantial role models at HHS, the old paradigm of “its for those guys over there” still permeates.  Don’t these folks think about public perception and images?

A couple years ago we had this big deal Facebook contest…for a “disaster app”…I said bees in the bonnet there too and at that time I don’t think she had a clue what Twitter was but has told us now it took her long enough to learn in tweets:)  Everyone else was well into using Twitter for disasters…it’s not that hard to figure out.

HHS Seems To Be Confused on Social Networks–Facebook for Disaster Support Contest, Give Me a Break Use Twitter Like Everyone Else Does

Then we had this the request to “hurry up Health IT”…everyone wants to do that but it takes time, as HHS has now learned with IT projects with the health insurance exchanges.  There were a lot of IT vendors in healthcare that rolled their eyes that bit of brilliance as every programmer and data project manage want to get done sooner but you can’t water board them to speed it up.

Speed Up Rate of Change in Health IT?–“Short Order Code Kitchen Burned Down a Few Years Ago and There Was No Fire Sale”..IT Infrastructure Chance and Revisions Takes a Lot of ”Code”, “Time” and “ Most Importantly Money”

Then we had this letter sent out to all the hospital associations insinuating all were cheating on their billing just before the election..a lot of people took offense to that with even dragging Holder in there too, I guess to show more teeth, best I could figure but it was an over all slap in the face to the industry, so I guess they don’t think about perception and how people view things as such.  Even some folks at Harvard complained on that one.   No example was brought to the table either, just kind of saying “you all better not lie”…sad.  Holder had his own issues with digital Illiterate Lanny going too and all you had to do listen for 5 minutes to the Untouchables and you could see and hear the lack of confidence as he was over his head with not knowing how to investigate high tech crimes

HHS and DOJ Send Letters to Hospital Trade Associations Warning of Gaming Billing System Via Use of Electronic Medical Records–Hospitals Just Learned How to Bill Better & Hired Consultants–Case of Being Algo Duped With Numbers?

In the meantime we had HCA bragging about their billing and how it was gaining profits for them…but nobody looking around over there though..

How is HCA a For Profit Hospital Chain, Making All That Money–Billing in the ER a Contributing Factor for Reimbursements–The Algorithms Move Money and Created Some Very Large Profits And Others Generated ER Care Parameters for the Facilities

Here’s what I said with my tiny observations back in 2010…this how I saw it and still see it…”no role models at HHS”…it is what it is..

HS National Plan to Improve Health Literacy – Not Going To Happen Until We Focus on Using Technology (The Tool for Literacy) Which Includes Role Models at HHS And Other Places in Government

This is kind of sad as I call it a lot of Algo Duping here to where folks get mislead or basically are just addicted to collecting data.  I questioned these 2 back in 2009 (link below) wondering if they had enough or just a tiny bit of tech or business intelligence to be able t determine what has value and what does not and in addition to the quantified self today, we also have the over quantified self.  Good data, the company chosen for analytics markets the fact that they can give you better analytics than Yammer itself, which is owned by Microsoft.  We all need cheerleaders but we also need logic and business intelligence as well. 

Nancy-Ann DeParle and Kathleen Sebelius – Business Intelligence?

This is nothing personal and tech folks besides me sit and shakes their heads too and just don’t talk about it.   I thought this rather proved that point with wanting an app to help with addictions, well internets and apps are addictions too..there you go and algo duped oxymoron for sure.  There is not app for internet/app addiction and 65 to 69% of mobile apps are dead anyway.

Hospital in Pennsylvania Opens First Inpatient Treatment for Internet Addiction–Was I Correct Back in 2010 When I Stated “Data Addiction Was The Next Upcoming 12 Step Program”
Apps Aps Everywhere But Nobody Cares–Way Too Many Software Programs and Contests For Programs That Only Do “One Thing” In Healthcare

When you look at the hundreds of quants and professional folks doing analytics to cut costs and save money, creating math models to do so by the minute, this kind of nonsense looks silly as we all know that all models don’t tell the truth and they hurt consumers and again this kind of stuff just points to the fact that all of this seems to way over their heads. Watch the 4 videos in the footer if you want to understand more of how that works, it’s just the flat out truth and reality and a bit about how we all get duped.  Some folks think every query, or piece of code has value, it does not, and that’s where the easy duping comes in.

