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Could / Should Healthcare Follow The Car Dealer

June 16, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Healthcare is one of the few industries where more supply equals more demand.  (Maybe the only one.)

So, as we look at the healthcare shortage of PCPs, RN, and RPhs, should there be more discussion of closing locations?  Should we pursue the tact of the car manufacturers in closing dealerships to have less locations?  This would fly in the face of the MinuteClinic type of strategy.

Or, I guess the better question is whether there are certain points in the process where more access points are needed, but there are other points in the process where less access points are needed.  For example, do we really need 6x,000 retail pharmacies in the US.  Certainly, in some urban and suburban locations where the average person passes more than 3 pharmacies to get to the one they use, the answer is no.  In some rural locations, there is no option other than the one pharmacy that is 20 miles away.

Would this change our behavior?  I believe analysis would show that less testing facilities and more difficult access to certain tests would certainly change their use.  Would this address the problem or simply create more services that were being done outside the system (i.e., cash businesses)?

I don’t know the answer, but I haven’t heard anyone talking about what seems like a logical discussion.

Consumerism, General Thoughts, Healthcare, Politics

Top Wealth Centers

June 2, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Since we know health disparities exist and we know (for example) that higher income and higher educated people are more likely to use generics, I think it’s important to understand some of the ways areas are evaluated and ranked by 3rd parties on their “wealth”.

Reading the St. Louis Business Journal last week, they showed the IL and MO cities and how they ranked.  The metrics were interesting:

  • Median household income
  • Households with incomes above $200K
  • Median home value
  • Households with 4+ vehicles (really?)
  • Adults with bachelors degrees

McLean, VA was the top ranked city:

  • $156,292 median household income (vs. $50,007 nationally)
  • 36% of households have an income above $200k (vs. 3.7% nationally)
  • 79% of adults hold bachelors degrees (vs. 27% nationally)

Lake Forest, IL was the second ranked city and has 5% of households with an annual income of more than $1.15M and 7.4% of households had 4+ vehicles.

(This analysis that they did was based on US Census Bureau’s 2005-2007 American Community Survey.)

General Thoughts, Healthcare, Research

The Personalization of Health Care

May 7, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

With genomics and other tools, it seems possible that we could one day see completely personalized health care.  Of course, the immediate reaction will be won’t this mess up risk pools.  [I am sure there is someone smarter than me that will figure out how to make that piece work.]

What I see is the following:

  • Understanding personality types would allow patients to be matched to providers.
  • Genetic testing would allow for better predictive models on what individuals with need in terms of coverage.
  • Genetic testing will allow for the creation of personalized medicine.
  • Better predictive models will allow for better care plans and preventative medicine.
  • More transparency will allow people to make better decisions (e.g., calories displayed at restaurants).
  • Ubiquitous technology will integrate health decision making into everyday processes and tools.
  • Technology will allow companies to develop personalized, targeted communications that are based on patient preferences, historical responses, personality type, and experience to drive healthy behaviors.

Could we eventually get to the point where each of us had an adaptive plan that covered different things as we grew older and constantly optimized our care team or medical neighborhood based on our needs?

Of course, the risk comes when the models are wrong, but if you applied some of the chaos theory logic to a traditional modeling strategy and the current underwriting programs, who knows?

Not something for the next few years, but something I was noodling on the other day.

Consumerism, General Thoughts, Healthcare

Life In A Six Word World

May 4, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

A friend of mine just formed a new group in LinkedIn which I found interesting…”Life in a Six Word World“.

From the group description: A friend recently asked if I could describe myself in 6 words. I couldn’t… Could you? Could you describe your business value in 6 words? Well in our new Twitter society you just may have too. This group is about sharing your Six Word “whatever” as well as asking for help and discussing how communication is changing.

I am not sure I can come up with one, but here are some:

  • Overall: Enjoying Life.  Love Family.  Work’s Great.
  • Work: Learning.  Doing.  Planning.  Innovating.  Challenging.  Enjoying.
  • Personal: Love Kids & Spouse.  Crazy Relaxing.
General Thoughts, Social Media

Hint On Avoiding H1N1 (Swine) Flu

May 1, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

WASH YOUR HANDS!!!

purell_hand_sanitizer

(Note: This is not meant to be a product endorsement for Purell.)

