The Current State of Health IT
The integration of information technology into healthcare is predicted to save billions of dollars. With healthcare costs climbing at twice the rate of inflation, why then did President Bush have to sign an Executive Order to get the healthcare community to start using it?
As a clinician, Dr. Stephen Beller, National Health Data Systems, used IT to create “networks” that could link individual practitioners. His efforts to use these networks as a way to diagnose illness and define ‘best practice” treatment models were rebuffed by the medical community in the 1990’s.
Sabatini Monatesti, President U.S. Enterprises, Inc., spent the first part of his career using IT to run the oil industry. He understands the power of IT and currently sits on Pennsylvania’s healthcare information technology advisory committee, a group formed in response to President Bush’s Executive Order.
Beller and Monatesti joined Health Trends to talk about health IT, Electronic Health Records, and the problems that need to be solved before practitioners and patients will feel comfortable using it. Privacy, of course, is a leading concern.
‘The horse is out of the gate’, according to a critical letter sent by the U.S. General Accounting Office to Mike Levitt, Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services. At least 20 privately owned IT companies are operating within the U.S. healthcare industry, each with a different set of hardware and software IT solutions.
Without a clear policy to guide health information technology development, said the GAO letter, the technology industry is operating without a roadmap. The GAO was especially concerned that the federal advisory committee, under the direction of HHS, tasked to develop a set of guiding principles to guide health IT development, has not made any headway.
Please join Health Trends as we discuss healthcare information technology. After you watch the show, please take a minute to offer your comments below.
Sab, Jack and I appreciate the opportunity for this interview on ScribeMedia.
We invite viewers to submit any questions and comments, and we will gladly reply.
We also invite you to visit our Wellness Wiki at http://wellness.wikispaces.com/, which is an ever-evolving virtual encyclopedia of the healthcare crisis and potential remedies.
And my Curing Healthcare blog at http://curinghealthcare.blogspot.com offers commentary and discussion on a wide variety of healthcare topics.
Be well,
Steve Beller, PhD
To all of you at ScribeMedia:
I echo Dr. Bellers remarks. I had an opportunity to view the material last evening. Very well done. I need to clarify a point I made. The Executive Order number that established the ONCHIT organization was Executive Order 13335 dated 2004. Your comment regarding the oil company is flartering. I was a Senior Member of technical staff, a member of a great team, responsible for building and operating IT systems.
Regards,
Sabatini Monatesti
To all,
I am the CIO of a new startup, Healthcare In Motion, that will be integrating tablets and our data collection and clinical decision software for the “Field Clinician”–the mobile healthcare professional. Our greatest challenge is to start to integrate with the major providers of EHRs. My problem is these companies (McKesson, MISYS, etc.) want to deliver complete systems to their clients. They do not have any incentives to open up their disparate back-office schema to allow me to retrieve and update data patients medical records.
What is the best EHR initiative, as you see it, for me to align with and basically “zoom past” these guys? How should our company position ourselves for the future?
I am very impressed with your work. Are your companies private or can someone invest in them? Also, how would someone be able to find out how you could help their company?
Mr. Knittel, thanks for the inquiry. I believe the best EHR initiative is one that is provider driven, i.e., a provider, potential customer, who is constructing a Health Information Exchange or one who is participating in a Regional Health Information Network initiative. Might I suggest a good read: “Implementing an Electronic Health Record System,” Walker Bieber Richards, published by Springer, ISBN 185233826.
Gerry, thanks for the inquiry. Our companies are privately held. We are open to investment. You can reach me through my portal http://www.esenterprisesinc.com. Log is as GUEST, your password is WELCOME.
Regards,
Sabatini Monatesti