Healthcare IT Timeout?
There is much sound and fury over healthcare IT adoption, but in the end is it signifying nothing? Some would say yes, including the president of the National Alliance for Health IT. This past summer Scott Wallace told his membership at their annual meeting that health IT advocates should focus their efforts on just a few areas in which policy and true operational changes can make an impact. "We are at a point where we have run out of adrenaline," said Wallace.
Wallace said the fact that the few models of successful health IT systems are big academic medical centers can be limiting to the overall effort. I agree, considering most healthcare is delivered by small and medium sized medical groups.
On the positive side, continued efforts at standards and interoperability are helping open up health IT to more doctors. If the various proposed government health IT bills actually get passed in '08 or '09, that could help move EMR adoption from hype to reality.
From the PR perspective, health IT and particular areas like EMR are going through the natural hype curve. Time and again, for topics in all industries, there is this slow build before the damn breaks and the firehouse of media coverage floods everyone. Then they get tired of being wet and it collapses to a small but steady stream, quenching the thirst of only the truly interested. For you healthcare IT marketers and PR folks, take full advantage of the current media thirst. But be prepared with powerful ROI case studies showing the value and affordability of your solutions for medical practices and small hospitals, not just the "wealthy" academic or large network hospitals.
I think that the new President, whoever he is, will bring focus and more funding to the issue, just in time to coincide with new levels of standards and ROI shown by small and medium sized practices. The hype will have moved to more thoughtful consideration.
Posted by Shawn Whalen on September 24, 2007 at 12:30 PM
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