Earlier this week Phil Fasano, EVP & CIO at Kaiser Permanente, wrote a blog post posing the question: If other industries have proven that IT can improve processes and reduce costs, why has healthcare been so slow to adopt? Phil’s post discusses the current state of healthcare IT as well as what entrepreneurs can focus on in the future. Here are a few key points from the article:
- If we hope to… improve the quality of care and make it available to more people, while still reducing costs – it is imperative that our health system embraces new and disruptive technologies.
According to Insight Research, health care IT spending will grow 9.7 percent annually between 2012 and 2017. That compares to an annual 6.4 percent growth rate in overall healthcare spending.- IT systems have…revolutionized financial services, and as a result banks have since saved billions of dollars as consumers first used ATMs for deposits and withdrawals, and then started to pay their bills and make purchases online. According to a Bain & Co. brief, transaction costs have dropped from $4 at the teller window to just 8 cents when paying a bill via a smartphone.
- EHRs are already proving to save lives and costs, from identifying redundant tests and dangerous drug interactions to revealing trends in treatment outcomes.
The healthcare industry has a great opportunity to employ IT to improve the quality of care and lower spending. But where do we start? Phil suggests that entrepreneurs in the healthcare space being by focusing on:
- Cloud computing: Cloud computing is one disruptive technology that makes setting up and running an electronic health record faster, simpler and more affordable. Bain & Co. suggests that the move to cloud computing could cut costs from 30 percent to 40 percent compared to legacy IT systems. The smartest new EHR vendors go the extra mile to guarantee, as Athena Health does, that their systems will allow a practice to qualify for Medicare Meaningful Use payments.
- Big data analytics: At Kaiser Permanente, their system can analyze and leverage a massive dataset with a variety of tools: Predictive analytics, clinical decision support, data mining, and natural language processing, among them. What we have learned has changed the way we, and doctors around the world, practice medicine.
- Mobile health: Mobile capabilities offer incredible opportunities to advance the way healthcare is administered, chiefly through telemedicine (the delivery of care via telecommunication technologies like video) and telehealth (remotely provided preventive health services, such as patient education and e-mail consultation). According to BCC Research, these technologies were a $3.5 billion global market in 2011, and are expected to reach $9.7 billion by 2016.
To read Phil’s full post, click here. For a perspective on how Financial Services has adapted to technology, as well as payments innovations Financial Services and Healthcare both face, visit our FinServ blog.
