Mighty Casey Media: Healthcare Is HILARIOUS!

This week, I’ve got my conversation with e-Patient Dave deBronkart. Dave became e-Patient Dave back in 2007 when he got a really big surprise - a diagnosis of terminal kidney cancer. Definitely NOT the kind of surprise anyone wants.

Spoiler alert - it wasn’t terminal, but it was certainly Stage 4, Grade 4, death sentence style cancer.

It wasn’t terminal because his doctor told him to check out a patient community forum for kidney cancer. Dave did, and the rest is literally history. The patient forum tipped him off to a treatment option that saved his life, so he’s in the bonus round for almost 12 years now. For which I am grateful, since he and I have only been buddies for the last 10 years.

Full show notes and links: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e-patient-dave-24864784

This week, it’s all Mighty Mouth, all the time. In other words, no guest, just yours truly.

I’m asking you to settle in, grab a cup of coffee - or you might want a big ol’ slug of bourbon for this one? - and listen as I spin a tale of lies, damn lies, statistics, and treachery, with the main bad actor of the piece being that thing that over two billion humans across the globe have become addicted t0: Facebook.

Why is a snarky healthcare podcast talking about Facebook? Welp, because the Book of Face has become the place where people facing health challenges go to find peer support, resources, research opportunities, and community while they face everything from cancer to neurological conditions to medical error to joint replacement. By the way, I’m not linking to any groups in the show notes. You’ll figure out why as I go along here.

Got your coffee? Your bourbon? Your coffee with bourbon in it? OK, here we go.

Full transcript and links here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/facebook-is-hole-24368777

image credit: kc green | gunshow comic

http://gunshowcomic.com/648

This week, you’ll hear from John Wilbanks, Chief Commons Officer at Sage Bionetworks. Yeah, that’s most definitely a Nerdus Maximus title, but John does very cool stuff around making data more accessible and usable by the research community AND he’s down with the idea of data as an economic resource for not just the big-money players, but also the humans who create that data.

Full show notes and links here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/john-wilbanks-on-23314230

This episode has some slices from a debate I had with Niam Yaraghi about whether or not people should be cut in on the gold being mined from the data all of us create every day in the digital economy. That happens with all parts of our digital lives, from online shopping to getting medical care.

Full show notes, including the video of the entire debate and a full transcript, are here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fypmdata-debate-22734144

This week, we’ve got Danny van Leeuwen, Health Hats himself! We met up at the Patient Centered Clinical Decision Support Learning Network annual meeting (mouthful, but it’s healthcare, and healthcare loves long and complicated), where Danny spoke about the patient perspective on pain management, and life in general, for folks dealing with chronic conditions.

Full show notes and links here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/danny-van-my-off-22139401

Hear all about health economics from Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, my bestie who keeps me up to date on all the 411 about impact on the consumer - that’s you and me, folks! - of the health policy arguments and health coverage ideas that happen all day, every day, from sea to shining sea. And beyond. Jane keeps it real, and really understandable.

Full show notes and links here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/healthcare-econ-21979075

This week you’re gonna hear from Lisa Suennen, Venture Valkyrie herself - she shares her thoughts on blockchain in tech (whiz bang buzzword alert!), on price transparency, and how tech continues to transform the healthcare landscape … slowly.

The combination of technology and humanity will indeed be the winner. That’s what I’m working toward, and what Lisa Suennen is devoting her time, talent, and treasure to on the daily. If you wanna stay woke on separating shiny objects in healthcare technology from the real tech-human acceleration machines, follow Venture Valkyrie’s “what would Lisa Suennen say?” insight factory, also known as her blog. She’s got a podcast, too - Tech Tonics, which she co-hosts with David Shaywitz.

Lisa Suennen on Twitter

https://venturevalkyrie.com/

https://twitter.com/VentureValkyrie

https://venturevalkyrie.com/

https://venturevalkyrie.com/the-tech-tonics-podcast/

Venture Valkyrie press clips:

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/lists/female-health-it-leaders-to-know.html

https://www.statnews.com/2018/06/06/lisa-suennen-health-care-gatekeeper/

Mentions:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/upshot/costs-health-care-us.html

https://medium.com/@mightycasey/selling-my-health-data-cut-me-in-bitches-447880201004

https://evidation.com/

https://allofus.nih.gov/

Corrie Painter, Broad: https://www.broadinstitute.org/bios/corrie-painter

Metastatic Breast Cancer Project: https://www.mbcproject.org/

Angiosarcoma Project: https://ascproject.org/home

Prostate Cancer Project: https://mpcproject.org/home

THIS WEEK’S RANT!

Speaking of spending like drunken sailors on healthcare, this week saw some hilarious fist fights over a report from the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank at George Mason University, that pearl-clutched over Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the Senate, exclaiming that Sanders’ plan would increase US healthcare spending by THIRTY TWO TRILLION DOLLARS OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS. Oh, the humanity!!

But … wait a minute.

