College Grads On Work Hours

As you can tell, I have been slow on the posts lately…too much work. Today (for example), I have a breakfast meeting in Boston, an afternoon meeting in Minneapolis, and then fly to Phoenix for a morning meeting on Wednesday. Crazy day.
But, all this made the USA Today Snapshot in Section B catch [...]

Blogger’s Block

I never really knew what it was like to have writer’s block.  I didn’t have pressure to write or some big manuscript.  I occasionally suffer from block in being creative, but that is usually worked through by focusing on something else or going for a good run.
This week has been so busy with several big [...]

Developing Policy Through Social Networking Tools

I was looking for something else early this morning and was surprised to see that Senator McCain (or someone on his staff) had posted the following question on LinkedIn.  So far, there are well over 2,000 answers.  I think this is a healthy use of a tool like this to get feedback.
What is the biggest [...]

Medco on Future of Pharmacy

Medco has introduced a new publication called Perspectives. The one I just read was by Dr. Robert Epstein who is their Chief Medical Officer and is about how pharmacy will become personalized, specialized, and consumer driven. It is a well written piece with some good and interesting facts. Here are a facts [...]

Pharmacists to Prescribe?

Someone asked me if I thought pharmacists would be allowed to prescribe medication to patients. I’m not familiar with any legislation on this topic (although there well might be some).
My opinion is that the better model is that physicians are responsible for diagnosing and basically writing a prescription for the type of drug (e.g., [...]

Communications As Trend Mgmt Tool for Pharmacy: Cliff Notes

Here are a few points from my recent webinar on this topic. If you are interested and a potential client, I would be happy to share the detailed content with you offline.
[Since all our competitors tried to sign up to listen in, I won't give away everything here.]

Talked about all the value sitting on [...]

Real Life Biggest Loser

We all know that being in shape has lots of health benefits.  The issues of being overweight drive healthcare costs through the roof.  There is plenty of data out there about the obesity trends in the US.  The reality is that losing weight is hard.
The show The Biggest Loser does a great job of showing [...]

Flooding

I am fortunate to live in high ground in Missouri, but this is definitely the closest the flooding has come.  As close as 2 miles away, my friends neighborhoods are almost inaccessible.  They had to have a fire department park in their neighborhood for a few days since once the water crested, there neighborhood would [...]

3 Party Election

Not that this has anything to do with healthcare other than the fact that the outcome of the election will be important in setting the direction for the US healthcare system.
But, I can’t help but wonder why we wouldn’t finally see a legitimate 3rd party candidate this year.  If Obama and Clinton can’t have a [...]

Great Book - Microtrends

At PBMI, one of the best speakers was Kinney Zalesne who with Mark Penn wrote the book Microtrends. I just finished reading the book - all 370+ pages. I found it to be one of the most engaging non-fiction books I have read in a long time…which says a lot. I have [...]

Traveling Fun – No ID

Of course, when I show up at the Boston airport yesterday for a quick day trip down south, I can’t find my license. I hate the fact that you have to take it out of your wallet at security and sometimes at the car rental place. It just increases the probability of losing [...]

Non-PC: Is Recession Good For HealthCare?

I am sure this is not a politically correct topic to discuss, but the thought crossed my mind.  Since 75% of the US thinks we are in a recession, I think we can assume that people will act as if we are in a recession.  Never mind the economist definition of whether it’s a recession.
So, [...]

What Does Spitzer Teach Us About Sharing Information?

While staying away from some of the issues around Spitzer, there is one that I found very interesting.  How does someone spend $4,000 (or $80,000) total without their spouse knowing?  I guess maybe when you have too much money that can happen.  I talked with 10 of my friends about it and in general they [...]

Another Simple Example

I forgot the example I use the most around communications.
My first consulting project transitioning from architecture to business was for a friend’s architecture firm.  I was a 22-year old who thought I knew everything, and he was the president of a 50-person firm that he had been running for 20+ years and had taken over [...]

Customer Service Communications

Yesterday, we got a welcome surprise from a store where we had recently purchased a new couch.  They called to offer us a $750 gift card!  I had complained that I was unhappy with the installation of the couch and that it took 3 visits for them to get it resolved.
That made me start thinking [...]

