Health

The days of tweeting, Yelp-ing, and checking-in are here to stay, but as social media’s use expands, certain guidelines are needed to ensure its “optimal” practice in the heath as you want in your familycare realm.  

Christina Thielst, hospital and heath as you want in your familycare administrator and author of the blog Christina’s Considerations, offers 10 tips for proper use of social media in heath as you want in your familycare. 

1. Recognize social media as new sources of feedback and opportunities. Use it to connect with various audiences, the public, patients and stakeholders, said Thielst. Most importantly, connect with your audience on the channels they’re already using. “If someone Yelps about the experience [at your organization], you need to know about it,” said Thielst. “Organizations can’t be ignoring social media. Google someone’s name, and you can learn so much about them. I think organizations need to be Googling their name as well.” Another project Thielst suggests? Creating or updating your Wikipedia page. Many hospitals have these pages, she said, whether they know about it or not. “It’s important for them to do that, and I don’t think enough of them are seeing what’s being said,” she said. “They’re risking their reputation.”

2. Avoid taking on too much, too soon. Have a strategy, said Thielst, to avoid confusion. “I have people asking all the time what they should do first about social media, and I say ‘I don’t know,’” she said.  According to Thielst, your strategy should depend on your organization and should fit with your culture and needs. “It needs to reflect a lot of things,” she said. “If you’re a small organization and don’t have a lot of people who understand social media, though, Twitter is an easy start.” Thinking about hiring a social media producer? Although he/she can be helpful, Thielst suggests everyone in the organization have some basic understanding of the foundations of social media. “What you don’t want to do is hire someone, they come on board, and there’s a layoff,” she said. “You need multiple people who can keep the content going.”

[See also: Social media response to East Coast earthquake part of growing trend.]

3. Recognize and manage the risks. Establish policies and guidelines for appropriate use, said Thielst, and take the time to educate staff. “Implement safeguards for protecting privacy and confidential information,” she said. This aspect of social media is important, said Thielst, and is illustrated best in a recent blog post. “Young people are in hospitals, and they have access to private heath as you want in your family information,” she said. “Millennials come along, and they’ve been using [social media] since they were babies—they’re comfortable sharing their lives online.” She said to beware of the disconnect between knowing what to share and what to not. As new people come into the workforce, Thielst suggests helping identify boundaries between their personal and professional life. “That’s what’s going to keep us out of trouble,” she said. “It’s engrained in them, unlike us.”

4. Recognize opportunities for improving heath as you want in your family and outcomes, and social media’s ability to contribute to longitudinal heath as you want in your family and documentation. Using social media to track a patient’s progress is also key, said Thielst. Examples of this include Boston College, which uses a “discharge advocate,” or an avatar, to take patients through the discharge process. In addition, other social media platforms are focusing on after-care programs for recovering addicts. “If it’s 2 in the morning, and you have nowhere to go, you can log onto the site, which is always on,” she said. “You can also do virtual AA meetings, where patients check in with micro-blogging technology and a ‘tweet’ of their mood. There are a million ways this technology can be applied.”

5. Use it to enhance the patient experience. “Patients appreciate the opportunity to engage on their social networking channels to stay in touch with family and friends while they are in the hospital,” said Thielst. In fact, blocking access to social media could lead to lower HCAHPS scores. “Access to social media sites may reduce isolation and depression among hospitalized patients, “ Thielst added. 

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ANN ARBOR, MI – The top healthcare systems in the United States have lower 30-day mortality rates finds Thomson Reuters’ fourth annual study naming the top 15 health systems in the country. The measures used to score the top systems are underpinned by health information technology.

Thomson Reuters’ 15 Top Health Systems, released Jan. 16, singles out those hospital health systems that have achieved superior clinical outcomes. Thomson Reuters determined the scores of more than 300 organizations based on a composite score of eight measures of quality, patient perception of care and efficiency. The study used data primarily from the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review data set and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Compare data set.

