I do have to say that I agree with him on this as with researching and posting on this blog every day, I see all the announcements and so forth.  I get tired and confused at times with what certain vendors are offering.  He has some ground to stand on here with some past experience since Massachusetts pretty much lead the way here with the technology.  Even though they lead the way, their CONNECT system  as an example with insurance carriers now also needs to be updated and the contract has been given to Massachusetts Medical School to bring it up to date and compliant with current federal laws. 

Massachusetts Medical School Wins Contract to Design Health Insurance Exchanges

I question as I am sure many other do as to how much can we afford to spend?  When a new innovation comes along that does pretty much what another technology does with different code, now it needs middleware or additional coding written so it can communicate. An HIE starts out with a set of technologies to connect and then within 2 years a whole bunch more spring up, so it kind of keeps feeding itself, and of course this is where standards and open source comes into play.  Open source still has costs involved too with implementation and so forth, so it’s not all free when you add that side into the puzzle.  Thus I go back to post I made last year and the title pretty much says it all:

Innovation Without Collaboration Is Fouling Up The US Healthcare IT System–We Need Both As We Can’t Stand on Innovation Alone

WE DO NOT HAVE A SHORTAGE OF INNOVATION IN HEALTHCARE BUT WE CERTAINLY DON’T HAVE A LOT IN THE WAY OF COLLABORATION AND I THINK IF OUR LEADERS COULD SOMEHOW CUT THE BUZZ WORD OF “INNOVATION” AND GET DOWN TO THE REAL MEAT AND POTATOES WE MIGHT GET SOME NEW DIRECTIONS”.

Entrepreneurs take care of the innovation side and we have folks innovating their asses off frankly and excuse the language here but I couldn’t quite figure out how to say this and make the point any better.  So what follows this model, everyone marketing, again the same tone here and there’s a lot of that going on at HIMSS as all the technologies are not going to make it and stand on their own.

Why Is Almost Everyone In Healthcare Marketing Their “Ass” Off

After the convention, as they do every year, things begin to settle back down after the rush and hopefully we will see some concerted efforts and I posted a couple today with collaborative efforts.  That’s the only way we are going to win this thing and focus the innovative individuals who can help with collaborative efforts.  If I have not made my point yet, why is scribe fever raging across the US?

Scribe Fever is Moving to the Emergency Rooms Across the Nation To Help Doctors With Medical Record Input In Order To Meet Production Demands From the Hospitals

Doctors are becoming the largest “beta testing group” out there for software and we need them to be clinicians too and some are losing focus of this fact.  If you make the systems too complicated, demand more production, something has to give and here come the scribes to help the doctors work this very complicated data system so we as patients can get care. 

Sure doctors need IT skills too, but again with way to may players out there duplicating efforts each with their own user screens and proprietary software, it’s taking a toll as remember they also are trying new drugs, new medical devices and still trying to make a buck as this is only one aspect of what they do.  Pretty soon the money will run dry as you would have to be living under a rock not to hear the news every day on the financials of all the states, and that does exist beyond Health IT.  If we keep at the current pace with having to spend tons of extra money to make all these different proprietary systems talk, the bubble will burst and maybe sooner than we think so please get serious about collaboration before this happens as we can’t afford all the entrepreneurs and innovation without collaboration.  

Health IT The Next Bubble and How Long Will It Take to Pop–Probably When The Money Runs Out

Think about it when you as a patient go to the doctor next time, do you want to be seen by a medical doctor or a medical software beta tester?  BD 

Mass. State Senator Richard Moore told several hundred participants in the HIMSS HIE Symposium that states will need to untangle what is becoming an increasingly crowded arena. Although Moore praised the health information exchange model as being critical to improved health care quality, a number of issues—including patient privacy--stand in the way of ultimate success.

“Exchanges are being created almost every day,” he said. According to Moore, some 167 health information exchanges are currently functioning in the United States. And they all face some common issues. Chief among them, says Moore, are workforce shortages in personnel qualified to do the technological work needed for health organizations to swap data.

The state has formed its own HIE as well, and is planning to invest some $80 million in broadband infrastructure to help prop it up. The state is also eyeing considerable federal incentives—with a potential $1.2 billion in meaningful use incentive money at stake, Moore noted. “The EHR is fast becoming the standard of care,” he said.

Despite the influx of federal funds, Moore says that Massachusetts—and other states—must still wrestle with the complex issue of developing a sustainable business model for any HIE.

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/HIMSS11_health_information_exchange-41960-1.html?ET=healthdatamanagement:e1672:120588a:&st=email&himss=himss

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