Big HIT Changes May Be Coming Soon
IDC Health Insights published their annual FutureScape predictions looking at the health information technology industry. They predict that by 2020, 80% of healthcare information will have passed through the cloud. But keep in mind, with the continued expansion of cloud computing comes an increase in cyber-attacks.
IDC Health Insights predicted that by 2018, 65% of consumer transactions with healthcare organizations will be mobile. They also predicted that by 2018 70% of healthcare organizations worldwide will invest in consumer-facing mobile applications, wearables, remote health monitoring and virtual care. This shift towards digital health devices seeks to offer a solution to control spiraling healthcare costs related to helping patients with chronic conditions. The initiative will create an increased demand for big data and analytics capability to encourage population health management strategies.
Source: Health Data Management, 11/21/14
PwC: Provider & Consumer Views on Healthcare Technology Closely Align
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) recently released a survey indicating that provider and consumer attitudes toward HIT are closely aligned. The annual report showed that both doctors and patients are open to digitized healthcare initiatives in the future.
Providers and consumers are optimistic about the use of mobile phones for diagnostic testing and care coordination, as 47% of consumers and 79% of clinicians said mobile devices can help doctors more effectively coordinate care. The report also revealed that 56% of healthcare consumers were comfortable sharing their health data with other organizations if quality care was improved, while only 30% of clinicians currently have that capability. Furthermore, 50% of patients said they would use a device attached to a mobile phone for healthcare evaluations and 42% of physicians reported they would be comfortable then relying on those tests to prescribe meds.
The PcW authors wrote,”For healthcare, the next five years will be critical in linking data generated by these technologies with data from traditional systems and integrating that information seamlessly into clinicians’ everyday practice.”
Source: FierceHealthIT, 11/18/14
Why Healthcare Should Be Talking About Net Neutrality
The world of Health IT is split between those who support net neutrality and those who oppose it. Earlier this month, President Obama made a statement to the Federal Communications Commision where he called them to, ““implement the strongest possible rules to protect net neutrality.” Obama’s strong stance in favor of net neutrality sparked a heated controversy in the HIT world.
Some health IT experts support President Obama’s statement supporting net neutrality, believing that premiums for faster speeds would help HIT because they would be at the front of a faster moving line. However, other HIT figures feel President Obama muddied the waters when he expressed his view in favor of net neutrality, fearing that that HIT systems could be negatively impacted if net neutrality isn’t maintained.
Some argue that too much data traffic is crossing through too tight of a network, which is in turn slowing down performance. For those following the net neutrality issue, check out Modern Healthcare’s detailed analysis of how this issue may impact HIT.
Source: Modern Healthcare, 11/19/14
Graphic of the Week:
Source: Healthcare Intelligence Network