Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:
Why doctors hate EMRs: It’s not because they’re technophobes. Rather, the electronic medical records software currently on the market is “crap” and slows them down. The problem is not so much that the software is too expensive, but that doctors can’t afford the loss of precious time when using EMRs, writes Shahid Shah.
When VCs call: With startup costs getting cheaper and cheaper, many entrepreneurs are finding that they don’t need venture capitalists the way their predecessors did. Nonetheless, here’s a list of questions entrepreneurs should ask themselves when approached by VCs, including “Am I willing to give up control?”
Health system rankings: Thomson Reuters reviewed eight metrics that gauge clinical quality and efficiency to come up with a list of the top 10 U.S. health systems. Among the top 10, four are from Ohio and eight are from the Midwest.
In defense of … : Not that it’s a tough sell in America, but the CEO of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis defends the role of capitalism in healthcare.
Corporate blogging made easy: Xconomy profiles startup Curata, whose software scans the Internet for content related to a company’s product or market, aggregates it, and sorts it by relevance. The technology takes the idea of a corporate blog in a different direction, and purports to help companies build a more authoritative voice on a particular topic or market, without having to create loads of original content.
CVS, Walgreens make nice: Ending what had become an amusing public spectacle, CVS and Walgreens kissed and made up. The two reached a financial agreement under which Walgreen pharmacies will continue to fill prescriptions for customers covered by CVS Caremark’s pharmacy benefits program.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
More on carried interest: “Among other things, we are acting as if VCs are somehow precious flowers, who, if unable to earn money at a lower tax rate would gather up their term sheets and go play somewhere else,” writes Paul Kedrosky. “This is, to use the technical term, bulls**t. Most VCs are unemployable outside venture capital, so the idea that they will go find something else that pays as much for so little effort is absurd.”
Photo from flickr user youngthousands
