A lot of good blogging has been going on here! There has been so much rich information shared in just the past few weeks. At the risk of “dumbing down” the insights of my fellow bloggers (or misquoting them!), here’s my attempt to roundup the last couple of weeks.

A few core themes unexpectedly emerged from our group. We mentioned a few innovations in healthcare that seem to be working in small pockets: complementary/alternative medicine and focusing on patients as humans. However, there were a lot of “innovations” in which we questioned their true sustainability and value. For example, CMS’s sexy disease management projects are stumbling. Even the sacred concept of academic medical research is being questioned. Employers are still deciding whether divest, disinvest, or divert their resources to health benefits, since the results are still mixed. The jury is still out on P4P. We’ve rightfully casted a grand vision about the promise of EHR, but maybe we’re overpromising. Disease management, in particular, has been victim to the inherent difficulty in measuring it meaningfully - the early results can be deceiving, partly due to a potentially non-representative sample group.

Beyond prognosticating the goods, bads, and uglies, much needed advice has been given. Healthcare is complex, and clear thinking is rare. So, let’s be clear that the next big disruptive force in healthcare may very well be the art of changing unhealthy human behavior. Yes, we humans are stubborn, even to the point of death. Thus, we need clear thinking about what’s really behind that stubbornness, and predictive medicine could very well be the way to figure it out. Changing behavior will require beautifully-designed proactive health management and disease management programs. And all the potential players (including hospitals) will need to define exactly what they are really managing and may have to utilize a more economically viable high tech/low touch approach.

Finally, we’ve blogged about getting more for less. Instead of spending money on end-of-life care, how about beginning-of-life care? Instead of asking your doc drug questions, why not visit your pharmacist for free? And instead of P4P paying for good intentions/processes, shouldn’t it pay for good outcomes?

And to think I only linked to half of the posts in the last two weeks! What other topics are you interested in? Please chime in!