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DJP Update 6-2-2007 -CMO Gary Epstein leaves AMA; AMA
& Sermo; Pay-for-Performance; Gadgets; French exhibit Femme, Femme, Femme at
NOMA
ITEM ONE: AMA's marketing chief leaving to run XM radio channel Chicago
Tribune story by Bruce Japsen: "Chief Marketing Officer Gary Epstein, who
helped lead a $60 million campaign...." departs AMA.
ITEM TWO: AMA and Sermo Enter Into Partnership To Empower Physician On-line
Forum and more. See press releases below.
ITEM THREE: Is pay-for-performance good for the heart? UPI Article about
study in JAMA June 6, 2007 "...no significant difference"
ITEM FOUR: Gadgets - Portable GPS devices
ITEM FIVE: French Femme, Femme, Femme Exhibition at NOMA - last chance to
see it starts at midnight Saturday and ends midnight Sunday, June 3.
In you are near enough to make the exhibit, don't miss it. You will not be
disappointed!
Donald J. Palmisano, MD, JD
Intrepid Resources / The Medical Risk Manager Company
5000 West Esplanade Ave., #432
Metairie, LA 70006
504-455-4895 office
504-455-9392 fax
312-560-0180 cell
DJP@intrepidresources.com
www.intrepidresources.com
ITEM ONE: AMA's marketing chief leaving to run XM radio channel
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-
sat_ama_0602_jun02,0,1695889.story?coll=chi-business-hed
AMA's marketing chief leaving to run XM radio channel
By Bruce Japsen
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 2, 2007
American Medical Association Chief Marketing Officer Gary Epstein, who
helped lead a $60 million campaign to reinvigorate the Chicago-based doctors
group's image and revive sagging membership, is heading to satellite radio.
Epstein, who joined the AMA three years ago, will become chief executive
officer of Northbrook-based ReachMD, a 24-hour news and talk channel for
health-care professionals on XM Satellite Radio, the AMA confirmed.
Epstein's departure date has not yet been determined, the AMA said.
The brand campaign included an updated logo and ads depicting doctors as
"everyday heroes." Last year the AMA said the brand campaign boosted the
number of dues-paying members by 3,300, or 2.5 percent. However, it did not
turn around a decadelong decline in overall membership at a time when the
number of doctors continues to grow. The AMA plans to update its 2006
membership numbers at the group's annual meeting in Chicago this month.
The AMA, which once represented two-thirds of the nation's doctors, now
represents about 250,000 -- or less than one-third -- of the nation's
physicians. The organization's recruiting has suffered from perceptions that
it is a self-interested trade group and from the growth of specialty
societies.
A high membership count is critical to the group's morale and
clout, particularly in Washington, where the group has been in an
almost constant battle for reimbursement dollars, liability reform and
other issues important to physicians these days.
The AMA is currently in an uphill battle to head off cuts in
Medicare reimbursement to doctors as Congress and the Bush administration
are struggling with ways to pare a budget deficit and pay for the Iraq war.
The AMA's chief executive, Dr. Michael Maves, praised
Epstein's accomplishments. "Few other people in the history of the AMA have
had the impact on the AMA brand that Gary has," Maves said in a statement.
"Gary's influence is clearly visible and will be a lasting testament to his
work and creativity."
bjapsen@tribune.com
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ITEM TWO: AMA and Sermo Enter Into Partnership To Empower Physician
http://www.sermo.com/
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/17614.html
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AMA and Sermo Enter Into Partnership To Empower Physicians
Nation’s largest physician organization teams with leading online physician
community to hear and act on physicians’ needs in a way never before
possible Cambridge, MA – May 30, 2007 – The American Medical Association
(AMA) and Sermo today announced a collaborative agreement to
empower physicians by making their collective voice heard in a way
never before possible. By teaming with Sermo, the AMA will be able
to address important professional and public health issues in a multi-phase,
multi-year alliance aimed at improving medical practice, physician advocacy,
and patient care.
“The Sermo community represents an innovative forum for physicians to share
their voice with the AMA and discuss emerging issues on the front lines of
medicine,” said Cecil B. Wilson, M.D., chair of the AMA Board. “Engaging
with Sermo’s virtual community adds to the resources the AMA can call upon
to rapidly assess and respond to the issues and concerns of physicians
across the Unites States.”
