Healthcare IT–growth drivers
Jun/03/09 20:03
As I have discussed several times before, there seems to be a significant amount of activity in health information technology. President Obama’s stimulus package includes $19 billion to fund hospitals and individual physicians to upgrade their IT systems, specifically to migrate from paper-based patient records to electronic health records. In the near future, it would be possible for a patient record to be shared between all parts of the healthcare system. For example, patient with a severe trauma can be treated more quickly and effectively, if the emergency room had access to the patients record knowing what health issues may be critical to decisions about treating the patient. Having that information available within minutes can be crucial to saving the patient’s life. Anyone knowledgeable about the healthcare system in the US probably can list out many more examples where an online patient record can be the difference between success and failure in treating a patient.
There are many issues that must be addressed before products can come to market:
There are several large companies entering this arena. Microsoft has launched its Healthvault online application that connects everyone from patients to pharmacies to physicians (and much more) to share data to reduce errors, to improve patient outcomes, and to track healthcare trends. It has recently signed an agreement with Walgreens that allows Walgreens’ customers to access their prescription data through Healthvault. Intuit has set up Quicken Health Expense Tracker which helps patients manage their healthcare expenses. If it could link to patient records, it could be a powerful tool for patients to control and manage their expenses.
Right now, this is an open market with many opportunities for the right company. Microsoft has the lead, but I’m a bit skeptical of their potential for success, mainly because innovation is often driven by smaller companies. Let’s see what happens.
By Michael W Simpson
There are many issues that must be addressed before products can come to market:
- Privacy. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) sets standards for confidentiality of healthcare records. With constant news reports on security issues with everything from the government to banks, it is troubling that healthcare information can be compromised. It could be a large as a hacker breaking into a hospital server or as simple as a stolen iPhone that might have patient information on it. I remain concerned that some software developers have not focused on HIPAA compliance.
- Medical devices. In an effort to decrease errors and increase healthcare worker productivity, online transmission of data from medical devices to the healthcare records would be important. Everything from an electronic scale to EKG’s could be wirelessly connected to a server that collects data on a patient. Although this is happening in many hospitals, the primary care physician, the main point of contact for most patients, are woefully behind on upgrading their equipment, software and computers to provide this information. And in cases where patients do monitoring of their health at home, the technology is barely evolved from writing it down on a Post-It note. For example, Holter monitors (which record heart rate and rhythm over a 24 hour period of time) and blood glucose monitors require transmitting the data to the primary care physician in their office. A world where those devices connect to the internet (securely, of course), to deliver the data to the physician would be a boon to treatment decisions. Right now, there are so many different devices manufactured by a variety of companies, all with different standards of communication and connectivity.
- FDA. The FDA has responsibility over any product that assists a physician in making a medical diagnosis; many of the software products that connect to medical devices (such as CT or MRI scans) would require FDA clearance to be marketed in the US.
- Managed care. In this perfect world of electronic health records, the right data can be collected from the patients to improve reimbursement to the physician, hospital and patient. It can also be used to uncover healthcare trends. I can even imagine how valuable it can be in analyzing public health issues such as epidemiology and occupational health.
There are several large companies entering this arena. Microsoft has launched its Healthvault online application that connects everyone from patients to pharmacies to physicians (and much more) to share data to reduce errors, to improve patient outcomes, and to track healthcare trends. It has recently signed an agreement with Walgreens that allows Walgreens’ customers to access their prescription data through Healthvault. Intuit has set up Quicken Health Expense Tracker which helps patients manage their healthcare expenses. If it could link to patient records, it could be a powerful tool for patients to control and manage their expenses.
Right now, this is an open market with many opportunities for the right company. Microsoft has the lead, but I’m a bit skeptical of their potential for success, mainly because innovation is often driven by smaller companies. Let’s see what happens.
By Michael W Simpson