[See also: Top 100 hospitals named for 2011]

Thomson Reuters’ 15 Top Health Systems are:

Large Health Systems (more than $ 1.5 billion total operating expense)

• Banner Health, Phoenix
• CareGroup Healthcare System, Boston
• Main Line Health, Bryn Mawr, Pa.
• Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Houston
• St. Vincent Health, Indianapolis

Medium Health Systems ($ 750 million–$ 1.5 billion)

• Baystate Health, Springfield, Mass.
• Geisinger Health System, Danville, Pa.
• HCA Central and West Texas Division, Austin, Texas
• Mission Health System, Asheville, N.C.
• Prime Healthcare Services, Ontario, Calif.

[See also: Leapfrog Group names top hospitals for 2011]

Small Health Systems (less than $ 750 million)

• Baptist Health, Montgomery, Ala.
• Maury Regional Healthcare System, Columbia, Tenn.
• Poudre Valley Health System, Fort Collins, Colo.
• Saint Joseph Regional Health System, Mishawaka, Ind.
• Tanner Health System, Carrolton, Ga.

“This year we are seeing stronger system-wide performance and increased rates of improvement, particularly among the 15 Top Health Systems award winners. Health system performance is beginning to reflect aspirations to provide more consistent outcomes across communities served,“ said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals program at Thomson Reuters, in a statement. “Healthcare reform appears to have stimulated the increased rate of improvement at the system level.”

Thomson Reuters’ study found that the top 15 health systems had:

• Lower 30-day mortality rates: The top 15 systems held 30-day mortality rates steady, while their peers demonstrated a significant increase in post-discharge mortality.
• Better survival rates: The top 15 had 17 percent fewer deaths than expected considering severity, while their peers had 4 percent more deaths than expected.
• Shorter hospital stays: Patients treated in the top 15 hospitals had a median average length of stay of 4.7 days, while those not in the top 15 had a median of 5.1 days.
• Better patient safety and core measure adherence: The top 15 had 23 percent fewer adverse patient safety events than expected and adhered better to core measures of care.

Follow HFN associate editor Stephanie Bouchard on Twitter @SBouchardHFN.

[See also: Thomson Reuters names top hospitals for heart care]

Mobile devices, data breaches and patient privacy rights were some of the most talked-about topics in health IT in 2011, and according to expert opinions complied by ID Experts, 2012 won’t be any different. 

In fact, experts continue to predict an upswing in mobile and social media usage, response plans, and even reputation fallout. Eleven industry experts outlined healthcare data trends to look for in 2012.

1. Mobile devices could mean trouble. Healthcare organizations won’t be immune to data breach risks caused by the increased use of mobile devices in the work place, said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. A recent study confirms that 81 percent of healthcare providers use mobile devices to collect, store, and/or transmit some form of personal health information (PHI). But, 49 percent of those admit they’re not taking steps to secure their devices. 

2. Class-action litigation firestorms are looming. Class-action lawsuits will be on the rise in 2012, predicts Kirk Nahra, partner, Wiley Rein LLP. This will most likely be due to patients suing healthcare organizations for failing to protect their PHI. This past year was filled with several similar suits for organizations, some of which involved business associates and breached patient data. And despite the outcomes, one affect is certain: significant risk and cost for companies affected by the suits. 

3. Social media risks will grow. Chris Apgar, CEO and president at Apgar & Associates, predicts that, as more physicians and healthcare organizations move to social media, its misuse will increase the exposure of PHI. A recent example includes a healthcare worker posting sensitive information about a patient on his Facebook. According to ID Experts, healthcare organizations often don’t develop a social media use plan, leaving a gray area of sorts for employees exposing PHI through personal social networking pages. 

4. Cloud computing is not a panacea. Moreover, the technology is outpacing security and creating unprecedented liability risks, said James C Pyles, principal, Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville. According to Pyles, with fewer resources, cloud computing is an attractive option for healthcare providers, especially with the rise of HIEs. But, with privacy and legal issues coming to light, ID Experts said a “covered entity” will need to enter into a “carefully written business associate agreement with a cloud-computing vendor before disclosing protected health information.” 