The AMA and Sermo have been working together to create initiatives that have
a tangible value for physicians. “We’re working with Sermo to learn how we
can use cutting edge Web technology to better serve our physician members
and help advance our strategic pillars of advocacy, communications and
involvement,” said Dr. Wilson.
As part of this relationship, AMA and Sermo will work together to:
Create a direct line of communication between physicians and AMA leadership
by allowing AMA to pose questions, get feedback, and observe real-time
discussions on Sermo about medical practice, treatment options, and the
latest advances in clinical care.
Include a “Discuss on Sermo” link in AMA print and online publications,
including the AMA’s award-winning American Medical
News, which reach more than 350,000 physicians. This new link will allow
physicians nationwide to immediately discuss, survey, and corroborate
opinions about the latest health care news and research.
Leverage Sermo to help AMA policy development around public health issues.
Create a special home in the Sermo community specifically designed for AMA’s
physician members.
Amplify the most hotly debated issues among physicians within the Sermo
community by producing a “Top Postings” column in the weekly AMA eVoice
e-newsletter, which reaches more than 100,000 physicians nationwide.
Nearly 75 percent of office-based physicians work alone or in small group
practices, with few opportunities to interact with peers or their
professional organizations. Physicians are further burdened by increasing
case loads, medical liability, reduced Medicare reimbursement, unprecedented
numbers of uninsured patients, and managed care pressures on
physician-patient relationships. In this environment, today’s physicians
must manage more responsibilities with less time and resources -- all while
trying to deliver the best possible care for patients.
By leveraging Web 2.0 technology, Sermo is providing a much needed online
forum for physicians to interact. In just six months, Sermo has become the
“go-to” place for thousands of physicians nationwide to ask and answer
questions of each other, build consensus around the latest medical trends,
and exchange insights about drugs, devices and treatment options. The Sermo
community has rapidly become an important new way for physicians to connect
with each other, and now to connect directly with professional associations
such as the AMA.
“Sermo shows how new technologies can make a direct impact on the practice
of medicine,” said CEO of Sermo, Daniel Palestrant, M.D. “We’ve established
an entirely new information exchange never before possible that is
empowering physicians and giving them a collective voice they’ve never had.
Now the AMA will have a direct line to the physician community at large and
can instantaneously see trends and issues challenging physicians
nationwide. This relationship opens the flood gates for hundreds of
thousands of physicians to work together on Sermo and apply their collective
thinking to revolutionize medical practice and better serve the public
health.”
About Sermo
Launched in September 2006, Sermo is already the largest online physician
community, ever. Sermo’s Web-based platform provides a medium for
physicians to aggregate observations from daily practice then — rapidly and
in large numbers — challenge or corroborate each other’s opinions. This
forum accelerates the discovery of emerging trends and provides new insights
into medications, devices and treatments. Through Sermo, physicians exchange
knowledge with each other the minute it is learned and gain potentially life
saving insights from colleagues as they happen instead of waiting to
read about them in conventional media sources. Sermo harnesses the power of
collective wisdom and enables physicians to discuss new clinical findings,
report unusual events, and work together to improve patient care in a way
never before possible. Through its unique business model, Sermo is free to
physicians and has no advertising or promotion. Based on a system of
information arbitrage, Sermo allows healthcare organizations, financial
services firms and industry analysts to access the community’s collective
knowledge on a subscription basis. For more information, visit
www.sermo.com.
About the American Medical Association
The American Medical Association helps doctors help
patients by uniting physicians nationwide to work on the most
important professional and public health issues. Working together, the
AMA's quarter of a million physician and medical student members are playing
an active role in shaping the future of medicine. For more information on
the AMA, please visit www.ama-assn.org.
Press Contacts:
Gregory Shenk
Sermo Marketing Communications
Phone: (617) 497-1110
E-mail: gshenk@sermo.com
Robert J. Mills
AMA Media Relations
Phone: (312) 464-5970
E-mail: robert.mills@ama-assn.org
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ITEM THREE: Is pay-for-performance good for the heart?
http://www.upi.com/Health_Business/Briefing/2007/06/01/
is_payforperformance_good_for_the_heart/4705/print_view/
Is pay-for-performance good for the heart?
