Tech Enabled Services, Healthcare, Technology
The next wave for Healthcare IT
Last fall, ACG Boston hosted Edward Marx, Chairman of the Texas Health Services Authority and senior vice president and chief information officer at Texas Health Resources, one of the largest faith-based, nonprofit healthcare delivery systems in the U.S., and (as announced last week) the 2013 John E. Gall Jr. CIO of the Year, an award given jointly by CHIME and HIMSS. The ACG Boston event – Healthcare IT 2.0: Where will the Next Wave of Investment Go? – featured a panel of experts ranging from the President & CEO of CHIME to private equity and corporate investors and the executive VP for research and strategy at KLAS.
We’ve worked with a number of companies in the IT and consulting markets and have seen the impact IT is having on healthcare – from EMR to mobile / “mhealth”, clinical workflow, patient monitoring, revenue cycle management, compliance, and provider mobility / telemedicine. The impact IT has had on the rest of the world has come to healthcare, bringing anticipated improvements in productivity, efficiency, and lower costs. We found the perspective of Mr. Marx, as a forward-thinking CIO, to be impressive as we consider where IT is having the greatest effect on the healthcare system and how our middle market clients might benefit.
Information Technology can and has been applied to improve processes, ease secure access to patient data, and assist in regulatory compliance. In addition, IT is well suited to assisting providers with current challenges, including new and complex payment models (ACO), continued physician integration and managing costs, among others. With the US spending approximately twice as much per capita as other industrialized countries, to achieve middling life expectancy (a couple years short of say Japan, Switzerland or France), there’s room for improvement on the cost side of US healthcare. Much focus will be on delivery system reform where healthcare IT and related healthcare consulting services and innovations can have a sustained impact.
We’re looking forward to continuing to work with innovative companies who are in the trenches addressing these complex challenges.
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