Change:Healthcare, Owen faculty study consumers

ChangeHealthcare, which advocates transparency in healthcare services pricing and delivery, announced yesterday it has joined with Owen Graduate School of Management Professors Lawrence Van Horn and Luke Froeb to explore answers to the question, "How much does the price of healthcare have to vary before consumers will change their purchasing behavior?" The release is here.

FCC's fresh Net push

[Updated] True to his word, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined an ambitious broadband agenda, yesterday at the Brookings Institution. Read his remarks here (pdf). He's taking on Net Neutrality, provider transparency and other hot-button issues. Genachowski was running a VC fund before joining the Obama Administration. Update Sept. 30: The FCC estimates it'll cost $50BN or more to ensure broadband access to Americans who don't have it, and to increase broadband speed. The WSJ reports.

Locals leverage health indices

With quality, outcomes and transparency much talked about, Data Advantage LLC has published the Hospital Value Index, which, among other things, reports there is, on average, no difference in quality-of-outcomes between teaching hospitals and other hospitals, including community hospitals in smaller communities. Also locally, Healthways and Gallup continue to produce the Monthly U.S. Well-being Report.

Hospitalists get more ammo

With the pressure-trifecta of transparency, accountability and outcomes bearing-down on providers, Cogent Healthcare is touting a new study that shows hospitalists' patients have 'profoundly lower' re-admission rates. This is the kind of 'meaningful difference' for which all payers are increasingly scouting. Cogent's release is here. Related Cogent stories, here.

News media: 'Any dope with a modem'?

Nashville was graced this week with separate visits by New York Times Reporter and author Peter Applebome (at left) and PRNewswire Director of Emerging Technologies Michael Pranikoff. Applebome appeared Monday before Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff. Pranikoff spoke Tuesday, describing the online landscape for PR folks gathered at the Sheraton by PRNewswire. Both presentations were excellent and anything but cynical. Still, their respective roles inevitably produced different emphases: Applebome, among numerous weighty points, noted that consumers who want news are "overwhelmed," partly because the proliferation of online media means "we've gone from ten famous pundits, to any dope with a modem." In a way, he said, all this news and commentary has produced a Golden Age of journalism, despite the fact that media emphasis on sensation and action over deep treatment of issues makes most news coverage seem like a session of the videogame "Grand Theft Auto." He said he is concerned mainstream media are weakening, leaving in doubt who will produce the in-depth reporting done today by national newspapers. A day after Applebome, Pranikoff -- who was conducting a workshop for online tool users, not a philosophical discourse -- noted that based on Technorati data there are 4.5 million regular bloggers who consider themselves "journalists." Those bloggers -- and PR departments -- are to some extent replacing the content lost by the continuing shrinkage of formal newsrooms. Pranikoff stressed this means big opportunities for PR people to get their releases published, often 'word for word'. Stressing "transparency" as to both source and content, Pranikoff -- PRNewswire makes money when people send out more releases -- noted, "The only way to control the conversation is to keep talking" via frequent news releases, continually engaging bloggers, et cetera. While that makes sense from the standpoint of protecting one's reputation and promoting one's interests, it's also a clear signal that consumers who decide to fight their way through the blizzard of news and faux news, will have to search continually for sources they trust.