General Thoughts, Healthcare

Communication Evolution

April 27, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 2 Comments

I was thinking this morning about how communications evolve. Here are a few examples from the past few years:

1. Caller-ID replacing voicemail.
2. E-mails replacing memos (and getting much longer).
3. SMS and Twitter replacing e-mail.
4. Scanning replacing faxing.
5. Facebook replacing online photo albums.
6. Evite replacing invitations (with mixed success).
7. Twitter beginning to replace news clipping services.
8. Craigslist replacing newpaper listings.
9. Websites replacing brochures.
10. Virtual conferences eroding attendance at physical conferences.

Business Tools, Consumerism, General Thoughts, Marketing / Communications, Social Media, Technology

To “Tweet” Or Not To Tweet – Wrong Question

April 25, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I have been a skeptic (and am changing my tune), but for all of you out there that think “what can I share in 140 characters”, I suggest you frame the question differently.

Ask – Should I have a Twitter account?

Even if you don’t want to tweet about yourself, you should have a Twitter account to serve as a news feed. As I saw from the WHCC 2009 and the Health 2.0/Ix Therapy conference, you can learn a lot by using Twitter simply to follow people. And, with more and more companies jumping on board, it’s a great way to keep up with information.

If you find the right reporters, news sources, companies, and bloggers, you can use this as a news summary of relevant events.

(Obviously, I am not the only one struggling with this as another media as evidenced by Josh Seidman’s post the other day.)

General Thoughts, Social Media, Value Propositions

So…Google Was Indicative

April 15, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I talked earlier about Google searches relative to the NextRx sale.  In the 3 days before the acquisition was announced, the majority of the searches (by far) that I could see and brought people to my site were about Express Scripts (or ESRX) and Wellpoint (or NextRx).  So, I am not sure if that was PR people looking for things to respond to or insiders doing some analysis, but it seems like Google searches could tell us something.

Again…the power of data.  Now, if I was a stock trader and had access to all of the Google search data, perhaps I would have a way to beat the market.

Business Tools, General Thoughts, Technology, Value Propositions

Giving Twitter One More Try

April 11, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 4 Comments

I have not been a big fan of Twitter from the perspective of using it to provide a reality show on my life.  And, I have struggled a little to find the productive use of it as a business tool.  Blogging has fit much better.  That being said, I see it being used so much more by people so I am going to give it one more try.  I have a few ideas on how to use it.  I have added my feed to the blog page on the right, and I am going to give it a month to see if it is interesting or not.

General Thoughts, Social Media

Finally Digging Out

April 3, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 2 Comments

As someone who is semi-compulsive about e-mails, I finally reached a point where I knew I was way too far behind.

When an e-mail comes in, I read it and either delete it, respond to it, file it, or leave it in the inbox for further reading before responding. Ideally, the e-mails in my inbox are less than 50 even when I get a few hundred a day.

The other day, I hit 500 in my inbox which was too much. It was stress inducing. Finally, I am back down below 250. I hope I can get below 100 before Monday. I would feel so much better.

General Thoughts

Taxing Cigarettes – For Health or Financial Purposes?

March 30, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I heard this discussion on the radio this morning and found it very interesting.  Do we keep raising taxes on cigarettes to reduce smoking (i.e., improve health and long-term liabilities) or is it to drive money into our government since we don’t think people will quit?

It’s an interesting question because if it’s for health purposes then there might be lots of different things that could be done – subsidize patches (for example).

General Thoughts, Healthcare

Economy On Food Choices

March 30, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

McDonald’s continues to do well in this economy although we all know fast food is not the healthiest food.  I think an interesting question is whether the lower priced meals being rolled out at TGIF, Chilis, and other chain restaurants will be good (on a relative scale) for us.

Without really drilling down, I would assume that maybe the economy will finally address the portion size issue.  One easy way to lower pricing would be to lower portion sizes and provide consumers with reasonably sized, simple meals at a reasonable price.

I think all of this points to how this economy (the Great Recession?) will make fundamental and long-lasting changes to our world.