DURHAM, N.C., June 1 (UPI) -- The recent trend in giving hospitals financial
perks to meet certain quality measures doesn't seem to help heart attack
patients, says a U.S. study. A study done at Duke University suggests
that a pay-for-performance program at hospitals was not associated with
significant improvement in quality of care or in outcomes for heart attack
patients.
"The concept of providing financial incentives to healthcare givers to
improve quality of care, known as pay for performance, has received national
attention as a potential means of narrowing well-documented gaps between
healthcare guidelines and clinical practice," said the Duke team.
The researchers looked at data from 105,383 patients with acute,
non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction who were treated between July
2003 and June 2006 at 54 hospitals in a Medicare pay-for-performance pilot
and at 446 control hospitals.
They found no significant difference in the rate of improvement in the
composite score on quality-care measures between the two hospital groups.
The team noted that, for two of the six Medicare-advised measures -- aspirin
prescription at discharge and smoking cessation counseling -- the rate of
improvement was slightly higher at the pay-for-performance hospitals,
compared to the control hospitals.
However, for composite measures of heart attack treatments not subject to
incentives, rates of improvement were not significantly different, the
authors said, and both hospital groups saw a roughly similar, slight decline
in heart attack death rates over time.
"This study is one of the first to evaluate the ... pay-for-performance
pilot project," the authors said. "Among hospitals
participating in a voluntary quality-improvement registry,
pay-for-performance had limited incremental impact on processes of care
and outcomes for acute myocardial infarction. Conversely, we did not
find evidence that pay-for-performance had an adverse impact on improvement
in processes of care that were not subject to financial incentives."
Medicare launched the pilot program in 2003.
The study appears in the June 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association.
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ITEM FOUR: Gadgets - Portable GPS devices
In the last DJP Update I did not mention portable GPS devices. My favorite
is the Garmin Nuvi 350. It fits in a pocket and is
terrific. More info at:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=6290
The price is less than $500 in most places.
I have used it East Coast, West Coast, North and South in USA and also in
Canada. Easy to use. Also it holds photos on a memory card and plays MP3
music. A new model is even smaller (200 model) but I have not used it.
There is no monthly charge to use it. Just buy it and use our satellites
free.
A backup concept is the GPS built into the BlackBerry 8800 that I own.
However, it costs $9.95 cents per month for the GPS service. Nice to have
the backup as I noted this past week when AMA president-elect Dr. Ron Davis
was in New Orleans for a speech. Ron and his wife Nadine requested a tour
of the Katrina-damaged areas. We went to the lakefront, Lakeview, New
Orleans East, and then to the lower Ninth Ward. Returning from the lower
Ninth Ward I discovered the bridge over the Industrial Canal blocked by a
military vehicle. Trying to find an alternative route out, I got turned
around and pulled out the BlackBerry phone with GPS as I forgot my Garmin
at home. Within a minute it told me my location and gave me an alternative
route that was not blocked. A wonderful magical gadget that can prevent
grief especially when you are on a trip and get lost.
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ITEM FIVE: French exhibit at NOMA - last chance to see it starts at midnight
Saturday and ends midnight Sunday.
Go to: www.noma.org
*****NEWS ALERT*****NEWS ALERT*****
Femme, Femme, Femme Exhibition Closes With Marathon Day. Final day of
Femme, femme, femme to last 24 hours
Femme, femme, femme: Paintings of Women in French Society from Daumier to
Picasso from the Museums of France will be open for a marathon 24-hour day
to close out the exhibition. The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) will
remain open to visitors from 11:59 p.m. Saturday, June 2nd to 11:59 p.m.
Sunday, June 3rd. Femme, femme, femme will close forever Sunday, June 3rd at
midnight. "....paintings by such artists as Renoir, Degas, Manet,
Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso, Femme, femme, femme celebrates the emergence
of the modern woman as seen through art."
Robin and I saw it today and it is wonderful.
This exhibit is a magnificent gift by France to help New Orleans
post-Katrina. In addition to millions of dollars given by the French
citizens to the French Red Cross to help in the devastated areas,
an exhibition of French art was promised to assist New Orleans in
its recovery and to revive tourism in New Orleans. Femme, femme, femme is
the result. Some of the art left France for the first time. A book of all
of the paintings is available for purchase from NOMA
Thank you, our friends in France!
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Hope you enjoyed the update!
DJP
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