American Healthcare and Falling Bridges: Too much in common

bcrounse — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:16:00 GMT

I've mentioned before on this Blog that I'm a fan of Most-Wired Online and its guest editorials. Every so often, a Most-Wired edition comes across my desk that especially draws me in. This week's editorials by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island on Building a National Health IT Infrastructure and by Lois Taveras and Dadong Wan of Accenture on The Case for Pervasive Healthcare really hit a chord with me.

I suppose we all tend to gravitate to folks who think like us, but I couldn't help but ponder how relevant these editorials are to some of the really big issues we face in American healthcare.

Senator Whitehouse is advocating for a public-private partnership akin to the COMSAT legislation for satellite communications during the Kennedy administration. The partnership would drive interoperability, privacy and security rules, and EMR data standards for healthcare IT. As I've hop-scotched around the world and seen for myself, America is woefully behind in the adoption of IT in healthcare (and don't even get me started on even more basic infrastructure failings like roads, bridges, airports, etc.).

Taveras and Dadong write eloquently about the opportunity to transform healthcare delivery and services with pervasive technology that would help us better care for the elderly, treat people with chronic diseases, and frankly serve just about everyone else far more safely and efficiently than we do today. Their editorial is a two-parter and I suspect next week's edition will deal with the harsh reality that unless we change reimbursement mechanisms and perverse incentives in American healthcare, these very real solutions will never see the light of day.

Regular readers of my Blog will immediately understand why I embrace what these guys are saying. Whether it is my commentaries on the potential for Unified Communications in Healthcare, Remote Physiological Monitoring, the need for a Common User Interface, the value proposition for Commodity Software in Healthcare IT, Failing American Infrastructure, and more; there is a very common theme. And that theme is interwoven in everything Whitehouse, Taveras and Wan are writing about.

Wake up, America! If you think our foreign competitors don't see HUGE opportunities to beat us in healthcare because of our failings in IT and our screwed up system, think again. We are at a crossroads here. American healthcare as an industry is at risk of collapsing just like that freeway bridge in Minneapolis.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft

Extending and coordinating care with Unified Communication: The next wave is here

bcrounse — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:43:00 GMT

Ten years ago I co-founded a company with the aim to provide web-based medical information, secure messaging and virtual visits between patients and their personal physicians. Working in partnership with Microsoft we developed technology that was well ahead of its time, and also well ahead of the market's ability to absorb it. Quite honestly, the technology was also a bit too complex, too expensive, and too hard to use. But that was then.

Roll forward ten years. The technology has matured. Governments and payors around the world are looking for ways to provide health information and medical services more efficiently. Shortages and mal-distributions of qualified medical professionals, aging populations, and the increasing burden of chronic disease are creating a perfect storm in healthcare. A medical model that is solely dependent on physicians providing care to patients one-on-one, in city center clinics or hospitals, doesn't scale anymore and certainly isn't sustainable.

Earlier this year I posted a Blog on Unified Communications: The Next Big Thing in Healthcare. If you didn't read it then, please read it now to become better grounded on what I'm about to share.

Envision a world where modalities for both synchronous and asynchronous communication begin to merge on the desktop, or even on your Smartphone. Imagine being able to schedule a virtual consultation with a colleague or colleagues as easily as you schedule an appointment in Outlook today.

Picture yourself using rich audio and video to enhance the communication and collaboration. Think about how you could share applications on your desktop, work together on documents, or extend presentations in a lecture hall to hundreds or thousands of your colleagues wherever they might be.

What about patients? Depending on your specialty this may be more or less relevant. However, I don't think there is a clinician out there who wouldn't benefit from incorporating Unified Communications into their practice work-flow. UC opens up amazing possibilities for virtual visits, follow-up visits, medication checks, home care, wound checks, chronic disease management, mental health, nurse call centers, patient education, and more. As governments and other payors around the world begin to understand the economics and value proposition of extending care with this now-commoditzed technology, healthcare services will go through a remarkable transformation.

With Microsoft Unified Communications, and the newest versions of Microsoft Office, Office Communicator and Office Live Meeting, all of this is not only possible; it is easy, intuitive and downright spectacular.

Use it as a hosted service or bring it into your enterprise. Do live interactive programs or record them for on-demand viewing later. There isn't a medical school, hospital, clinic, or physician's office that couldn't benefit from the mind-bending possibilities this technology unleashes. Get ready for a new day in healthcare.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft Corporation

Entries tagged with telehealth - Channel 10

American Healthcare and Falling Bridges: Too much in common

Extending and coordinating care with Unified Communication: The next wave is here