5. Reliance on business associates could result in new risks. Larry Walker, president of the Walker Company, believes economic realties will force healthcare providers to continue to outsource many of their functions. This includes billing to third parties or business associates, even though business associates are considered the “weak link in the chain” when it comes to privacy and security. 

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With Medicare’s push toward shared savings and accountable care organizations, healthcare business models are getting more complex, said Shahid Shah, software IT analyst and author of the blog The Healthcare IT Guy. And according to him, the industry needs software to implement these new models. 

“Due to the new intricacies of organizational connections between different providers, standardization of workflows on existing EHRs won’t really be possible,” Shah says. “Most EHRs are not up to the task of handling the complexities of newly shared accountability and what I call ‘patient team’ business models, so we need EHRs to become more social, more collaborative, and far more integrated than they are now, EHRs need to grow up from the adolescence of basic electronic typewriters and chart storage systems to mature real-time care coordination and collaboration platforms.”

Shah gives us five more reasons EHRs need to “grow up.”

1. It’s all about the apps. According to Shah, the looming shift toward mobile technology will mean smaller and more “nimble” apps (both web-based and mobile) will begin to take on some of the burdens being “thrown in by new business models.” He added this is because EHRs can’t change fast enough to accommodate new requirements. “However, these nimble apps will proliferate and their data needs [will need] to be ‘coordinated’ by next-generation EHRs to be truly successful,” he said. “EHRs must recognize they aren’t apps themselves, but containers for other apps or other apps’ data.” 

2. Vendors will jump onboard. The “common wisdom” in the industry today is there will be fewer EHR vendors in the future as consolidation occurs. But that’s not true, said Shah. “I think that interfacing, interoperability, and real service-based platforms will be created, which can handle the next level of more sophisticated requirements being thrown at EHRs.” He said EHRs that survive in the long run will have “graduated” from basic record-keeping and document management to more refined patient management, patient engagement, and collaboration-driven software. “The older vendors will start to hear the collaboration siren songs and jump onboard pretty quickly,” he said. 

3. Everyone needs to be on the same page. “Today’s reality of patient management is ‘disjointed care,’ and most of the players in a patient’s care don’t know what each other is doing for the patient in real time,” said Shah. Knowing all the participants in the patient’s care team, and coordinating their electronic activities, is what future successful EHRs must “handle with ease.” In addition, Shah mentioned current EHR apps are typically restricted to “legal entities” or a single hospital or hospital system. “However, to manage coordinated care, successful EHR systems must open themselves up beyond legal boundaries into ‘trust federations,’” he said. These trust federations, said Shah, are more than health information exchanges; they’re platforms that both welcome and encourage real-time data integration for activities beyond clinical data. 

4. Flexibility will be key. Shared savings programs, capitated payment models, ACOs, and PCHMs require a level of coordination and measurement of quality metrics that are tough to define, implement, and secure, said Shah. Future EHRs, as care coordination platforms, must “allow dynamic business models that can accommodate a great deal of uncertainty and flexibility,” he said. “When you move from the uncertainty of supporting users inside a single organization to working with the uncertainty of multi-organization relationships and user communities, application architectures must accommodate more fluid workflows that can change daily or weekly based on the demands of new participants.”

5. Integration and interoperability will be front and center. Integration has to be more than lip service, said Shah. “Most EHRs today, after being dragged kicking and screaming into the new ‘Meaningful Use World Order,’ are marketing more interoperability, but they’re not doing so in reality,” he said. In the future, EHRs will have integration and interoperability as an architecture requirement and not an add-on, he added. “Data liquidity into and out of EHRs must be natural and need to be handled without resorting to excuses about privacy and security,” Shah said. “There are many ways to tag and secure liquid data based on patient consent.”

Follow Michelle McNickle on Twitter, @Michelle_writes

2011 was a standout year for health IT, and as sure as debates regarding EHRs lingered on, certain articles on Healthcare IT News attracted record-breaking social media reactions and comments galore.

