A coworker and I recently had the pleasure of attending the two-day Health IT Summit in Seattle organized by the Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2). iHT2 is the leading organization committed to bringing together private and public sector leaders fostering the growth and effective use of technology across the healthcare industry.
A wide range of experts in Health IT spoke at the event, including physicians, healthcare information executives, nonprofit healthcare advocates, and members of the iHT2 advisory board. The guests were largely a mixture of healthcare providers, suppliers, and technology vendors.
The reason we felt it important to be there was because it is so rare to get that many experts in one place at the same time. The OpenText Fax and Document Distribution Group (part of OpenText’s Information Exchange portfolio) has been focusing heavily on the healthcare industry’s need for secure information exchange solutions for many years now, but without speaking regularly with the actual players, we can’t adequately serve their needs. Plus, it was in Seattle.
Some of the things we heard were nothing new: the major challenges in health IT are security and compliance, as they have been for some time. Even as the adoption of electronic medical records (EMR) continues to grow, so does the number and regularity of costly patient data breaches.
The event consisted mainly of town hall format discussions rather than rehearsed presentations, and debate was lively. There was a strong sense that when it comes to health IT (and, more specifically, regulatory compliance) we are all really figuring it out as we go along. That said, the need to share information securely–not only between practitioners in the same network, but also across borders–was clear.
What struck me most starkly was how far the health IT community has come in the relatively short time since HIPAA was enacted in 1996. More than half of all physicians now report that they use some form of EMR, much of which consists of faxed documents.
OpenText is still the market leader in fax software, and with our recent acquisition of messaging powerhouse Easylink, we can add automatic notifications to our suite of healthcare solutions. Imagine getting an email or text message reminding you about an upcoming doctor appointment or prescription refill…..even a simple reminder to take your daily meds. The possibilities are truly infinite, and the benefits to both doctor and patient could be immense.
This is just me speculating. Health IT is moving too quickly to accurately anticipate the rate or method of EMR adoption, but one thing is certain: secure records management and exchange will be central to the future of healthcare information.
