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Dan Morreale, CIO, Atlanticare

Every year I go to the annual HIMSS conference. It is a wonderful learning opportunity and a great opportunity to exchange ideas with friend and colleagues. I look forward to going each year, but recently I have come back wondering what is it we are doing as an industry, and where is the innovation.

I have a habit of spending time with the small vendors. In years past I have found some innovative technology or process which I was able to translate into a solution for a problem my organization was facing. But for the past few years I have come back uninspired. I am not sure if it’s me getting older, a bit more cynical, and a lot more demanding or if the healthcare community vendors are just missing the mark on what we need to do as an industry. I know healthcare is a business and healthcare IT is a huge business but there must be more to it than trying to sell me something. Several large vendors no longer have presence at the convention sighting the large cost and low profit margin in an event like this I understand and am not faulting them. But there must be more too it. How do we harness the enormous energy and effort and translate it to better patient care.

As you can imagine the topic of great discourse this year were HIE’s. Everyone with whom I spoke wanted to be my partner and sell me a platform for a health exchange. I saw some wonderful tools for moving data but no one was able to tell me how that platform could help me or my health system deliver better care. It seemed to me we are all so fascinated dare I say seduced by the prospect of moving data from point A to point B but no one was able to tell me why I should do this and for what purpose. So I ask the question. Where is the value of transporting data for a physician, a health system, and the patient? It is here, at this question, the lack of innovation becomes obvious. Where is the business model to expand and develop this technology? It cannot be just the ARRA dollars or OBAMA BUCKS as I have come to call them. There must be a value proposition that makes this work meaningful.

I think for the physician and the health systems we must find the leverage that makes this work worthy of the time and money. So assuming we move data from A to B what am I going to do with it. For the physician specifically the primary care physician I know I must save them time, help the streamline there practice and help them attain a full basket share of appropriate reimbursement. The healthcare information contained in their electronic record is a strategic asset. We must put in place the tools or service to help them analyze that patient population, improve outcomes and capitalize on reimbursement available in pay for performance and PQRI reporting. How about a tool which reviews a patient record, assembles a summary, identifies potential gaps in treatment and recommends next steps. Would that not make data movement meaningful? Would that not yield better quality? I think so, but I have not seen it yet. It is this type of innovation that is missing in our work. I know the barriers are steep but I think this will yield better care, meaningful care, and a model where all the participants find value. Help me think this through, comment, and offer ideas and let’s see if we can start to change healthcare for the better.

Tags: Blogs, Daniel Morreale

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 9:10 AM and is filed under HIE, Meaningful Use. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.