Nothing quite describes the realities behind healthcare reform than this little cartoon. Most people when asked about their health care are relatively satisfied, only in general and often abstract areas is healthcare a problem. Is it expensive? Indeed it is, but compared to what? Healthcare is expensive because there are choices today that simply did not exist thirty years ago. The 50’s singer Bobby Darin wouldn’t have died at his young age, had he been born just ten years later. Today, heart valve replacements are bordering on trivial.
Now we re focused on the much needed improvement in information technologies in healthcare to do for healthcare what information technology did for manufacturing. However in the case of healthcare things are a bit more complex. There is a lot of talk about the Electronic Medical Record (EMR), but the big challenge remains: how?
We know the technolocy, and we’re pretty certain of the value in improving outcomes as well as population studies, but in the middle is actually getting it implemented and used part. In this space there are a lot of non technical issues such as culture, ease of use, understanding how the information is going to be used, security and many more. The implementation process, the part where people need to get engaged and participant, is the often overlooked stage, step 2 as the cartoon suggests. With $19 billion now headed into the healthcare information technology market, just how are we positioned with the implementation resources required for success. If healthcare IT companies aren’t scarfing up talent now, they will soon regret the delay.
Here is more on Capital Investment in Healthcare
The Stimulus package passing through the Senate yesterday left untouched the nearly 136 pages of proposed legislation for Health Information Technology, over 18% of the immense 752 page document. To be more specific where specifics are rare, I’m referring to the ‘‘Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act” or HITECH Act and its various components.
To net this out, the government is, as you know, big time into healthcare and growing bigger. Principally the legislation focuses upon the Electronic Health Record which many believe to be a critical element in reducing errors, saving time and improving outcomes. The legislation seems to be aware that there are many many moving parts to enabling the effective and confidential management of personal health information. Governing and standards committees will be formed and there are provisions for Comparative Effectiveness Research adding $400 Million to the effort.
This is probably the right legislation at the right time, still I’ll be keeping a diligent eye out as to unintended consequences, and you should to. I’ll be going through this in detail over the next few days, so check back and comment.
Tom
Farmers have known for centuries that if you want to harvest wheat in October, you need to be planting in the spring. If one is otherwise preoccupied and doesn’t get around to it until August, the wheat doesn’t care. It won’t all of a sudden work extra hard to meet an October deadline. In effect, you’re stuck. Planning to late, the error is on the throw, not the catch.
House Bill 1, now working it’s way through congress has highly specific provisions for the promotion and adoption of Electronic Health Records. Included in this package (Sec. 3412) are direct subsidies to hospitals who implement qualified EHR’s for their facilities. According to the House version of the bill, these subsidies range from $2 million to about $6.37 million with payments beginning in 2011. This is where the harvesting story comes to play, it takes time to get these initiatives under way, and the time to start is now.
There are a great deal of challenges in rolling out an EHR, regardless of the size of the organization, still this train is leaving the station. No time to waste.
Thomas A. Coss
