Submitted by — John B. Jones, Vice President, Healthcare Providers, Xerox
The buzz among attendees (27,500 healthcare industry experts) at HIMSS this year seemed reflective of how patients, providers and payers are feeling right now. There’s chaos in healthcare overall and we need to reduce the complexities in the system to influence a positive experience for patients.
If those complexities can be reduced and if we give a better experience, patients will realize the benefits of a functional healthcare system. They will do what they need to do to stay healthy and are less likely to return for more care (meaning more reimbursements for providers).
Walking the 7 million square feet of HIMSS (yes, my feet still hurt!), you see a sophisticated group of vendors, with sophisticated technology. But they haven’t necessarily integrated it with how healthcare organizations make money, or with the way they get work done. We have to integrate technology into the work practice – enable physicians to easily use both paper and electronic information at the point of care.
My colleague, Will Saunders, COO Government Healthcare for ACS, A Xerox Company, sums it up well, “The only way to change healthcare is the to change the economics of it. Physicians are among the smartest people in our society. If you don’t aggregate technology to how they make money, they don’t use it.” Here’s more from Will on the HIMSS show floor:
ARVE Error: need id and providerHear more commentary on changing healthcare during our Real Business Radio show today at 4:30 p.m. ET.
— John B. Jones, Vice President, Healthcare Providers, Xerox
