Brainstorm Health: Health Care’s Communication Problem, Amazon Pharmacy, Birth Control Lawsuit

But such annoyances aside, there is an underlying achievement in this that we now take for granted: We can get our money anywhere. I have withdrawn euros in Rome, krona in Stockholm, pounds in London, and dollars across our American landscape—all deducted from my own bank account. I’ve gotten cash from standalone ATMs in delis and drugstores, groceries and gas stations. In each case, the remote ATM communicates with a network (or more than one network), confirms with my bank that I actually have the money I want to withdraw, deducts that amount from my ledger, figures out what sort of transaction fees ought to be paid to whom, and then dispenses the cash.

This is such a part of our daily routines that it sounds almost silly to spell it out. And yet, remarkably, the same thing—a secure electronic handshake between computers on different networks—seldom happens in our health systems. The first electronic health records (EHRs) were developed in the 1960s, and yet, more than a half-century later, many of them are still not interoperable.

Indeed, a new study in the journal Health Affairs, by A. Jay Holmgren, Vaishali Patel, and Julia Adler-Milstein, found that fewer than 30% of the 3,538 American hospitals surveyed could interact with other medical systems on four key “domains” of EHR interoperability—finding a patient’s records, sending them electronically and securely to another medical institution, receiving new patient data, and integrating that information back into the patient’s electronic record. The research team also tracked progress on this front between 2014 and 2015 and found that EHR integration efforts were “substantially slower” than in the previous five years. In other words, whatever policies are in place to catalyze this effort, they ain’t working.

And it’s not just hospitals where such interoperability is essential—and lagging. As HIMSS (Healthcare Information Management Systems Society) frames it: “Data exchange schema and standards should permit data to be shared across clinician, lab, hospital, pharmacy, and patient regardless of the application or application vendor.”

Sure, it’s sensitive stuff—and having it land in the wrong hands would be scary. But then you could say the same thing about your cash.

More news below.

DIGITAL HEALTH

The Amazon prescription drugs rumor mill continues to swirl. Several major pharmacy chains fell victim to the ongoing stream of speculation about whether or not tech giant Amazon will get involved in the pharmacy business. Amazon will reportedly make a decision on that front soon. But, if it does choose to go down that path, there will be plenty of unique regulatory hurdles to jump. (Fortune)

INDICATIONS

Flexion rises after knee pain drug approval. Biotech Flexion has won a key Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its knee pain drug, a milestone that sent its shares soaring on Friday (although the stock has come back down a little since then). The treatment, Zilretta, arrives in the midst of the country's prescription painkiller addiction epidemic, and works in a different way from traditional steroids that could make it especially useful for diabetes patients. (Reuters)

THE BIG PICTURE

Trump administration faces lawsuits over birth control rollback. Women's groups and the state of California are suing the Trump administration over its move to make it easier for employers to deny birth control coverage to their employees. The administration has argued the decision is intended to accommodate religious objections; but proponents of the Obamacare-mandated birth control rules point to how much it's reduced out-of-pocket medical spending by female workers. (Fortune)

REQUIRED READING

Apple Is Investigating 'Swelling' iPhone 8 Batteries, by David Z. Morris

Vice President Pence Wants to Send Astronauts Back to the Moon, by Jonathan Vanian

Michael Jordan to Jeff Bezos: Come to Charlotte, by Barb Darrow

Apple Wants to Charm France, by Reuters