A pilot program that will allow Medicare patients to make their medical records available online will cut down on paperwork headaches and help prevent unnecessary procedures, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. Leavitt helped announce the four companies that will take part in the Medicare PHR Choice Pilot, which launches in January in Arizona and Utah. The program will allow Medicare patients to have a personal health records company maintain their records and provide them to doctors, as directed by the patient.
Some healthcare groups are pushing Congress to include funding for threatened health programs in a second economic stimulus package, and AARP is asking lawmakers to provide a temporary boost to Medicaid funding to help states stave off cuts in the program. States are facing a total budget deficit of about $50 billion, and AARP worries that cuts to Medicaid would threaten their health while eroding their economic security.
Will President-elect Barack Obama be a plus or a minus for rural healthcare?
Medical economist and healthcare "futurist" Jeff Bauer says it's hard to say because the president-elect and product of Chicago doesn't have a history on the issue in his few years in the U.S. Senate.
"I'm not aware that Barack Obama brings any particular expertise or personal ties to rural health with him to the White House. Nothing about Obama tells me anything about what his policies towards rural health will be. He has simply not been seen as a leader in that area like (Sen.) Max Baucus (D-MT)," says Bauer, a consultant and futures practice leader for ACS Healthcare Solutions. "There are a number of members of Congress, you tell me their names and I know where they're going. I know their policies on rural health clinics or money for critical-access hospitals. Obama doesn't bring that level of identification with any rural healthcare policy."
That's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just an unknown. It's not like the president-elect will be "anti-rural health." But the emphasis on funding public health policy in tight budget years might be shifted to other areas, like increasing physician reimbursements or expanding medical schools, rather than specifically toward rural health.
Rather than guessing the future actions of a president-elect with no discernable track record in the area of rural health, Bauer says Obama's possible actions in the rural health arena can be more accurately predicted by examining the people he appoints to key public health positions. "I'm a firm believer that people make as much of a difference as budgets and policies. I'm hearing names of people with strong commitments to HHS and CMS, where the future of rural healthcare will be very much decided," Bauer says.
There have been widespread media reports that former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota has been leading the Obama transition team's healthcare policy component and will likely be offered a key appointment. There is even talk in some circles of making the former Senate majority leader a "healthcare czar," although it's not really clear what that means. At deadline for this column, high ranking Democrats were saying Daschle had been tapped to lead HHS.
"Barack Obama is going to turn to Tom Daschle for something very significant, whether it's HHS or secretary of education," Bauer says. "If it's Daschle, he authored many of the bills that gave money to rural hospitals and clinics, and he is a pro-rural as they come."
Rural healthcare can also expect continued backing from the powerful Senate Finance Committee chaired by Baucus with ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-IA.
Rural health will need all the friends it can get, Bauer says, because the biggest factor will not be who's in the White House, but the state of the economy. Federal tax dollars will be scarce at least for the next year or two, and the fight for funding is expected to be fierce. "This issue will always come back to the economy and whether there is money to maintain critical-access programs or money to get serious about supporting information infrastructure technology development," Bauer says. "That is going to be really tough in the current budget environment."
John Commins is the human resources and community and rural hospitals editor withHealthLeadersMedia. He can be reached at jcommins@healthleadersmedia.com.
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Leading companies know there are business opportunities in times of economic downturns and that marketing can help lead the way to increased profitability. The chief marketing officers at consumer electronics retailer Best Buy and global technology services giant Wipro know this practice is the key to success.
Though healthcare organizations have been slow to embrace digital marketing, Mary Ann Belliveau, managing director of health vertical at Google, says healthcare-related digital marketing strategies are positioned to gain momentum in the next year. Google itself has recently been focusing on the health space, having launched Google Health and Google Flu Trends this year.
Lakeside Community Healthcare, formerly known as Lakeside Systems, Inc. (among other titles held by its variety of medical groups and urgent care centers), recently underwent significant growth due to a combination of expansion and acquisitions.
"A lot of our growth was focused on meeting the needs of the community," says Bonnie Goodman, consultant for Lakeside Community Healthcare, located in Glendale, CA. "With so many arms of the company, and with different needs [for each segment of the company], we knew we needed to integrate and unify things under one umbrella so patients would really understand the depth of the organization."
Needing to find one central concept to bring unity and a brand image to the company, Lakeside went through a process, with complete buy-in and assistance from a team of senior management, of researching what was important in today's market for its patients and the community.
It was decided across the board that each stand-alone part of the organization would incorporate the name "Lakeside Community Healthcare" into its title—bringing a unifying factor throughout. A brand logo was also created incorporating the new name along with a specific and all-encompassing tagline: "Specializing in You."
"The outcome [from the research] showed us we needed to focus on compassion and respect, not just quality," says Goodman. "It really showed us how important relationships were and how important it was to the community and patients to be patient centric. We decided to focus our brand image and message on a commitment to a humanistic way of care."
With the new brand image, logo, and central message set, a campaign including Web and print exposure has been launched within the community. "So far we're in phase one with the campaign which is really about awareness as opposed to hardcore measurement," says Goodman. "Measurement will of course come over time, but what's important now is name recognition."
Kandace McLaughlin Doyle is an editor with HealthLeaders magazine. Send her Campaign Spotlight ideas at kdoyle@healthleadersmedia.com If you are a marketer submitting a campaign on behalf of your facility or client, please ensure you have permission before doing so.