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.

WASHINGTON—Live from the World Health Care Congress, here's an interview with Dr. Bill Bria, chief medical information officer of Shriners Hospitals for Children and president of the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems. We talk about the increasing importance of CMIOs as hospitals align their IT strategies with overall institutional goals, including quality improvement, and we discuss the similar growth of AMDIS. Bria also plugs the annual AMDIS Physician-Computer Connection, which is OK with me since I've been shameless in plugging my article in Red Herring.

NEW ORLEANS—Since time of the essence this week, I'm keeping this post short.

This is a fairly short, off-the-cuff interview with Dave Garets, president and CEO of HIMSS Analytics, kind of a teaser for Garets' "Riffing on the Issues" session on Tuesday with Partners HealthCare CIO John Glaser at the annual HIMSS conference.

Of note, HIMSS Analytics is announing Tuesday that it is expanding its research of hospital IT capabilities into Canada, but you heard it here first. But that's not all you'll get out of this podcast. Garets gives his take on the state of the health IT industry, circa February 2007.

If I had more time, I'd include a detailed description of the contents of this podcast, but since I have deadlines to meet tonight, I'm going to pass. Click here to listen.

More recordings to come later this week.

Podcast details: Interview with HIMSS Analytics CEO Dave Garets. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 5.9 mb, running time 12:56.

From the Department of Better Late than Never comes this podcast, recorded two weeks ago, in advance of the first-ever Healthcare Blogging Summit, which was held Dec. 11 in Washington, D.C. But thanks to my crazy schedule, this interview was not posted until Dec. 15 in a Florida hotel room. Most of the information is still relevant. Promise.

In this interview, Dmitriy Kruglyak, creator of the Medical Blog Network, a healthcare-focused publication in a blog format, talks with me about the growth of blogging in healthcare and explains his current project, the HealthTrain Manifesto. Essentially, it’s a statement of integrity guidelines for the highly unstructured world of grass-roots healthcare media.

Podcast details: Dmitriy Kruglyak, creator of the Medical Blog Network and HealthTrain Manifesto. MP3, mono, 64 kbps, 15.6 MB, running time 34:11.0:50 Explanation of the Medical Blog Network
2:35 Healthcare Blogging Summit
3:40 Blogging’s effect on consumers and on healthcare organizations
5:20 The changing dynamics of information dissemination
5:51 Grass-roots transparency and how to respond to it
6:36 Speakers at the summit
8:47 Harnessing the power of the Web and new concepts on the Internet
11:25 Growth of individuals publishing information online
12:52 Power of blogging in other industries
13:45 Transformation of the role of traditional media
14:28 Blogging’s growth in healthcare
16:50 Evolution of the Internet in healthcare
18:37 HealthTrain Manifesto
19:21 Roots of it in ClueTrain Manifesto (late 1990s) for conversational media
20:51 How healthcare is different from other subject matter
22:13 HON Code and other earlier e-health standards more for top-down media
23:05 Holes that HealthTrain attempts to fill
24:21 Credibility of health information
25:10 The 18 concepts of the HealthTrain Manifesto
27:19 Survey of healthcare bloggers re: anonymity
29:48 More on how healthcare organizations should operate in new era of transparency
30:47 Support for HealthTrain Manifesto
33:00 Where to read manifesto and list of supporters

A new name on the healthcare scene is Sage Software, which entered the market in September with its $565 million purchase of Emdeon Practice Services from Emdeon Corp. Who is Sage Software and what are the company's plans for the Intergy brand name? At last week's Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago, I sat down with Paul Stinson, Sage's senior vice president of healthcare, to find out.

Audio quality isn't the best because a lot of ambient noise made its way into the interview booths in the press room, but I don't think it's worse than listening to AM radio.

Podcast details: Interview with Paul Stinson, senior vice president of healthcare for Sage Software, Nov. 27, 2006. MP3, 64kbps, 11.6 MB, running time 25:23.

0:40 Background on acquisition and on Sage
1:30 Sage’s history in accounting software
2:40 Intergy’s history in radiology and imaging
3:35 Sage’s market share
4:00 View of radiology market as part of bigger healthcare picture
5:30 Growth potential in EHR and size of customer base
6:37 Target market
8:00 Division of product line between Intergy and Medware
9:24 Assessment of market for smallest practices
11:45 Effect of Stark exemption on the market
13:37 Effect of CCHIT certification on the market
15:24 Evolution of market in next two years
17:25 Continuing relationship with WebMD
18:16 Growing interest in PHRs and providing information to patients
19:08 Physicians warming to sharing scheduling information online
20:55 Online communication with patients and e-prescribing
22:53 Patient safety improvements and malpractice insurance rates
23:40 Privacy and security issues