QUALITY: Payment Debates At The World Health Care Congress
...The Washington Convention Center was abuzz as nearly 2,000 health industry and policy wonks gathered for the 4th annual World Health Care Congress. The standard policy topics of cost, quality, and coverage were up for debate, along with competition, effectiveness, transparency, and, of course, reform.
April 24, 2007 | Click here for full article

Google's Designs on Health
Bosworth talked some more about health care today, at the World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C. (Full disclosure: The WSJ is a sponsor of the meeting.) He said patients should have online access to all of the electronic health information that exists about them, whether it's contained in doctors' files, billing databases or prescription records...
April 24, 2007 | Click here for full article

Wal-Mart expands in-store clinics
Retailer's long reach means health field has to take notice
Under the plan outlined by Scott during his closing address to the 2007 World Health Care Congress in Washington, the clinics would be staffed by nurse practitioners or doctors and offer preventive and routine care such as allergy treatments and physicals, typically costing $40 to $65.
April 24, 2007 | Click here for full article

Update: Wal-Mart Expanding In-store Health-clinic Program ..."We know that customers like and want these clinics. At existing clinics in our stores, about 90% of patients report being satisfied or very satisfied. They appreciate the fast, easy and convenient experience," said Lee Scott, president and chief executive, in a speech Tuesday at the World Health Care Congress in Washington.
April 25, 2007 | Click here for full article

Analysis: CEOs Back Work-Based Healthcare
"Employers have to have skin in the game," said Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of the Dow Chemical Co., at the World Health Care Congress an annual influential gathering of about 1,600 CEOs, senior executives and government officials.
April 26, 2007 | Click here for full article

Majority of stakeholders support moving forward quickly with P4P
Majority of stakeholders support moving forward quickly with P4P A real-time survey taken yesterday at a panel session of the Fourth Annual World Health Care Congress in the District of Columbia revealed that 69 percent of attendees feel the federal government isn't moving fast enough to establish pay for performance.
April 25, 2007 | Click here for full article

Insurer Linking E-health Records in Four States
Aims to reduce duplication, errors and costs while improving quality of care ...Chicago-based HCSC plans to provide its clients and doctors with free access to the integrated system, called Blue Care Connection, as it is deployed through the rest of this year, said Joe Taylor, vice president of enterprise business processes at HCSC.
Taylor detailed the effort earlier this month during the World Health Care Congress in Washington.
April 30, 2007 | Click here for full article

WHCC Keynote Speakers Demanding Affordable Quality Healthcare
Gerald L Shaheen Group President, Caterpillar Inc., and Chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, emphasized how important it is for employers to provide greater transparency with greater access to quality, healthcare costs, and to expand health IT efforts.
May, 2007 | Click here for full article

Debate Continues over Convenience versus Privacy
In an impromptu survey of attendees, 52 percent would want any first responder to have access to their personal health records during a medical emergency, while another 22 percent would be comfortable if a good Samaritan on the scene could read their basic medical history. "Care covers privacy in a crunch," said the panel's moderator, Jim Guest, president and CEO of Consumers Union.
April 22-24, 2007 | Click here for full article

Gates Foundation Provides Update On Developing World Health Priorities At 4th Annual World Health Care Congress ...According to an audience poll during the session, (Vision Tree) 66 percent of participants felt that inadequate infrastructure is the leading obstacle to improving health in poor countries, while 17 percent identified cost of vaccines and drugs and 10 percent identified medical staff shortages as the key obstacles...
April 25, 2007 | Click here for full article

California pay-for-performance consortium reports progress
Mychelle Mowry, vice president of global marketing and strategy for Oracle, said the consortium's success - from initial discussion to the drafting of the first checks took only two years - shows that a grass roots effort can achieve positive results. She noted that a survey of attendees at the 2007 Annual World Health Care Congress, held April 22-24 in Washington D.C. , indicated that 69 percent believe the federal government isn't doing enough on pay-for-performance measures.
April 22-24, 2007 | Click here for full article

Quality Measurement And Pay-For-Performance Have Major Flaws, Say Speakers At World Health Care Congress
Quality measurement and pay-for-performance are not without their problems, said participants of a panel chaired yesterday at the World Health Care Congress by a Thomas Valuck, MD, JD, the director of Value-Based Purchasing at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
April 22-24, 2007 | Click here for full article

Leased Health Clinics Inside Wal-Mart Stores: From Pilot To Permanent?
At the 4th Annual World Health Care Congress, Leo Scott, the President and CEO of Wal-Mart disclosed their plan to possibly enhance their pilot program currently in place by opening a total of 2,000 health clinics within their stores over the next five to seven years.
April 26, 2007 | Click here for full article

The Empire, er, AMA Strikes Back
William Plested, the president of the American Medical Association, at the World Health Care Congress in Washington, DC, he was asked to comment on the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services' efforts to set quality standards to inform (and, let's face it, one day determine) how doctors get reimbursed by the government's health care programs.
April 26, 2007 | Click here for full article

Wal-Mart CEO Calls on Businesses To Step Up Health IT Efforts
"The time for politics in our nation's debate on health care has passed," Lee Scott, CEO of Wal-Mart, said on Tuesday at the World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C. According to Scott, it's time to take action, and businesses should be a "catalyst for positive change."
April 25, 2007 | Click here for full article

Get A Life! World Health Care Congress
Bloggers had a field day this week at the 4th Annual World Health Care Congress, co-sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, in Washington... Just about everybody who was anybody in public or private health care leadership was a speaker or panelist at this conference...
April 24, 2007 | Click here for full article

The New "Buy-Right" Movement in Health Care
...The poll taken of Congress attendees indicated that employers in the audience strongly supported the idea of employers continuing to play a strong role in the health of their employees, despite proposals for eliminating their “skin in the game.
April 26, 2007 | Click here for full article

What if the consumer can't hack it?
...I heard several times this week at the World Health Care Congress that if they’re given the tools to do so, consumers will take responsibility for their health care as they’ve taken responsibility for their retirement savings.
April 25, 2007 | Click here for full article