When you begin reading a commentary about the value of health IT and the federal stimulus incentives for the healthcare industry by the CEO of a health IT company, the guard goes up. Watch out for the bias in the cheerleading.
Paul Brient, CEO of PatientKeeper, however, makes a few good points and puts out a challenge to his fellow health IT vendor: Make products that make physicians' lives easier and more efficient. After all, automation should reduce not create more work. The private market ought to respond because there is a lot of money riding on this. Vendors should take up the cause not just to make a quick buck with vaporware or clunky systems. This push for health IT adoption is the beginning of an inevitable evolution or transformation to a digital workplace. The market is wide and deep. There are long-term benefits for both provider and vendor. Those who are in it to transform the industry toward better quality care and efficiency will become the market leaders.
Brient also emphasizes making sure that the systems give providers relevant information, not just terabytes of data. Give meaningful data that will result in better care, as this will drive adoption and keep providers using the systems and applications.
Thirdly, he advocated for providing analysis to determine what treatments work better. You can't do this without health IT systems documenting and analyzing the data they are aggregating. This will drive down the cost of care. Comparative effectiveness research has gotten a bum rap, in my opinion. Thoughtfully implemented, it could positively impact the cost of care.
I'm interested in reader comments, without naming products, about your EHR or EMR. What is the one thing it delivers for your organization or office that is aligned with physician workflow? This could be a laundry list for health IT vendors to determine if they have these capabilities. If so, great. If not, back to the drawing board.