We rounded up 10 buzz-worthy health IT articles of 2011. From social media’s use in the industry to job prospects and more, these articles garnered the most attention and sparked the most discussion among Healthcare IT News readers. 

1. iPad 2 looks even better for docs. In March, Associate Editor Molly Merrill wrote about the introduction of the iPad 2 – and more specifically, an appearance by John Halamka, MD, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in a video showcasing the technology’s use in different fields. Halamka’s comments on the iPad’s practicality resonated with readers, with nearly 30 comments and 120 tweets. “What we have tried to do on the iPad is give doctors at the point of care the tools they need at the exact moment the doctor can make a difference,” said Halamka. 

2. 5 technologies every hospital should be using. This past September, software analyst Shahid Shah spotlighted the five technologies every hospital should consider using. He included innovations such as single sign-on, virtualization, HTML5 and document management systems. Shah’s practical look at what technologies would benefit hospitals the most gave way to debate in our comment section and a follow-up article, five technologies every hospital should avoid. 

3. Social media sites help patients make healthcare decisions. In this article, published in March, we saw how one in five Americans use social media websites to receive healthcare information. The article focused on multiple surveys, where respondents confirmed their high likelihood to turn to social media to help make a healthcare decision and educate themselves on procedures, facilities and doctor/patient relationships. Commenter “nrenicker” added social media monitoring is becoming an interesting trend. “[It’s] one that has limitations and dark sides, but also one that has tremendous benefits.”

4. Americans not ready to use social media to talk to their doc. Despite consumers’ likelihood to look to social media for information, this article showed the same couldn’t be said for using social media or other chat systems to contact physicians. According to a national Capstrat-Public Polling survey, more than five of every six respondents said they wouldn’t use social media or instant messaging for medical communication, even if doctors offered it. The consensus was the same with commenters. “Be sure to set your ad settings to ‘no one’ if you don’t want to be circulated all over the web,” commenter “MedQuack” wrote. 

5. Five ways health IT will reduce the cost of care. In February, Web Producer Jamie Thompson looked to Jerry Buchanan, account director, healthcare technology and services at eMids Technologies, to describe some of the ways IT will reduce the cost of care. Buchanan listed improved standards of care and increased patient involvement and collaboration as just a few of the ways. Feedback in our comment section was noteworthy, with readers both supporting and debating Buchanan’s points. 

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Recently, the Care Continuum Alliance, an advocate for population health management, surveyed industry leaders to assess the market and predict key issues for 2012. According to the alliance’s white paper, two predominant themes were brought to light as a result of the survey.

“First, significant market movement will occur toward accountability and value creation in healthcare, driven partly by new physician-guided and collaborative models,” according to the report. “And second, population health management is well-positioned to add value to and support these emerging models, but must continue to build the case for wellness and prevention.”

Here are eight additional key issues, identified in the report, that could affect population health management in 2012. 

1. Accountable care and the Medicare Shared Savings program. Many comments from survey respondents centered on accountable care and collaborative models, as well as federal support for both. According to the report, population health has a lot to offer collaborative care, such as health risk assessment and predictive modeling, HIT infrastructure, data analytics, care coordination and other core competencies. “But tempering optimism around accountable care models were caveats,” the report noted. One respondent summed it up: “If ACOs become a reality and are structured in a way that provides a real incentive for managing health, they could be a major market opportunity. If they just become HMOs redux, not much will change.”

2. Consumer use of mobile and eHealth technologies. According to the report, population health management has been both a driver and benefactor of the rise in eHealth and mHealth technologies. The demand for these technologies, said one respondent, will drive healthcare “to adopt … a patient-centered, consumer-empowered, pull-rather-than-push model, which has already been realized in the music, travel, book and news industries.” The importance of social media was also noted by those surveyed, and when coupled with mobile technology, will be used as a tool and patient engagement and shared decision-making. 

[See also: Mobile health monitoring market on the rise.]