General Thoughts

Given The Link Between Money And Health

March 29, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

As we have seen in numerous studies over the past six months, healthcare spending is clearly affected by the economy.  It is not “recession proof” as many had believed.  Adherence is down.  People are skipping preventative care.

With that in mind, I just thought I would point people to Clark Howard who is the new consumer “advisor” on CNN that focuses on current issues.

General Thoughts, Value Propositions

Some of The Worse Lunches

March 28, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

This whole article on restaurants is worth reading to show you just how bad some meals are for you.  Let me pull out a few of the scariest meals:

QUIZNO’S

Large Prime Rib Cheesesteak Sub

  • 1,490 calories
  • 92 g fat (22.5 g saturated, 2 g trans)
  • 2,620 mg sodium
  • Fat equivalent: Like eating four Dunkin Donuts cheese danishes!

CHILI’S

Crispy Sweet Chile Glazed Chicken Crispers

  • 1,930 calories
  • 112 g fat (17 g saturated)
  • 4,190 mg sodium
  • Calorie equivalent: Like eating an entire medium Pizza Hut 12″

PANERA

Italian Combo on Ciabatta sandwich

  • 1,050 calories
  • 47 g fat (18 g saturated, 1 g trans)
  • 3,050 mg of sodium
  • Fat equivalent: Like eating 6 slices of Papa John’s cheese pizza!

HARDEE’S

2/3-lb Monster Thickburger

  • 1,420 calories
  • 108 g fat (43 g saturated)
  • 2,770 mg sodium
  • Saturated fat equivalent: Like eating 43 strips of Oscar Mayer bacon!

BURGER KING

Triple Whopper Sandwich with cheese and mayo

  • 1,250 calories
  • 84 g fat (32 g saturated, 2.5 g trans)
  • 1,600 mg sodium
  • Fat equivalent: Like eating 10 slices of Papa John’s cheese pizza!

Books / Articles, General Thoughts, Healthcare

Drug Importation

March 26, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

From what I saw this morning, it looks like the administration is going to go down this path.  I don’t think it’s a good idea.  I will point to my post from a few months ago on why.

My prediction is that it’s an arbitratage opportunity which will appeal to the public, but will cost us more in the long run.

On the flipside, I guess it’s better than having people take buses to Canada to buy drugs and sneak them into the country risking arrest.

bus1

General Thoughts, Healthcare, PBM / Pharmacy, Politics

How Does Optimism Bias Affect Us in Healthcare?

March 20, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

The optimism bias means people are less likely to believe that bad events will happen to them.  They overestimate their likelihood of success.  What are some probable implications in healthcare?

  • Don’t believe they will get cancer or some other disease and not act preventatively.
  • Believe they can improve their cholesterol by exercise and that they will exercise.
  • Don’t believe that the extra calories will add on pounds.
  • Don’t believe smoking will kill them.
  • Don’t believe they need insurance because they won’t get sick or hurt.

glasshalffull1

Is glass half-full or half-empty?

Consumerism, General Thoughts, Healthcare, Marketing / Communications

Using Twitter For Health Care

March 16, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

Last week, I talked with a reporter about using Twitter for health care.  It can add a new dimension to communications, but I am not sold on it replacing current communications.

Some of my jumbled thoughts on this:

  • I like the one to many concept of Twitter with the opt-in concept (preference-based marketing), but it doesn’t personalize to the individual the way the information is delivered.
  • It definitely provides a stream of consciousness which is interesting.  I see a lot of application for a reality show type of health tools…like Biggest Loser via Twitter.
  • I like the idea of posting a question to a broad audience for quick response – Does anyone have research showing the impact of statins on asthma patients?
  • I don’t see this helping with patient to provider communications.  Do I really want my blood sugar posted to Twitter and sent to my physician from my smart device?  Do I (the physician) really want to see all that real-time data?  No.  What about HIPAA…from what I know Twitter is not meant to contain confidential information.  There are plenty of rules engines which can be used to capture data; look for things outside the norm; and then send an alert.
  • A lot of healthcare information has caveats and requires more than 140 characters to get across the message.  Most clinical things couldn’t be send this way.
  • As with most inbound things (i.e., I have to register or search it out), Twitter feeds get those that know what they are interested in and are active in their health management.  It still doesn’t help to drive action from those that aren’t engaged in their healthcare.
  • I can certainly see it as an alert to information, but since one tip to productivity is to batch things, do I really want them broken out during the day in a bunch of Twitter feeds.  I would rather get a daily synopsis from a website (which might be created by Twitter feeds).