We’re spending close to three and a half trillion a year right now, with costs predicted to increase in the next ten years by an average of 5.5% a year. Back of the napkin, simple arithmetic, that means that we’ll be spending close to FIFTY FIVE TRILLION bucks on healthcare in the next ten years with our current status quo payment model. So Bernie’s Big Idea looks like it could SAVE us almost TWENTY TRILLION BUCKS! And everybody would be covered.

So … LET’S DOOOOO EEEEET!

Oh, right, that’s a terrible idea. ‘Cause helping every American person be as healthy as possible is just a shitty idea, right?

‘Merica! It’s a wonderful country! Just don’t get sick!

Sponsor:

Danny van Leeuwen, also known as Health Hats - with his diverse and prolific health experience, Danny uses his multiple hats to empower people as they travel toward their best health. To join Danny on that best health journey visit his blog.

Music:

Movin’ On Up by Podington Bear

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Upbeat/MovinOnUp

Podcast distribution rights:

Creative Commons 3.0 license

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

This week’s episode features slices from a recent conversation I had with Matthew Holt, who is, among many other things, the founder of The Health Care Blog, co-founder of the Health 2.0 universe of conferences, now leading SMACK.health, an advisory and consulting network in healthcare and health tech.

If you want to know about what’s happening in health IT and technology, ask Matthew.

No, really, just ask him - not only does he KNOW, he knows it really fucking WELL. Like, he’s totally OG in WTF is going on in HIT. Fo’ realsies.

OECD social spending with bar graph - Financial Times

https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/11/27/2053392/welfare-spending-across-the-oecd/

US spending since 1960 - Statista

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184968/us-health-expenditure-as-percent-of-gdp-since-1960/

Healthcare outcomes by country - Commonwealth Fund (2017)

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/press-release/2017/new-11-country-study-us-health-care-system-has-widest-gap-between-people-higher

BoltyBoy on Twitter

https://twitter.com/boltyboy

Matthew on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-holt-6b52/

The Health Care Blog

http://thehealthcareblog.com/

Health 2.0

https://health2con.com/

SMACK.health

https://www.smackhealth.com/

EP3 Foundation

https://www.ep3foundation.org/

[Casey sez: interesting looking initiative on data security and public health imma keep my eye on]

THIS WEEK’S RANT!

Speaking of spending like drunken sailors on healthcare, this week saw some hilarious fist fights over a report from the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank at George Mason University, that pearl-clutched over Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill in the Senate, exclaiming that Sanders’ plan would increase US healthcare spending by THIRTY TWO TRILLION DOLLARS OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS. Oh, the humanity!!

But … wait a minute.

We’re spending close to three and a half trillion a year right now, with costs predicted to increase in the next ten years by an average of 5.5% a year. Back of the napkin, simple arithmetic, that means that we’ll be spending close to FIFTY FIVE TRILLION bucks on healthcare in the next ten years with our current status quo payment model. So Bernie’s Big Idea looks like it could SAVE us almost TWENTY TRILLION BUCKS! And everybody would be covered.

So … LET’S DOOOOO EEEEET!

Oh, right, that’s a terrible idea. ‘Cause helping every American person be as healthy as possible is just a shitty idea, right?

‘Merica! It’s a wonderful country! Just don’t get sick!

Sponsor:

Danny van Leeuwen, also known as Health Hats - with his diverse and prolific health experience, Danny uses his multiple hats to empower people as they travel toward their best health. To join Danny on that best health journey visit his blog.

Music:

Movin’ On Up by Podington Bear

Podcast distribution rights:

Creative Commons 3.0 license

This week, Healthcare is HILARIOUS has its first guest - and he’s a big get!

Victor Montori!

Victor’s an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic https://catalyst.nejm.org/about/thought-leaders/victor-montori/, and also the author of a call for a rebellion in healthcare, “Why We Revolt: A Patient Revolution for Careful and Kind Care” https://patientrevolution.org/whywerevolt/

We talked about how that “careful and kind care” might come to be - which put me in mind of a project called the Right Care Alliance https://rightcarealliance.org/ that’s working toward the same goal.

The Right Care Alliance defines right care as “a human right. It places the health and wellbeing of patients first. Right Care is affordable and effective. It is compassionate, honest, and safe. Right Care brings healing and comfort to patients, and satisfaction to clinicians. Achieving Right Care will require radically transforming how care is delivered and financed.” They have a national campaign going on insulin prices right now, you can join the party! https://rightcarealliance.org/actions/campaign-for-affordable-drug-prices/

Speaking of “The Best Medical Care in the World” (yeah, right), read this horrifying, heartbreaking piece in the New England Journal of Medicine. Wowzer. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms1802026

HEADLINES! THIS WEEK’S RANT!

Only one headline this week, and it’s also the weekly rant - two for one!

60 Minutes ran one hell of a piece this past Sunday, The problem with prescription drug prices. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-problem-with-prescription-drug-prices/ Let’s make greed-head pharma companies, and the pharmacy benefits manager mob who are their price enforcers, a prime target for the revolution, shall we?

CREDITS:

Health Hats by Danny van Leeuwen

https://www.health-hats.com/new-health-hats-blog/

Music:

Movin’ On Up by Podington Bear

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Upbeat/MovinOnUp

Creative Commons 3.0 license

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/