3. Reducing avoidable hospital readmissions in Medicare. The Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) could be a “big opportunity for companies who have developed proven strategies for reducing hospital readmissions,” wrote one survey respondent. The program includes Medicare tracking readmissions for three conditions – heart failure, acute myocardial infarction and pneumonia – within 30 days on or after Oct. 1, 2012. Medicare will then reduce payments to hospitals to account for excess readmissions. “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary projects that the HRRP, when fully implemented, will reduce Medicare costs by $ 8.2 billion through 2019,” the report read. “Further, the law gives CMS the authority to consider additional conditions in 2015.”

4. Quality improvement in Medicare advantage. The Medicare Advantage’s (MA) “stars” rating system was another topic of discussion. The program will award bonus payments to plans under the stars system to assess performance on a myriad of measures. “The developing stars system appears [to be] headed toward a structure consistent with industry-advocated changes, including additional wellness and prevention measures and retirement of process-related measures,” the report read. It added that, combined with continued growth in the Medicare Advantage population, the need for plans to demonstrate improvement in wellness and chronic care measures will drive “expanded opportunities” in the Medicare managed care market, according to industry experts. 

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OREM, UT – KLAS has unveiled its annual “Best in KLAS Awards” for software and professional services in 2011, ranking the best-performing healthcare IT vendors in more than 100 market segments based on ratings from over 18,000 interviews with healthcare providers.

Epic was the top-ranked overall software vendor with a score of 87.1 out of 100. MaxIT Healthcare garnered top ratings for professional services, with an 88.7 score.

Previously known as “Top 20 Best in KLAS,” the research firm has renamed the awards “Best in KLAS,” and surveyed new market segments in the report, including clinical decision support products, self-service patient kiosks and more.

[See also: KLAS names top 20 software and service vendors.]

This year’s report notes that certain systems have more successful go-lives than others – those with the lowest risks were interface engines, RTLS, health information exchange and revenue cycle and patient flow management, officials say. IT segments still struggling with the go-live process included anesthesia, medication administration, ambulatory EMRs, practice management and patient accounting/patient management.

“Since 1998, KLAS has been committed to helping healthcare providers make decisions based on candid peer feedback,” says KLAS President Adam Gale. “Best in KLAS rankings mark those vendors who best keep their promises in their market segments for offering a combination of superior products, strong service, and high customer value. We hope these ratings continue to help providers find transparency from their vendors in making purchasing decisions.”

See the next page for the list of “Best in KLAS Awards”


At the third annual mHealth Summit in Washington D.C., major players in the mobile arena noted the impact mobile phones and other devices have and will continue to have both in the US and across the globe. Paul Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm, the closing keynote speaker at the mHealth Summit, predicted nearly 4 billion smart phones would be sold between now and 2014.

“The mobile device in your hand gives you access to all of humanity’s collective knowledge,” he said. “We’re going to see the full computer environment coming over. Over the next year, really cool stuff is coming.”

Brian Edwards, mHealth feature editor at iMedicalApps, agreed. We asked him to highlight five mobile trends to look for in 2012. 

1. Apps that track patient activity. Edwards said the ability to track patient data on a phone will have many benefits in the year to come. “How many phone calls they take, where they are, and … their activity level” can be “surefire” indicators of patients’ conditions, he said. “Especially with chronic conditions like diabetes; when there’s a flare-up, it’s integral to know when … it’s like a check-engine light for the body.” On his blog, Edwards explained how apps of this nature can be beneficial for other patient subsets, like autistic children. For example, body sensor technology has been developed to detect and record signs of stress in children, “by measuring slight electrical changes in the skin,” Edwards wrote. “Since autistic children have a difficult time expressing or even understanding their emotions, teachers and caregivers can have a difficult time anticipating and preventing meltdowns.”

