Commentary: Impact of Blogs on the DM Industry

A COMMENTARY
The Impact of BLOGS on the DM Industry: WILL BLOGS RULE?

Top 100 Global Healthcare Blog Sites

Well, maybe not… and hopefully they will stimulate/challenge us to explore new ideas and exchange ideas. Lately however a number of healthcare blogs have been stirring the pot concerning what the implications are of several reports on various DM-type Medicare demonstration/pilot programs that have been less than favorable. More specifically, the two programs that recently reported some negative results were”.

• The Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration Project – As reported in a recent issue of the weekly IDMA DM World Report, this 230 page analysis concluded largely negative results from the pilot. Certainly in terms of these programs generating any statistically relevant economic savings they were not were not successful.

• The Medicare Health Support Pilots – After about a year and a half the nine original programs have declined to only six that are still operating. In addition, even some of the remaining programs have reported [or are rumored to have] less than wanted/needed results. Apparently the DM pilots have been struggling to meet the net 5% savings requirement.

These reports and numerous BLOGS voicing concern about the future of the DM industry by a number of industry watchers have led to a recent “opinion article” by one of my fellow founders of the DMAA, Al Lewis. See link to his recent Health Leaders article, “New math provides epiphany for measuring ROI.” Al suggests, jokingly or not, that the current DM model may be dead, or at least “may be on its last legs,” and goes on to propose a future model. A vastly more integrated model.

As discouraging as these “headlines” appear to be, my primary concern, and the motivating force behind this COMMENTARY, is the potential impact of all these BLOGS [which frequently get picked up by the wire services and Google.com] could distort what is really happening in the industry because of the tendency to only read HEADLINES.

I would hope that serious trend watchers are also well aware that the DM industry is both new and evolving, for many reasons. The cry for more “integration” still resonates, as does the pending potential of “the docs are back” per the medical home and other more physician centric models that are popping up in the United States….and especially outside of the United States. The bottom-line 1ine is that new markets EVOLVE…and so will the DM “market.” That is what new markets DO.

If we want to see what the new world of disease management may look like, one needs only to look at the internationally adopted “Ed Wagner Chronic Care Model.” This highly integrated model is likely to be the next generation of DM in the US…as it is shaping up to be in Europe and Canada. Even in the US states the physician communities are adopting the Wagner model.

So, as Al did conclude at the end of his article, DM must “morph” into new models.

I do think this is already happening as the commercial DM companies are already aggressively acquiring prevention capabilities/companies and some of the DM Medicaid companies have pretty good experience in how to leverage the various important capabilities that already exist in the community.

So, no DM is not dead…just evolving. This is good…at least for those organizations that have good financial resources and are “light on their feet.”

Again, we may want to also look to the international community as there are a number of more “Wagner Model-oriented” DM programs that are surfacing in other countries.

The IDMA DM World e-Report is working hard to try to bring you news on what is happening both inside and outside of the United States.

In the meantime….as the IDMA also looks at weighing into the BLOG world soon, I believe that BLOGS as they exist today may be a double-edged sword.

At a time when we are all looking for our “teenager industry” to become more “research-based,” as demonstrated by some DM companies that have invested in more intensive research studies, I hope that the world of BLOGS does not pull us back into being an industry of mere opinion, sound bites, and headlines.

I only hope that BLOGS do not replace RESEARCH. Given our culture of “sound bites” it does concern me.

…….Just an opinion!!

Respectfully,

Warren E. Todd
Executive Director, IDMA
Email: wtodd@dmalliance.org
www.dmalliance.org
Tel: 908-806-3961

HealthLeaders - Jun. 29 2007:

The Blog and its Growing Impact on Healthcare
Tony Chen, director of new business development at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare in Evanston, IL, talks about the evolution and benefits of the healthcare blogosphere.

Listen to the audio feed
Go to...and scroll down...[http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/media/]