MMIS Blog

Senators Grassley and Kohl Express Severe Disappointment Over Missed Deadline
Posted by on October 04, 2011 at 02:47 PM EST
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As pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers diligently prepare for transparency reporting pursuant to the Physician Payment Sunshine Act (incorporated into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) quietly missed their deadline for producing implemented regulations as required by 42 U.S.C.A. § 1320a-7h(c)(1)(A).  On October 3rd, CMS was called to the carpet by the sponsors of the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, Senators Charles Grassley and Herb Kohl (see Letter here). 
 
According to the correspondence addressed to the Administrator of CMS, the implementing regulations were provided to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on or before September 23, 2011.  Senators Grassley and Kohl have requested that CMS provide answers to the following no later than October 14, 2011:
 

  1. What is [CMS'] timetable for implementing the Sunshine Act?
  2. Date the proposed rules were sent to the OMB as well as the dates that follow-up was conducted along with the reason for the follow-up?
  3. Why CMS has failed to meet the statutory deadline?
  4. Anticipated release date of the preliminary regulations? The length of the comment period as required by the statute as well as the timeline for issuing final regulations. 

 ...  Read more..

Collaboration Misperceptions: Theories of Group Effectiveness
Posted by Chris Croteau on August 01, 2011 at 02:08 PM EST


We recently had the opportunity to review one of Richard Hackman’s articles from the Harvard Business Review Blog Network. In the post, Hackman introduces Six Common Misperceptions about Teamwork and offers his thoughts, which are backed by 40-years of group effectiveness research expertise.

In group-based environments “teamwork and collaboration are critical to mission achievement in any organization that has to respond quickly to changing circumstances”. However, collaboration is a philosophy that must be adopted by each team member. Individuals cannot be forced into working creatively with their colleagues. In fact, pressuring hesitant individuals to participate could prove to be detrimental to the entire team’s productivity. After reading Hackman’s article, we have derived that two of the misperceptions may relate more to the traditional way of working in teams, rather than the style of business collaboration.

The Life Science industry has been a proponent of the idea that bigger is better and the more people working on a task, the stronger the collaboration will be. However, Hackman has stated that if excessive people are working on a project, they will be deprived of work, which increases the likelihood of “social loafing”. However, a large group, whose tasks and to-do...  Read more..

Maine Repeals Aggregate Spend Laws

Posted by Chris Croteau on July 18, 2011 at 03:36 PM EST

As previously reported in the MediSpend blog (see here), on February 18, 2011, a bill was submitted (House Paper No. 530) to "Make Certain Prescription Drug Disclosure Laws Consistent with Federal Law." Specifically, House Paper No. 530 sought to repeal 22 MRSA §2698-A which established the requirement for pharmaceutical manufacturers to report marketing costs, including certain expenditures on health care providers.

On June 29, 2011 the Maine legislature passed House Paper No. 530 which was subsequently signed into law by Governor LePage on July 8, 2011 effectively repealing Maine’s aggregate spend reporting requirements (22 MRSA §2698-A).

The bottom line for pharmaceutical companies is that they are no longer required to report marketing costs (22 MRSA §2698-A), price disclosure (22 MRSA §2698B) and the disclosure of clinical trials (22 MRSA § 2700-A) to the State of Maine.

However, with the Federal "Sunshine Act" becoming a reality in less than 180 days, pharmaceutical and medical device companies will still need to track, aggegate, and report certain spending in Maine, as well as all other states, to be in compliance.

Stay tuned to the MediSpend blog and Legislative Watch for further updates on this evolving...  Read more..

The DNA of Collaboration Software
Posted by Chris Croteau on June 22, 2011 at 08:29 AM EST


What is the difference between collaborative software and regular software?

I recently reviewed Business Pundit’s inspired listing of The 10 Best Collaborative Web Tools for Business and lamented the cruel and ironic impending demise of the company they rated #1 – OfficeMedium. It seemed to me that all of the functions included in this list were fairly common business functions currently available as freestanding programs or as modules within larger products, just not in an “all-in-one” application platform

So just what is it that makes regular old software, collaborative software? For that matter, just what do we mean when we say collaborative? And why am I asking you? Why don’t I ask Wikipedia?

"Collaborative software helps facilitate the action-oriented team working together over geographic distances by providing tools that help communication, collaboration and the process of problem solving by providing the team with a common means for communicating ideas and brainstorming."...  Read more..

Philosophy of Collaboration
Posted by Chris Croteau on June 02, 2011 at 11:02 AM EST

You can buy your team collaboration tools.

But collaboration itself is not something you can buy. It’s an idea, a philosophy and a way of working together. Just as the same paintbrush will produce very different results depending on whose hand it’s in, the results of your company’s investment in enterprise collaboration tools depends on how much your company is committed to the idea of team collaboration.

The workplace continues to expand as we partner with companies based in different time zones and different locations across the globe. The best business collaboration tools share deep technology roots and transcend the barriers of distance and time to enable people to work together more naturally as if they were all in one place at the same time. Maybe team collaboration software is our subconscious attempt to recapture that old-fashioned workplace water-cooler spontaneity and esprit de corps.

Or maybe it’s just cheaper and easier to work remotely.

Before looking into enterprise collaboration tools, you might want to take a long hard look into your corporate mirror. Consider your existing corporate culture (Everybody has one, like it or not). Does it encourage people to work together naturally, to communicate freely, to share ideas, to value creativity and risk taking? Is it okay to be wrong once in a while? Because if people aren’t...  Read more..

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