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
