Healthcare IT News - September 2008 - (Page 12) 12 Healthcare IT News ■ September 2008 of reimbursement and care delivery. In each country, payers recognize the financial benefits of healthcare IT deployment and are incented or required to invest heavily in it. By adjusting the market through regulations and/or investment, these governments attempt to control externalities to foster aligned incentives that drive good behavior – the adoption of EHRs by physicians. Until the United States adjusts the misaligned incentives and removes the moral hazards inherent in its freewheeling employer-based healthcare www.HealthcareITNews.com nology, and patient safety, Chaiken is board certified in general preventive medicine and public health and is a Fellow and board Member of hIMss. as founder of Docsnetwork, Ltd. (eIs Inc.), he has worked on quality improvement studies and clinical investigations for the national Institutes of health, Framingham heart study, and boston University Medical school. Chaiken also serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Public health and Family Medicine at Tufts University school of Medicine. he may be contacted at bchaiken@docsnetwork.com. ChaIken Continued from page 11 while the large majority of the benefits from an EHR – better quality of care and cost savings – accrue to the patient and the payer. Other countries such as the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and Britain have much higher rates of EHR adoption among physicians. It is not a coincidence that they have universal healthcare programs supported by various public and private models reimbursement system, its citizens cannot reasonably expect to benefit from the widespread deployment of EHRs. More at healthcareITnews.com e Connect: CHaIKeN 0908 barnes Continued from page 11 ● barry Chaiken is the chief medical officer of Docsnetwork, Ltd., Conference Chair of the Digital healthcare Conference and a member of the editorial advisory board for Patient safety and Quality healthcare. With more than 20 years of experience in medical research, epidemiology, clinical information tech- What is the main difficulty the federal government has to overcome on the healthcare IT front? Not building from the strong foundation we currently have. I feel our biggest threat right now is a new political party arbitrarily changing course and creating new healthcare IT advisory bodies, certification environments and interoperability requirements just because they do not want to give any credence to what another political party may have initiated before they came into power. Our healthcare IT advancements have been achieved under bipartisan support. If we start reinventing the wheel, our country’s patients, care providers and taxpayers will ultimately pay the price, and there is no need due to the tremendous momentum we currently have. ■ Editor Bernie Monegain inteviewed Justin Barnes. For the full responses to the questions, go to healthcareitnews.com and enter the eConnect code below. More at healthcareITnews.com e Connect: BarNes 0908 ● LeTTers Continued from page 10 Doctors are techies – they treat our bodies as amazingly complex chemistry sets and bioengineering marvels. The problem is with us, the providers of medical devices (which includes medical software). your conclusion of “include the users”, and particularly the doctors in from the beginning, is not only sensible product development, the FDA says we have to! With the wonderful available palettes that let us paint our solutions in the critical, high pressure medical world where lives are at stake, there are really no excuses why we cannot get to interactive products that not only are acceptable to our physicians, but that they demand. Think of an iPhone reaction where users sacrifice to get the product because they think it is useful and “cool” at the same time. And if we do our products innovatively and make them useful, I can’t imagine that doctors, who got into their profession to help, not reacting with open arms. In any case, since electronic medical records are the quickest way to save and improve lives, we had better be doing something soon. These predictions of 10-year projects to judge the effectiveness are a joke. Not only does every other product have a time to market one tenth as long, but we have no idea what our technology will be that far out. – Tom Mariner Vice President, software and IP Quantum Medical Imaging Ronkonkoma, N.Y. More at healthcareITnews.com e Connect: letters 0908 ● e ● Connect: eNoVateIt 0908 http://www.HealthcareITNews.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9883 http://healthcareitnews.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9882 http://www.enovateit.com http://HealthcareITNews.com http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=9881 http://www.healthcareitnews.com/eConnect.cms?id=9936
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