During Monday’s TEPR Cell Phone Project press conference, I peppered AllOne executives with some tough questions about their plans, and was not shy about voicing my skepticism about personal health records. In a rare show of tact on my part, I did so without offending anyone. In fact, Frank Avignone, director of business and sales development for AllOne Health subsidiary AllOne Mobile, agreed to join me the following day to record this podcast.

ORLANDO, Fla.—Here’s a podcast that’s been a year in the making. Actually, it was a year plus an hour and a half. Last year in New Orleans, I had a lively, hour-long conversation with HIMSS President and CEO Steve Lieber that was supposed to be for a podcast, but the recording didn’t work.

On Saturday, I showed up at the appointed hour for another sit-down with Lieber, and realized I’d forgotten my recorder back at my hotel, so we rescheduled for about 90 minutes later. Well, the third time was a charm, and the result is this podcast, a lively, half-hour-long conversation with Steve Lieber, just ahead of the opening of the annual HIMSS conference.

Podcast details: Interview with Steve Lieber at HIMSS ’08. MP3, mono, 64kbps, 13.8 MB. Running time 30:10.

0:30 Expected attendance of 27,000+
1:15 Greater attention on technology in healthcare
1:45 Growth on clinical side
2:50 More interest from non-IT executives
4:00 E-prescribing as an example of IT crossing disciplines
5:45 Multiple opportunites for improvements in prescribing and medication administration
6:30 Continuing problems with access to capital
8:50 Prospects for Medicare payment reform
10:07 Health IT in the presidential campaign
11:15 Health IT debate remains largely nonpartisan.
12:40 Progress among private payers in reimbursement for quality
14:00 More focus on disease management than quality per se
14:40 Slow adoption of personal health records
15:42 Suitability of PHRs for chronically ill
17:30 Kids may be first major PHR constituency in general population.
18:05 Google, Microsoft and Revolution Health in healthcare and HIMSS keynotes from Eric Schmidt and Steve Case
20:00 Movement toward home health
20:40 HIMSS strategic interest in medical devices
21:40 HIMSS branching out as an association
22:30 Interoperability of financial and administrative information
23:10 Working for universal set of quality measures
23:35 Globalization of HIMSS
26:00 Standardization beyond the U.S., e.g., Snomed
27:00 Highlights of HIMSS conference: Interoperability Showcase
28:00 Public meetings at HIMSS, including AHIC
29:03 International registration

From the Department of Better Late Than Never comes this podcast with Nick Jacobs, CEO of Windber Medical Center in Windber, Pa., who's well known in some circles for being perhaps the first hospital chief in the country to write his own blog.

Nick's Blog has been around since May 2005, and Jacobs also contributes to Hospital Impact and to the World Health Care Blog. Paul Levy at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston has been writing his blog since August 2006. (I've got them both beat, as my blog dates to May 2004. But I am not going to brag until I get the kind of traffic that HIStalk does. That blog, which I've heard referred to as the "National Enquirer of health IT," recently passed 1 million visitors. I'm still looking up at 30,000.)

Speaking of historical records, I've been sitting on this podcast since September, when Jacobs was in Chicago for the third Healthcare Blogging & Social Media Summit way back in September. I've got an even older recording in the podcast pipeline, and who knows when I'll get to that? I did write about Jacobs in Digital HealthCare & Productivity in early October, but now you can hear what he's all about.

Podcast details: Interview with Nick Jacobs, CEO of Windber (Pa.) Medical Center. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 9 MB. Running time 19:34.

0:49 Genesis of the blog
2:02 How blogging helps a small hospital compete with larger hospitals
2:50 His message
3:45 Early blog posts and how he started taking more risks
4:50 Motivating employees via the blog
5:40 Keeping local mass media honest
6:40 The global reach of the Internet: “You can never be a prophet in your own home town.�
8:00 Why other hospital CEOs don’t blog
9:20 Being the first to take the plunge
10:00 Why healthcare is so slow to turn to IT
10:40 Windber’s cancer research for the military
11:30 National recognition and local indifference: “reverse urban snobbery�
12:30 Transparency in healthcare
13:45 Flaws in public reporting requirements
15:30 High tech at small hospitals
16:20 Using the Internet to build a reputation
17:30 Market challenges for a small hospital
18:04 The future and his passion for change in healthcare

SAN FRANCISCO--Dr. David Brailer is a very popular man these days. Having $700 million of Other People’s Money to invest, as his company, Health Evolution Partners does, tends to do that. At the Health 2.0 Conference today, it took an hour and 15 minutes for him to fend off the suitors and finally sit down with me for this brief but lively podcast about his new venture and about the current state of health information technology in America. I think it was worth the wait.

