Maverick's Update

There is so much to read. The number of white papers, news stories, and blog posts that came out this week on burning health policy issues is overwhelming. Health Affairs must have set a new record for the number of blog posts (“Forefront” articles) published in a week: 13! To get through it all, we decided to use sugar therapy and purchased some SweeTARTS. Turns out, there is writing on those too. One word on each side of the SweeTART– like “funny and fierce” or “wild and wise.” This “be both” campaign is the candy company’s attempt to reach a new generation of candy-eaters who don’t want to choose between the multiple aspects of their awesomeness. In the One Thoughtful Paragraph, we explain how several authors are awesome in their clear descriptions of how private companies can help promote interoperability.

News demonstrating how organizations are being awesome in the digital health policy space: 

• The Peterson Health Technology Institute released a digital health assessment framework to evaluate the performance of health technologies like care management apps and remote patient monitoring.
• Health information exchange (HIE) platforms are helping with social determinants of health. Four HIEs are using $15.5 million from American Rescue Plan Act funding to create a single referral platform connecting Pennsylvania patients to social needs relevant to their healthcare. South Dakota’s Department of Health is leaning on health IT company Findhelp to develop a community information exchange that will help patients gain access to social services across the state.
• Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Brown University were supported by PatientRightsAdvocate.org and Arnold Ventures to assess the implementation of health plan and hospital price transparency requirements and how certain changes to health care pricing data can better help employers and consumers.

One Thoughtful Paragraph