Some things I found when looking on the web about this topic:

Here is a presentation on Twitter (they even have one of my old posts in there…which was a pleasant surprise to me) around healthcare.

So, my general perspective is that there is some value in pushing basic information out, reality show type of healthcare (Twitter surgery), capturing feedback, and developing community, but it’s not a tool for the corporate to individual communications that I typically deal with.

Consumerism, General Thoughts, Healthcare, Marketing / Communications, Social Media, Technology, Value Propositions, Weblogs

Personal E-mail Replaced By Social Networks

March 11, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

This plays into my post earlier about changes in communication patterns…

I certainly have begun to see more of my social (personal) online communications moving from e-mail to social networking tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Plaxo.  I almost never trade e-mails with my siblings any more.

So, it wasn’t a big surprise when I saw the blurb in the USA Today which said that “social networks and blogs” have moved ahead of personal e-mail as the most popular online activities (per Nielsen report).

A few facts:

  • 1 of every 11 minutes is spent on these social networking and blogging sites.
  • Time spent on the sites is growing 3x faster than overall Internet usage.
  • 2/3rds of the world’s online population visit these sites.
  • The US was third (after Brazil and Spain) with 67% of the population visiting these sites.
  • Facebook is visited by 3 in 10 people monthly.
  • 10.6M people in the US access these sites through their mobile devices.
Books / Articles, General Thoughts, Marketing / Communications, Social Media, Technology

How The Recession Could Impact Communications Forever

March 11, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

This recession (or depression) has the potential to systemically impact how people communicate.  Some potential impacts:

  • Death of newspapers (discussed last week)
  • Death of the land line (everyone has a mobile phone)
  • Death of magazines (similar to the newspaper issue – drop in advertisements)
  • Reduction in mail (as costs go up and if service were dropped to 5 days a week)
  • Short-term reduction in use of high speed Internet (save money)
  • Short-term reduction in use of text messaging (save money)
  • Less use of cable (being replaced by online TV shows)
  • Move to digital coupons

I think some of these will also be affected by the green movement where printing massive amounts of paper and sending those to people (who can get the same information online) will become important.  [Although this has been talked about for years, costs may finally make it a reality.]

Some other things that could change:

  • Reduction in the value of co-branding information as the employer relationship becomes less long-term and more fragile [Traditionally, this has been an important strategy in direct mail from health plans and PBMs where using the employer has improved response rates.]
  • Improvement in use of online tools (Health 2.0) as people move away from print
  • Increased use of virtual meetings and further loss of face-to-face contact as companies move to virtual offices and cut travel budgets

If you combine cost driven changes with environmental driven changes with likely technology changes, I suspect that the way we communicate and interact with people over the next 10 years will dramatically change.  In the short-term, we may even see an increased number of new Luddites (people who shun technology to save money and over frustration with our overall economic situation).

General Thoughts, Marketing / Communications

Struggles Of A Working Family Report

February 25, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a report and video that they did on several families looking at their struggles to pay bills and survive.

The report, Snapshots from the Kitchen Table: Family Budgets and Health Care, is based on interviews with 27 families from six cities across the U.S.. It finds pervasive uncertainty over job security and households teetering on the financial brink, stretching to pay for basics such as food and housing and ill-equipped to cope with unexpected costs for things such as a medical emergency or a necessary home repair.

Health care costs were of particular concern, with many families forgoing doctor visits, skipping prescription medications and postponing needed care. Even those with health insurance reported delaying care in order to avoid co-payments, rising deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses for uncovered services.  Despite barely being able to meet the cost of basic needs, many families did not qualify for public programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Books / Articles, General Thoughts, Healthcare, Research

Time To Sell?

February 25, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

There is always debate about captive PBMs (i.e., those owned by a managed care company).  In theory, I have always argued that they should have a leg up.  But, since pharmacy represents only 10% of total healthcare spend, the majority of the strategic focus is typically on the health insurance side of the business.  [BTW – The 3 largest captive PBMs are Wellpoint, Aetna, and Cigna.]

