healthcare

In order to benefit from the stimulus investment made in transforming healthcare, the government will need to support industry by incentivizing the effective use of tools and infrastructure that leverage information to improve care delivery. The groundwork in standards and interoperability laid by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) demonstrates that establishing a working infrastructure is challenging, but achievable.

Healthcare IT news is overflowing with discussions about standards and interoperability, two of the cornerstones for advancing the benefits of digitized healthcare. Behind the scenes, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) Standards and Interoperability Framework is moving forward with 39 pilots generated over the past three years.

Customer interactions model what can be done in healthcare for a number of reasons. White space -- the time that a patient lives life disconnected from the healthcare system -- is significant when many patients see their physician for only a few hours in a year. Because average interaction with the healthcare system is limited, the potential of social media, smart phones and gaming interactions to engage patients in their care and motivate them to improve their own health is significant.

Among the topics that I discussed in introducing this blog series was healthcare payment reform. Interestingly, HHS announced last week (Jan 26:) that they are moving their payment model from traditional “fee for service,” seeking to achieve a target level of 30% alternative payment model quality initiatives by 2016 and 50% by 2018. This move has great promise -- however, the change needed to accomplish reduced cost and improved care/outcomes is significant.

CyberSprint Underway. Federal News Radio reports that federal CIO Tony Scott has given agencies 30 days to improve the security of their systems and data, following the data breech at the Office of Personnel Management. According to FNR: “Scott also announced the creation of a "Cybersecurity Sprint Team" to review current federal policies and procedures and recommend a new cyber strategy for civilian agencies.” Federal Personal Coaching Network Created.

Listen to the interview with Keith on Federal News Radio. Transformation is a challenging process, sometimes painful. Healthcare transformation seems to be one of the most challenging, and painful for the workforce likely due to the many stakeholders, complexity of information, need for trust and privacy and so on. Indications that the industry is moving up the curve from high cost/low productivity solutions toward low cost, highly effective solutions that bring real gains in productivity, accuracy and enable the goals of delivering better healthcare and health are starting to appear.