Lyle Berkowitz, MD, associate chief medical officer of innovation for Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and Chris McCarthy, MBA, an innovation specialist with Kaiser Permanente’s Innovation Consultancy, have just released a compilation of stories about various organizations’ HIT projects. The two coeditors of Innovation with Information Technologies in Healthcare talk about what they learned after gathering these examples from across the U.S.
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Most EMRs do NOT have a search function. That is truly an innovative process.
I get what WW is saying – we certainly will want to see more innovative HIT tools in the years to come. However, to clarify… this particular book is focused on the innovative USES of healthcare IT… not necessarily innovative technologies – and it’s important to understand the difference. Current technologies are far from perfect, but they do at least lay the foundation or platform upon which innovation can grow! Many users are starting to think more innovatively about how to use these current HIT tools in new ways to maximize value – and that’s what we wanted to highlight.
For example, several chapter in the book talk about PROCESS innovations which are empowered and enabled via use of an EMR’s relatively basic messaging, reporting or CDS functionalities. Other chapters talk about using simple skype-like technology to virtualize language interpreters or pharmacists across multiple hospitals- saving time and money while improving quality. And the chapters are written by the innovators themselves to help teach others – they explain the origins of the innovation thinking, the specifics of implementation, the lessons learned, the results, and their future plans. And the final chapter, on the application of gaming design and theories to healthcare, presents multiple examples of some pretty cool technologies being used in healthcare.
So don’t give up hope – there are both process innovations which utilize IT, and well as a future of innovative HIT out there!
Interesting. I have seen little innovation in health care and zero innovative HIT systems in the past 2 decades. None of the great achievements in medicine that have produced improved outcomes have been because of HIT innovation.
Innovation would increase if the devices were required to maintain a plane of safety, usability, and cost effectiveness that far exceeds the plane at the present. That would require accountability and transparency, both of which are non existent behaviors of the HIT vendors.