What Won’t Happen In #HIT By September 2013

As part of the upcoming National Health IT Week (#NHITWeek), which takes place September 10 through 14th) my august colleague John has written up a list of ways in #HIT is likely to make a difference over the next 12 months.  (He makes some great guesses; definitely give the post a look.)

For my part, being the naughty contrarian that I am, I thought It’d turn John’s blog post on its head and answer the question “What Won’t Come Together In Health IT Over the Next 12 Months?”  Here’s some of my predictions:

* EMR-to-EMR interoperability:  Folks, from what I see we’re definitely more than a year from having a workable form of interoperability between systems or even routine high-volume data sharing. Really, do I even have to debate this one?

High penetration by HIEs:  With funding mechanisms and goals ranging all over the map — and players including health plans, broadband network providers like Verizon, hospital coalitions and more — I just can’t see the HIE picking up a lot more market share over the next 12 months. Too many organizations involved, and too much to figure out.

Major uptick in open-source HIT  use:  Time and again, I’m reminded that far too many hospital leaders, government CIOs and medical practice leaders aren’t ready to take open-source tools seriously despite the myriad of good reasons to do so. I don’t think this is poised to change in the near term, sadly.

Epic controls the hospital EMR world for good:  Yes, hospitals are still switching over to Epic. And yes, hospital cutovers to Epic probably haven’t even hit their all-time peak.  But the smaller to medium-sized hospitals that just can’t afford Epic are still in play, and there’s a lot of them. Let’s see who comes riding in to put the lock on this niche before we crown Epic world heavyweight champ.

* Major growth in remote monitoring:  Mobile technologies are becoming more critical daily to the practice of medicine. But somehow, that doesn’t translate to a hunger for home-monitoring patients using, say, wireless glucose monitors. I’ve been watching this sector for years and it still seems like it could explode, but I’m not seeing critical mass this year.

Having been Scrooge for a bit, I certainly have to join John in saying that yes, this is likely to be a pivotal year for the EMR industry, and for #HIT entrepreneurs.  I just think we’re going to remain stuck with some of these legacy issues for some time to come.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

1 Comment

Click here to post a comment
   

Categories