2. Binary network apps. Binary network apps, or apps that track peripheral devices, will possibly be the biggest trend in 2012, said Edwards. “I think that’s going to be something that’ll be the first big business in mobile health,” he said. “Wearable censors, or apps that fit into the diagnostic process in an ambulatory setting. It’s the ability to take the iPhone and a patient with a T-shirt with a built-in censor and keep track of their vitals all day.” This enables techs and caregivers to “see triggers,” said Edwards, while the app sends an alarm depending on a predetermined threshold for the patient. “It’s powerful,” he added. 

3. Health-focused games. “Everyone’s trying to game-ify everything,” said Edwards. He referenced Games for Health, which uses games and gaming technology to improve health and healthcare. Organizations such as the University of Southern California have also studied turning simple games into “stealth health,” said Edwards – and had success doing so. “People love to play games – it’s something across all ages and it’s more enjoyable. If the questions are in the form of a funny little game, and you don’t even realize you’re answering the questions you’re answering, it’s going to be easier to answer the question and comply.” 

4. Apps that diagnose and treat patients. On his blog, Edwards mentioned a number of start-ups making progress in developing innovative body area network (BAN) technologies. For example, a device aimed at more efficient EEG data collection uses a miniature electronics box attached to a light, head harness, and electrodes to monitor a patient while he/she sleeps. “The device has HIPAA compliant security for easy transfer of data via the Internet,” he added. A similar tool, designed for the diagnosing and monitoring of epileptic patients, allows for continuous brain wave monitoring. “The patient app guides the user through the application of the body worn sensors, which can currently include up to 16-channels of EEG data. Once the patient has applied the body worn sensors, they simply pair the sensors and peripheral device via Bluetooth with the app and go about their day while the data is continuously captured and sent to remote server,” Edwards wrote. 

5. Apps that empower patients. Tools that help consumers make health-related decisions will be popular in the upcoming years. On his blog, Edwards documented apps that take publicly available information from government and non-profit grounds and divide it into categories, such as healthcare facilities, medical suppliers and prescription drugs. “Using the phone’s geo-location, an individual can enter his or her ZIP code and find provider facilities in their area,” he wrote. “By utilizing the Center for Medicare and Medicaid’s Hospital Compared database, users can review ratings for all facilities, details on quality of care and patient services, as well as what coverage is provided for Medicare and Medicaid recipients.”

Follow Michelle McNickle on Twitter, @Michelle_writes

By now, we know health IT professionals will need certain skills to make it big in 2012. But according to Guillermo Moreno, vice president of recruiting firm Experis, new positions springing up in health IT are calling for an even broader range of talents and abilities.

From social media gurus to CKOs, certain positions not commonly seen in the market will make a bigger impact in the year to come. Moreno spotlights six HIT positions to watch in 2012. 

1. The CMIO (chief medical information officer). Some of these positions may not be new, said Moreno, but their growth within the industry is required to meet “the reality of needs.” For example, he said, “we’re continuing to see big growth for the need [of a CMIO] inside a healthcare organization. And, interestingly enough, in some instances, a migration because of the need to bridge clinical practice with IT.” Moreno said that in the past, the CIO “grew through the ranks of healthcare” because of the growing complexity of the market. “Like meaningful use and quality measures,” he said. “There is a closer affinity to clinical practice, so the role of the CMIO is one that’s going to increase over time. We’ll see people who bridge both sides, from a IT background and an understanding of IT along with clinical relevance.”

2. The CKO (chief knowledge officer). “The CKO is someone who understands how to manage this massively growing database of information these organizations are collecting,” said Moreno. “They need to know what it means to use it and present it, so an organization can make solid decisions around whatever they’re focusing on.” The CKO also needs to look at clinical practice and view it against whatever mandate or procedures and requirements are associated with the care. For example, “accountable care,” said Moreno. “They need to look at what’s going to be associated with expensive reimbursements versus not expensive reimbursements and outcomes, all while guiding the organization through a process of understanding where they stand and how to better align themselves.” 

[See also: ACOs don't have to be daunting, according to experts .]