So, if you look at the stock charts below, you can see that while the PBMs (Express Scripts, Medco, and CVS Caremark) have all held up pretty well the managed care stocks (Aetna, Cigna, United Healthcare, Humana, and Wellpoint) have not held up as well.

If I owned a captive PBM, would this be the time for me to consider selling?  I have heard this debate a lot more recently than in recent years.

PBM 5-Year Stock Chart

express-medco-cvs-caremark-5-yearManaged Care 5-Year Stock Chart

wellpoint-cigna-aetna-united-humana-5-year[As I have disclosed before, I do not hold any individual stocks.]

General Thoughts, Healthcare, Managed Care, PBM / Pharmacy, Value Propositions

Trickle Down Healthcare

February 24, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Many of us know the term “trickle-down economics” which is generally associated with Ronald Reagan.  (Obviously not a concept bought into by the current administration.)  I was thinking about this today from the concept of workplace culture around healthcare.

I have not seen any research to this point, but it would seem to make sense that companies where the senior executive team is focused on exercising – running, triathalons, tennis, etc. – would generally be healthier companies.  As we have seen multiple times, peer pressure works.  So, does it work from a top-down perspective also?

I know one healthcare company where they were refining what was served at the cafeteria and what was in the vending machines.  Obviously, there are ways to control diet through what the company “encourages”.  Do they have bowls of fruit or bowls of chocolate?

exercise, General Thoughts, Healthcare, Leadership

Happy Paczki Day

February 24, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Do you know what a Paczki is?  It is a Polish donut that is traditionally eaten on the Thursday before lent, but here in the US is usually eaten on Fat Tuesday (today).

The concept of indulging before being good in Lent is very counterproductive to good health.  It’s always better to eat consistently well and never over eat or starve yourself.  I had one friend who was on a “diet” which was strict all week, but they could eat anything on the weekends.  Do you really think that works?

I compare it to Aitkens where as long as you stick with it you lose weight, but as soon as you stop, you bloat back up.

Ultimately, it’s simply about calories in and calories burned.  Watch what you eat and exercise.

General Thoughts

Friends Don’t Let Friends

February 21, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

If they can use this concept for selling DirectTV over cable, why don’t we use this more in healthcare?

It could be…Friends Don’t Let Friends:

  • Pay too much for medication
  • Use brand drugs unnecessarily
  • Use retail for maintenance drugs
  • Call into the call center when the information is on the web
  • Go to the ER when they can call the nurse line
  • Pay too much for individual insurance

Maybe, in today’s economy, it will be time for healthcare companies to look for seriously at referral programs. 

  • Get a friend to come to mail order or the local CVS and get your next prescription copay waived.

Everyone is focused on saving money.  Social networking is all the rage.  People trust their friends.  

Now, I may not want to tell my friends that I am on cholesterol lowering medication so that may change it.  But, certainly people talk about higher level items like shopping for individual insurance.

General Thoughts, Healthcare, Innovation, Managed Care, Marketing / Communications, PBM / Pharmacy

Siftables: Very Cool Tools From TED

February 16, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

A friend shared this video this morning with me. Very cool. This is a presentation by David Merrill from MIT about Siftables. He has integrated new technologies with our traditional building blocks to build interactive, high tech blocks that can be used for spelling, math, music, and other ideas.

Imagine the ability to use these to teach people.

General Thoughts, Innovation, Research, Technology

Walking Surveillance Device

February 10, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

There is always lots of debate on the issue of privacy.  Clearly, there are military reasons to collect data (with debates on appropriate use).  There are programs we willingly opt into (like when I sign up for an organizations e-mail list).  Within healthcare, we have HIPAA that tries to protect our personal data.  Then there is the constant paranoia about how much your employer monitors on your computer – what sites you visit, your keystrokes, what you say on the phone.  Then on the more debated side there is what information is it okay for a company to aggregate and use to push information to me that makes me healthier or saves me money.  I don’t expect this will get solved anytime soon.

I think this is why I found the story about Google’s G1 interesting in yesterday’s paper where it talks about how Google aggregates information from you to better target you with advertisements.

