By Manu Tandon, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
From John Halamka’s Blog, Life as a Healthcare CIO:
Several BIDMC System IT leaders attended HIMSS this year to help us select the most innovative solutions for our 5 strategic pillars.
Manu Tandon, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center shared his notes with me and with his permission, I’d like to share them with you:
“Population health conversation last year was about maximizing revenue for the organization. Now it’s about identifying and managing cohorts of patients using patient generate data as a source. The best thinking we saw aligns very well with ours. A workflow oriented EHR centric model that closes the gap between operations and analytics is the way to go. Separate big data platform based approaches are fading away.
Sensed a very noticeable increase is the use of mobile platforms and mobile apps in marketing literature. Mostly stand alone apps with some integration capability. The EHR vendors in general seem to be behind the curve on this especially for two way interactions. The pure mobile app vendors are struggling building API based integration with a majority of EHR vendors. They are all, however, striving for integration. Again felt our approach was validated here with our crowdsourcing based WebOMR API driven mobile platform strategy. Without payment model reform the commercial adoption would lag.
Our thinking on patient centered care team coordination is ahead of the market. Secure texting as a standalone solution has limited potential. The real deal is in an EHR centric approach that is personalized, integrated and keeps documentation in natural alignment with communication.
The conversation around inclusion of patient generated data in the care continuum took a lot of bandwidth at HIMSS. Some are doing this already with some level of integration but all seem to be striving toward this goal. Payment reform to compensate for this is the catalyst they are all waiting for.
The baton for interoperability – the buzz word of past HIMSS – has clearly passed from the federal domain to the private sector. The near future may belong more to targeted interoperability vs a broad based all data everywhere all the time type of solution.
Overall, felt like our approach to population health, care team collaboration, mobile applications, internal improvements and targeted interoperability was strongly validated. Strong governance and a heads down workman like approach is our best chance to progress on this journey. ”
John D. Halamka, MD, MS, is Chief Information Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Chairman of the New England Healthcare Exchange Network (NEHEN), Co-Chair of the HIT Standards Committee, a full Professor at Harvard Medical School, and a practicing Emergency Physician. This article was originally published in his blog Life as a Healthcare CIO and is reprinted here with permission.