3. The social media guru. Although healthcare isn’t entirely onboard yet with social media, said Moreno, leaders are recognizing it as an important tool to engage listeners and consumers in their regions. The industry is bound to see more social media and communication professionals taking the spotlight in healthcare and helping organizations understand how to navigate external and internal media sites, he said. “This includes marketing and patient portals, with social media activity in context to that.”

4. ACO and HIE leaders. Accountable care organizations and health information exchanges are two “fronts” in the industry that have yet to see significant leadership, said Moreno. “They don’t have a lot of history in healthcare, and there aren’t a lot of people who understand the context for this,” he said. Having someone who can help an organization put together an ACO, for example, is key. “So from a leadership strategy and a project management perspective,” added Moreno. “This is something I think is coming within the next three to five years.”

[See also: CKO emerges amid healthcare data explosion.]

5. Informatics experts. With business intelligence and analytics becoming increasingly important, Moreno said we’re bound to see a need for leaders in informatics integration. The industry is starting to see a higher degree of attention on finding newer and more aggressive BI and analytics tools, which, in turn, will call for, “analysts, HL7 developers, designers, integrators,” said Moreno. “This is a very strong need moving forward in the whole space for BI and analytics, as we look to measurement and criteria around healthcare.”

6. Clinical and revenue analysts. Finally, Moreno said to look for a “whole slew of clinical and revenue analysts.” According to him, these professionals should understand both types of information and what impact it has on mandates such as ICD-10. “These are areas that are going to be in high demand in the next four years or so,” he said. 

Follow Michelle McNickle on Twitter @Michelle_writes

Occupy Wall Street is everywhere and anywhere you turn, and although demands are unclear, the movement has garnered unprecedented support across the country. But one offspring of Occupy Wall Street has failed to gain the same coverage, despite its united efforts and clear demands: Occupy Healthcare.

According to the site OccupyHealthcare.net, “Healthcare is a morass of competing interests, and a majority of those competing interests are committed to maintaining the status quo. Make no mistake, there is a cacophony, and this cacophony is made up of the voices telling you that change in healthcare is impossible. They are wrong.” 

Whether you agree with the movement or not, knowledge is power, which is why we rounded up six things to know about the Occupy Healthcare movement: 

1. It has clear principles.  Unlike the Occupy Wall Street movement, Occupy Healthcare has managed to create a set of clear, guiding principles, making it easier to identify the goals of the movement and its beliefs. The site recently proposed the following:

• We believe healthcare is a right for all. 
• We believe the healthcare system, as it currently stands, is too costly and ineffective. 
• We believe that we should create a system that works to meet the needs of a person and community as a whole. 
• We believe patients, families, and communities should be at the center of all healthcare. 
• We believe that a truly effective, person-centered healthcare system should be built on prevention and wellness rather than illness and disease and that addressing social determinants of health is an integral component of improving health. 
• We believe monetary incentives should be tied to better outcomes and improved health, with increased rewards for improving the health of those most vulnerable among us. 

2. Supporters recognize American healthcare isn’t the best in the world.  On the site KevinMD.com, Mark Ryan, MD, explained why the healthcare system is in dire need of change. He argues that “contrary to the common wisdom,” the American healthcare system isn’t the best in the world. In a series of points defending his stance, he points to a World Health Organization analysis that ranks the U.S. healthcare system 37^th.  Additionally, the United States ranks 39^th in infant mortality, 43^rd for adult female mortality, and 42^nd for adult male mortality. “We rank last among seven developed Western-style democracies in U.S. healthcare performance,” Ryan wrote. “Our healthcare spending per capita is 50 percent greater than the next highest nation’s, and our healthcare spending in the U.S. is increasing faster than most other nations’.” Lastly, Ryan added, according to a recently released report from the Commonwealth Fund, the United States  scored 64 out of 100 points, lagging behind other developed nations. “Americans pay much more per person to support a healthcare system that does not function very well at all,” Ryan concluded. “[It] provides inadequate and unequal care for far too many people, and that leaves nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance. These are indicators of a system with significant, fundamental dysfunction.” 

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