With the insurance exchanges too I guess Deparle didn't find enough fun in healthcare either and wanted to go back to PE where the fun was according to the interview given.  It was embarrassing to hear her state in the news that “the IT work is all done for the exchanges”…see how out of touch.  When you don’t know, better to be quiet as it hurts credibility. 

Nancy DeParle Returns to What She Knows, Private Equity-Technology Experience, Knowledge And Being In Touch With Reality Is What Government Needs Today

Yes Indeed a new focus here, let’s dig in here and find some data…and you can see how the epidemic of data selling has it’s impact too, everyone thinks they need all this data…and nobody seeing the real damage done.  This HHS thing is a prime example of a lot of Algo Duping going on.

We have had other blunders too like John Kerry saying we have the right to be stupid…sounds like a George Bush comment…laughable yes, makes sense..nope.  On the hill we can’t even get the folks to educate themselves..and we have this bragging tweet today from John McCain that he got busted playing poker on his phone during a Senate hearing.  Is it all just about games in DC? 

This is pathetic and I don’t even think they care about how they are viewed and what they all really do in public service today.  This is what we are somewhat stuck with.   84% which is 84 senators still use all paper methodologies for this reporting and McCain must be one of the cavemen I guess.  The link below has a lot to say too as good suggestion to help educate Congress.  BD

Congress Needs a Bigger Brain–Restore the Office of Technology Assessment And Truly Assess What is Useful And Remove The Algo Duping Permeating In Government–Fantasy Perceptions That Are Not Real Can Be A Dangerous Thing


The Health and Human Services Department plans to mine data from its internal social network, including deducing employee’s emotions and sentiments, contracting documents show.

Health and Human Services began using the internal social networking site Yammer in late 2012, according to a department blog post. The Facebook-like network is open to all the department’s 75,000 employees, the post said. It’s focused on helping employees better engage with each other across divisions and informally crowdsourcing solutions to workflow issues.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ office plans to award a three-month contract to the California-based business intelligence company GoodData to sift through information posted to Yammer to determine employees’ sentiment on particular topics and to learn which topics are trending on the site.

http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2013/09/what-do-hhs-employees-really-think-agency-will-pay-data-miners-find-out/69864/

Cardiac Rhythm Bracelet Selling for $79 To Provide Digital Security for Computer Access, Opening Doors and More..

The bracelet uses Bluetooth and connects to your phone and you wear it around your wrist.  Wrists, necks, ankles, what’s next (grin) to be having some kind of visible device hanging on your body. image

The video is very good and it even shows where transactions in the financial areas can be given solid ID protection.  Ok I’m going to mention this and probably everyone else will think of it too, what happens if you have heart issues…will it still work or what if you have a heart attack, do you get disconnected?  You can always have the passwords as a back up and I have not seen anything yet that replaces them fully as they still need to be around as a back up, interesting product. 

“The benefit of the Nymi's new and exciting ECG authentication is that it is highly secure without compromising convenience. The Nymi has a 3-Factor system ensures that you and only you have access to your Nymi, and control of your identity. To access the Nymi you must first have possession of the wristband. Second, you must possess your unique heart rhythm, and finally, you must have access to the secure application on a registered smartphone. Once you've authenticated, you will remain authenticated so long as the wristband is not removed.”

For their privacy policty they direct you to the website “Privacy by Design” which I looked at and will have dig a little deeper there as well.  You can see one of my favorite browsers on there as a supporter, Duck-DuckGo, which does not track your data. 

Here’s a little information on Privacy by Design and video that states their purpose. Just think if Edward Snowden would had one of these (grin)..just kidding.   BD 


The sleek silicone bracelet you see above isn’t yet another fitness tracker. It’s a new “wearable authentication device” called Nymi, and its creators think it can replace your passwords and keys — or at least make them a whole lot more secure.

Clasp the Nymi around your wrist, press your fingertip to the sensor on the top, and it springs to life. Built-in LEDs and a vibration motor let you know it’s active, and you can also program them to deliver notifications from your smartphone (Nymi supports Bluetooth 4.0).

http://www.geek.com/mobile/79-nymi-bracelet-aims-to-replace-passwords-and-keys-with-your-heartbeat-1569351/