Moonage Political Webdream

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the medical records access needs of millions of displaced people have underscored and made more urgent the need for a functioning electronic medical record exchange.

Over the next few years, more small steps can be expected, but the question remains whether as a nation we will reach the goal of a functioning electronic medical record system by the middle of the next decade.

"The government is certainly leading in the creation of hype," says Gartner research director Wes Rishel. "There’s a huge amount of attention to the issue, but the benefits are overblown and there’s little understanding."

Rishel expects that this will lead to eventual disillusionment with health IT in a few more years, much as the Internet frenzy imploded after initially garnering such intense interest.

But eventually, he asserts, as with the Internet, disappointment will circle back to deeper understanding and productivity based upon early successes.

First of all, Wes Rishel is apparently well respected within the IT community.  However, I couldn’t disagree more with his opinion or his analogy.  Interest in the internet never waned.  It is now more than it ever was.  What died was the get-rich-quick schemes of the 90’s.  Internet popularity is still growing with new and innovative ideas on how to use it appearing every day.  One of those ideas is coordinating the horribly confused and misguided medical information systems of the US.  My gut feeling is twofold as to why Rishel would make such an obviously wrong assumption:

1. He repeatedly cites the government, when most of this will occur in the private sector.  Gut feeling #1, he’s either strongly anti-government or anti-Bush. 
2. He got burned on the get-rich-schemes of the 90’s.

Those are just two assumptions of mine as the heart of the article makes no sense to me coming from the health IT side of which I partake.  It is a horribly disorganized mess right now that will take a strong set of standards with even a stronger set of enforced guidelines to make it work.  Even if it’s not the ultimate best plan, ANYTHING is better than what we have now.  The health insurance has completely failed to monitor itself and adapt to the 21st century.  It’s now up to the government to do it for them.  As quickly as Rishel can cite the internet hype failing to meet expectations, I can more quickly cite health industry hype that has failed to meet expectations.  Here’s one:

Katrina did expose huge lapses in our health care system in times of crisis.  Rather than throwing the baby out with the wash, as Rishel suggests, we need to look at exactly what did go wrong and address those issues.  A very simple start is credentialing providers.  The simplest database known to man would suffice.  You’re either credentialed to do something, or you’re not.  If you are, you have basic information available to contact you.  Simple enough?  That would have saved lives and millions of dollars if that had been available for New Orleans.  Glitzy?  Not at all.  Any generic database could handle it.  Difficult to implement?  Not at all.  If you want to be considered a provider in times of crisis, you better be on it.  Simple rule, easily enforced, easily understood.  Difficult to use?  Nope.  In times of a crisis, a toll free number or internet access is provided.  It doesn’t have to be difficult.  It doesn’t have to be glamorous.  It doesn’t have to push the technological limits of what is available.  All it does is have to provide reliable information.  That’s all.  That will never excite a programmer with 39 years of experience.  It does excite me.  I have to deal with the lack of these programs every day.

And you know what, here’s another:  Very few industries can support the exploding cost of health insurance right now.  You can argue over who’s fault it is until hell freezes over.  In fact, that’s what the health industry has done.  They have pointed fingers predating the intnernet boom of the 90’s.  Bottom line, nothing has been done to contain those costs.

The failure of an unrelated thing does not quantify the potential of something else.  Some people call it a strawman argument.

Now, back to trying to get a background check on someone.  It’s only taken four days so far.

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Technorati Tags: Fed Policy, Opinions

Tags: Fed Policy, Opinions

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