Health Start-Ups! - What Makes a Great Startup Incubator?
A successful university business incubator has lots of engaged mentors, is run like a startup and generates buzz and benefits for its local business community. Those are some of the high-level findings of new venture out of Sweden that’s trying to create an objective way to evaluate business incubators across the world.[read more]
Health Start-Ups! - Crowd Funding and Project Testing [VIDEO with Dr Patricia Salber of Health Tech Hatch]
Crowd-funding is the new kid on the block and is making a lot of waves in the start-up world. And thanks to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act), which goes into effect in 2013, crowdfunding will transition from a donation to a true investment model.[read more]
Why Can’t The Market for Medical Care Work Like Cosmetic Surgery?
Americans see their doctors more than 1 billion times a year ― and spend nearly $300 billion on physician services ― but they rarely discuss the price of a given service with their physicians in advance of receiving treatment. It gets worse. Although only about 10 percent of health care expenditures are spent on physicians’ services, doctors are the gate keepers to virtually all care that is provided to patients[read more]
Healthcare Social Media: Optimize for Better Results
Healthcare social media (Photo credit: Dee Speed)
Noticing that your posts on your Facebook, Twitter, or other social media outlets sometimes don't do as well as they normally do? When exactly are the best times and days for you to publish your healthcare posts so the most patients and new leads will see them?[read more]
Few Psych Meds Coming Our Way
Psychiatric disorder / shutterstock
In a July 2011 editorial entitled “Vanishing clinical psychopharmacology” in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, authors Gerven and Cohen point out that, in 2010, only two medications “with a broadly defined psychiatric or neurological indication” were approved by the FDA. Now there's worse to come.[read more]
FCC Names New Director of Healthcare Initiatives
At a time when mobile health initiatives and mobile apps are flooding the market, the Federal Communications Commission has shown enough interest to appoint Matthew Quinn as Director of Healthcare Initiatives. Mr. Quinn will have expanding responsibilities at his new position.[read more]
Nine Out of Ten Hospitals Have No Plan to Achieve Patient Satisfaction
Patient experience / shutterstock
There’s a huge gap “between hospital management and frontline clinicians with respect to improving patient satisfaction,” according to a study out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). It seems as if “patient satisfaction” is everyone’s destination, but few hospitals have a map to get from here to there.[read more]
How to Control Healthcare Costs: Lessons from Singapore
William Haseltine, chairman and president of ACCESS Health International and author of Affordable Excellence: The Singapore Health Care System, attributes Singapore’s ability to control health care costs to balancing a highly regulated market and managing a successful social wellness program.[read more]
Steady as She Goes or Down With the Ship, a Parable for Healthcare
On this trip I met with clinicians, healthcare executives, EMR developers and IT staff from some of the finest institutions in the country (including the world famous Karolinska Institute). I heard the same stories I hear almost everywhere I go in the developed world—stories of healthcare systems with perverse incentives that make sick care preferable to prevention; that inhibit innovation while maintaining the status quo; that fail to meet the needs of a growing population of patients who have increasing expectations and an ever higher incidence of chronic disease.[read more]
Sales Reps Not Included: On e-Commerce Site, Device Firms Discount Routinely Used Implants
The movement toward price transparency that’s sweeping various parts of the healthcare system has now reached medical device sales via a new e-commerce startup that connects medical device companies with health systems looking to purchase stable implant technologies.[read more]
Writing Safety Critical Software
Recently I ran across a great presentation by the folks at Pathfinder Software entitled “Agile Development for FDA Regulated Medical Software.” Pathfinder’s engineers help explain why the FDA doesn’t know or really care about what software methodology you use as long as you ensure that the output of your development approach results in high quality, safe, reliable software.[read more]
From WhiteBoard to Business
Next Wave serves as a strategic adviser or investor to a few companies already, including Ohio-based Health Care DataWorks and cloud-based search and booking solution provider HealthPost. “I would say most of the investments are under $5 million,” Nelson said. “If partners are needed, then we have access to those relationships as well.”[read more]
Mobile Health Around the Globe: Apple Video is a Testament to mHealth’s Global Impact
Apple is showing off its marketing chops, and tugging at our heartstrings, in a new video posted to its YouTube channel. Called “Making a difference. One app at a time,” the 10-minute video depicts some of the ways the company’s devices and various iOS apps are solving problems across the world, starting with rural access to healthcare.[read more]
No More Monkeys Jumping On This Bed: Few Psych Meds Coming Our Way
And, aside from the cost of bringing the drugs to market, and aside from their. . .well. . . seeming uselessness. . .the third reason companies are gun-shy about psychotropic medications is something major: we just don’t understand the brain well enough.[read more]
Why Road Rage Should Make Us Feel Good
This morning, I was halfway to work when I felt for the phone in the inside pocket of my jacket. Not there. I palpated other pockets none of which contained the desired item. The car seat was bare. I did not fear the most dreaded explanation, that being that the phone was mistakenly left in Starbucks and purloined by a Frappuccino felon.[read more]
David Davidovic David built and led commercial functions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries for 33 years and has been di More »
Barbara Ficarra Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA is an award-winning journalist, media broadcaster, health educator, speaker and consultant More »
David Harlow David Harlow is Prinicipal of the Harlow Group LLC, a healthcare law and consulting firm based in Boston, MA. More »
Stephen Schimpff Stephen C. Schimpff, MD is the retired CEO of the Univ. of MD Med. Center and the COO of the Univ of MD Medical System. More »
Andrew Schorr Andrew, a leukemia survivor and respected medical journalist is the founder of PatientPower, an excellent web resource. More »
John Sharp John Sharp has interests in social media in healthcare and clinical research informatics including secondary use of EMR More »
Christina Thielst Christina Thielst is a hospital administrator, consultant, educator and author with 30 years of healthcare experience. More »

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“Thank you Deanna, great post.This is a perfect example of where companies can do well and do good at the same time. When companies do this (in honest and not gimmicky ways) not only do they perform well, as recent studies have suggested, but they also retain their best employees.”
“You ask a good – and important – question, and one whose answer is not easily found.What I believe to be the case, if I have the most current information, is that Maryland hasindeed enacted legislation to provide for PDMPs, and in fact may have done initial work--but the program is not, I'm sorry to say, yet operational. On a positive note, their Department of Health and Hygiene has a ...”