“It enables Google to field your search queries quickly when you’re on the run. It also gives Google access to your contact lists, IMs, e-mails, personal calendar, social networking and video downloading — the videos you’d fess up to publicly, as well as the ones you might not. As for all those “personal photos” swapped with pals on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter: Google can grab those, too.

Everything gets crammed into your personal “file,” so to speak, along with a lot of other stuff — such as where you bank, shop and cruise on the Web when you’re lonely, bored or just in the mood for a little fun.

Once your information has been collected and stored, there’s no way to get rid of it. You can’t see what’s been collected or have it expunged. It’s Google’s for as long as it wants to hold onto it.”

Obviously, more and more people use mobile devices and the mobile web.  It’s one thing to have your information aggregated when you use a service (i.e., Google search).  It seems another thing for them to pull information from your device and aggregate it.  I am not sure how this will play out, but I expect there will be a lot of discussion on blogs about this topic.

General Thoughts, Marketing / Communications, Technology, Value Propositions

Cooking With Google

February 3, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

This is an interesting thing that someone told me about a few weeks ago. They said that they come up with recipes by simply typing some ingredients into Google and then seeing what it produces. I tried it with a few random lists of items and came up with long lists of ideas.

Now, if we could just blend a personal coach, a personal chef, and an automated kitchen that tracked all my products by barcode, I would have a very cool “smart house” type of feature for helping me eat healthy.

cooking

General Thoughts, Healthcare, Technology

Healthcare…The Growth Area In The Economy?

February 3, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

I keep reading that the growth in employment in the US is coming in healthcare. Since I have heard that Aetna, Cigna, and BCBSMI have all let go 1,000+ people, that seems hard to believe. Combine that with multiple large healthcare companies that have said they won’t pay bonuses this year and the fact that pharma has let go about 30,000 people.

My take is that we are seeing a shift from large companies to smaller companies in the healthcare industry much like I could argue has happened in manufacturing and other services. This plays to the concept of the Starbuck’s Economy and driving to subsegments of the population.

I also think you are going to get all these people with big company experience that go on to become entrepreneurial (as long as capital frees up).

General Thoughts, Healthcare, Managed Care

Where Are My Land Legs

January 27, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 2 Comments

I just got back from our “annual” Disney Cruise realizing that this vacation of 8 nights was the longest vacation I have ever taken.  Anyways, less that 24 hours later, I was back on a plane and jumping into meetings.  I still haven’t quite got my land legs  back.

But, I am anxious to share lots of things with you so hopefully, I will find some time this week to catch up on blogging.

A few things from vacation:

  1. It is amazing the redundancy and rigor that a company like Disney has.  We love the cruises.  I was amazed to learn that for the stage productions they put on on the boat that they have 2 microphones and 2 batteries for each actor.  And, if that’s not enough, they have their voices recorded for each part so they could lip synch if everything failed.  Why don’t we have that type of redundancy (without adding cost) in the healthcare system?
  2. I always lose faith in the healthcare system when I see the advertisement at the airport showing a physician signing the foot on which surgery is going to be performed.  Is that the best way we have of ensuring no mistakes are made?
  3. On the boat, you have to wash your hands before you enter any restaurant.  It would certainly take away from the ambiance, but should that be a more regular practice on land?
  4. They have a nice gym on board that I used 3 times.  They even run a 5K now at their island (on some not all cruises).  It made me wonder what percentage of the people on board worked out and whether that was a similar ratio to typical life and society.  If so, it reinforces one of our major challenges.
  5. How about some healthy food at airports?  I am surprised I haven’t ranted about this before.  It is getting better at a few airports where you can find a few things, but it is genuinely difficult to travel and eat healthy.
Events, exercise, General Thoughts, Healthcare

My Worse Healthcare Job

January 16, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I was passing a hospital this morning and was reminded of my first healthcare related job. I was a young architect at the time and was given the project of validating the architectural blueprints of Henry Ford Hospital in detroit – about 1M square feet.

There were 4 of us interns assigned to do it. It was often overnight so we didn’t interfere with operations. We had to document door swings, plug locations, oxygen locations, etc.

Then we had to validate room size. It was painfully tedious.

General Thoughts
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