By Tony Chen

Da wife is working night shift this week, which means I'm flying solo taking care of the little one at night. That translates to no more than 3 consecutive hours of sleep at a time for 7 days, and thus significantly lower brainpower. ie I can only give you tidbits instead of something actually thought out (it took me 5 tries to spell "consecutive")

So now that I've made it appetizing to read on, here are some interesting tidbits from this sleep-deprived healthcare-saturated dad.

Wellness is kicking it up a notch, and mostly cuz employers are fed up of paying 15% more for healthcare each year. Read this Yahoo article - one 30-year-old man was fired for "drug addiction" - nicotine. Then, there's the story of the "healthy" superfit exec who reluctantly went to go have his heart checked after constant nagging from his company-paid health coach. Good thing he did, a few hours after the test, he had 2 stents installed.

Speaking of the new "prevention," the much-acclaimed RevolutionHealth portal has been officially "launched." I was hopeful that it would grow exponentially, but so far it hasn't. Nonetheless, it's still only a few weeks old. Last time I posted on them, they had 1,500 doctor ratings. Now, a few weeks later, they have 4,500. Yes indeed, the jury is still out - the true value comes only if people use it, but people will only use it if it's valuable - this is the name of the game of social media/tech.

Regarding tech, the techie conference is finally over. Matthew Holt's lovely HIMSS wrap-up includes some commentary on Colin Powell, new healthcare blogs, and EMR. Or you could go to Tim Gee's Medical Connectivity Blog. The "buzz" theme for HIMSS this year? Depends on who you talk to. Some folks have mentioned EHR and connectivity. HISTalk thinks the theme was that there wasn't one, but he names 5 companies that really impressed him (a mix of usual and unusual suspects) with their booth humor and/or their strategy.

Strategy is the name of the game as both Strategy+Business and McKinsey (reg req) recently wrote articles on fixing the healthcare mess. S+B comes closer to practical solutions - warning providers and heralding the coming of consumer-based retail-type medicine. Both bring up strategically sound but practically impossible principle of payors, consumers, and providers collaborating instead of competing. Nonetheless, both of these are worth the read.