Government cannot fix the challenges in healthcare, nor can the insurance companies. Instead, everyone has together taken a big step forward. Premier CEO Susan DeVore said at HIMSS19, we should have a vision of a smarter and more responsive healthcare system.
DeVore said that the healthcare industry has to solve five interdependent problems:
1) Healthcare organizations should shift from data overload to actionable data. We have to understand, analyze and normalize data.
2) We need to move this actionable data to information for clinicians across the continuum. There are two types that she mentioned: one looking at free-for-service, the other at pop health, wherein cost and outcomes matter.
3) This leads us into the third challenge: supporting these informed clinicians. She mentioned major mergers of 2018 - CVS-Aetna, Cigna-Expressecripts, Albertsons-Rite Aid and health systems leading to new models.
The end result could be sophisticated, risk-based entity, bypassing traditional third-party payers altogether.
4) Healthcare needs robust infrastructure with innovation and apps. We have many apps but they haven’t been deployed effectively. Healthcare has to create better ways to use the available apps.
They are the key to unlocking ROI of the millions spent on EHRs.