Health 2.0: Observations

(Note that this is a follow-up post to my summary of the conference.)

First, I have to say that I feel old. At Monday night’s reception, someone guessed that I was late 40’s (not that there’s anything wrong with that but it’s a decade off). For years, I wanted to be older (as a [...]

Health 2.0: My Notes

I am just flying back from the Health 2.0 conference out in San Diego. I feel like there is a ton of information that I want to share so kudos to Matthew and Indu for the great job. (And, if you make it to the end of this post, you must really like [...]

Global Eating Habits

I typically delete almost all e-mails that I get at home with attachments (based on general paranoia about viruses). But, my cousin sent me one about global eating habits which is basically a photo essay with a few “statistics”. Of course, it has no source so I post it as believable and good [...]

Single Answer or Multiple Answers

I was having an interesting discussion yesterday about how to solve a problem.  The two opinions were whether there is a best answer or whether there are multiple best answers.  It’s a great question.
Let’s frame it this way.  Is there a message that is most likely to drive compliance for a group?  I gave them [...]

Excellent Versus Very Good Service

On my vacation, we took the kids on a Disney Cruise.  We also went last January.
For the first time, I think I can actually differentiate between very good and excellent on the survey.  I always struggle with that and tend to grade down.  In general, we love the Disney experience and the cruise is very [...]

Handwriting Analysis

This has always been a topic that fascinates me.  Learning from someone’s handwriting.  So I liked seeing a cliff note summary of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis by Sheila Lowe in Spirit Magazine.  I am not sure I would be ready for this to be part of an employment process although I have [...]

The Wii - Learning Tool / Real Exercise

After posting on Sunday about “embodied cognition” which talks about learning better while being active, I found it interesting to play a Wii that my kids had borrowed that night.  Initially, it simply made me think about what a great medium this could be to teach people especially people that learn through experience.
Then, I played [...]

Types of Business Blogs

I was looking at something that someone sent me from Paul Gillin’s Social Media Report about different types of blogs. I found it pretty interesting especially some of the examples.
First, he talks about company blogs including the CEO blog and the group blog. They definitely can be interesting, but it really is a question [...]

Physician Driving Revenue?

My friend had an interesting experience the other day.  She had a call from her primary care physician’s office asking her to come in for an appointment.  But, when she asked the staff why, they didn’t have an answer.  The woman that called simply said that the doctor had asked her to call and set [...]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I hope you all are enjoying the holidays whether it is Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas or another holiday. As we move into a New Year, I find it is always a time to sit back and reflect. What did I accomplish this year? Am I on track for my personal or professional goals [...]

My Poker Analogy for Healthcare

I have a group of guys who I play poker with at least once a month. We play Texas Hold’Em which is all the rage and even on ESPN. One of the guys who follows my blog asked me why I didn’t compare poker to healthcare since I use every other analogy from [...]

Looking for an Acquisition - Speculation

With the stock market handsomely rewarding the PBMs especially Medco and Express Scripts, they have cash and stock value to go on the acquisition path. Express Scripts has grown through acquisition over the years leading up to its acquisition of several specialty pharmacy companies a few years ago. In the St. Louis Business [...]

Is Healthcare Missing a Generational Opportunity?

I think a lot about some of the new marketing tactics being used by consumer product companies – sponsorship (e.g., McDonalds Holiday Lights at the Beach Presented by Verizon Wireless), advertisements or product placement in video games, corporate tattoos, YouTube videos, MySpace personas, and Second Life avatars. Logically, who cares about most of [...]

Do We Eat Our Own Dog Food?

I don’t know the answer here, but I am sure someone out there does. The question is whether healthcare professionals are bigger utilizers of healthcare services (e.g., MRIs, prescriptions, well visits, etc.). I always want to know that from service providers. If you are selling me a CRM (customer relationship management) application, [...]

$200K Word Change

I was talking with a friend last week who has spent all his time at small, nimble companies. He was amazed at the challenge of getting something prioritized and completed in a big IT shop where process can often kill flexibility. There are lots of reasons for this – doing all the small [...]