(Everyone else is blogging this event live. I can’t keep up, so thought I’d try something different.)

Podcast details: Interview with Dr. David Brailer on Health Evolution Partners and progress in health IT. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 4.5 MB. Running time 9:53.

0:34 Investment strategy
1:05 Surprise since he started the fund
1:40 About the company
2:25 Why he’s not looking at biotechnology
2:55 Health 2.0
3:35 Investing through venture partners
3:45 Assessment of national health IT adoption
4:35 Health IT hasn’t become politicized
5:05 Tough issues still unsettled
6:13 RHIOs
6:50 Shakeout in health IT (and interruption from siren outside the window)
7:50 Advice to people involved in RHIOs
8:08 Personal health records and consumerism

Last month, I blogged about the "personal" nature of electronic health records in France, based on a blog post by American-born, Paris-based health IT consultant Denise Silber. Well, Denise read my post and e-mailed me, or maybe it was I who sent the link to her. I've been in Vegas the last three days and the memory is a bit fuzzy at this stage. A few e-mails later, I had her on the phone for this podcast. Enjoy.

Podcast details: HIT consultant Denise Silber on European initiatives. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 10.3 MB, running time 22:36

1:00 Background on her e-health consulting and marketing work
2:40 France's "personal medical record"
3:40 Fears of Big Brother on both sides of the Atlantic and French data privacy laws
4:25 Patient control of records in France
5:15 HIPAA confusion in the U.S.
6:00 Conflicts between French law and European standards for physicians, and patient concealment of personal health information
6:55 Usage and costs of French health system, including electronic insurance cards
8:25 Differences between French system and other European health systems
9:42 Physician use of EMRs and computers in France
10:25 Current status of French EMR projects
11:47 Standards
12:28 Purpose of the French PMR
13:05 Accuracy and quality of consumer health information
14:45 Physician shortage in France
15:47 HON Code
16:47 New organization for health information improvement in France
18:45 Consumerism in healthcare and transparency
21:10 Other forms of information accreditation

This podcast pretty much covers the entire field. Dr. David Kibbe, senior advisor to the Center for Health Information Technology of the American Academy of Family Physicians, weighs in on health IT in primary care, consumerism, data standards, value-based healthcare purchasing and national IT policy, among many topics we cover in just over half an hour. We recorded this at the 2007 TEPR conference in Dallas last week.

Podcast details: Interview with Dr. David Kibbe at 2007 TEPR conference. MP3, mono, 64kbps, 16 MB, running time 35:090:40 Background on AAFP's Center for Health IT and what he's doing.
1:40 Personal health records and mobilization of personal health information
2:10 Continuity of Care Record
4:11 Continuity of Care Document and Clinical Document Architecture
5:25 CCR, PHRs and the Internet 6:20 Growth in CCR interest
7:00 PHRs based on XML
7:40 Google's healthcare plans
8:55 Reliability of health information on the Internet
10:00 Consumers having access to the same information as health professionals
10:45 Revolution Health
11:50 Web information and the physician/patient relationship
12:45 Higher expectations among patients
13:45 Consumerism and retail health clinics
15:00 AAFP's involvement in retail clinics
16:28 Concept of the medical home
18:00 Health information and the elderly
19:12 Model of information homes in other service industries
20:20 Asynchronous communication to help manage patient care
20:46 Reimbursement problems with asynchronous care
21:20 Employers becoming more aware of value in healthcare
22:15 Advice to major healthcare purchasers
23:00 When major changes might happen
23:45 Framing the national debate
25:15 Stark exemption and primary care
26:57 AAFP advice to small practices on the Stark exemption
28:40 Awareness of Stark exemption
30:30 Awareness of the benefits of EHRs
31:42 Certification
33:57 Are products improving because of certification?

WASHINGTON�As co-chair of the State Alliance for e-Health, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has been heavily involved in the health IT policy debate. He's also frustrated with the slow progress of technology adoption that's holding back gains in quality and efficiency (read "cost savings" from a governor's perspective). And Monday at the World Health Care Congress, he was not afraid to share his thoughts, as this short audio clip demonstrates.

Podcast details: Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen on health IT adoption, recorded April 23, 2007, in Washington, D.C. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 2.1 MB, running time 4:31.