This appeared a few days ago.
Wachter believes world will enter ‘a golden era’ of health IT
A US ‘digital doctor’ has said he believes the world is about to enter ‘a golden era’ of health IT which will lead to better care for patients.
Hanna Crouch – 9 December, 2020
Speaking at the openEHR 2020 digital event on November 24, Robert Wachter, a professor and chair of the department of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco, gave his view on ‘healthcare’s digital revolution’.
Wachter is a known figure in NHS IT after he led a 2016 review into how the health service can harness the power of technology in order to improve care.
The author gave a keynote which included looking at what lies ahead in terms of healthcare IT.
“I think we are going to enter a golden era where healthcare is going to be better, safer and less expensive and more satisfying, ultimately for not only patients, but clinicians as well,” Wachter said.
“But that is utterly dependant on getting a whole lot of things right that we have not got right so far, including moving effectively into an era where we take advantage of the EHR but we are no longer dependent on them and we enter a post-EHR era.”
Another part of Wachter’s keynote was “several easy predictions and a hard one”. The easy predictions included the notion that “health IT will, ultimately, transform health and healthcare” but the hardest to predict is when.
“I have no idea when, not next year, but maybe five years, maybe ten years – but probably not longer than that,” Wachter added.
More here:
https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/12/wachter-believes-world-will-enter-a-golden-era-of-health-it/
Do you agree?
David.
11 comments:
Entrepreneuring Meaning | Sonja Blignaut | TEDxPretoria
A lot needs to happen
I don’t disagree, however the US is entered the dark ages and I take anything coming from that place with a large pinch of salt
@long Live T.38 - great talk, power and thought provoking.
@ anon - yes Trump and the GOP have been shocking and it really is hard to trust anything coming out of that place.
Wachter is just another in a long line of technologists and medics making fantastic and unjustified promises and predictions. The logic seems to be that other have made great advances, therefore health care should be able to do the same. It reminds me of the predictions about nuclear power, flying cars, endless leisure time, etc. It also reminds me of the unfounded claims made by the likes of that bad loser Trump. They all set unrealistic expectations and blame others for not meeting those expectations. Trump and Health IT have a lot on common, except Trump is likely to disappear a lot sooner than the promises made by Watcher and his cabal.
IMHO, Health IT is a classic example of the old proverb - to someone with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
The serious business of using science, engineering and technology to improve healthcare lies elsewhere.
Take nanohealth and nanomedicine. Here's just one example of the work being done, in Australia and without all the spin and exaggerated promises that pervade Health IT.
The University of Sydney Nano Institute
https://www.sydney.edu.au/nano/industry-partners/themes/health-and-medicine.html
The government has long claimed that by giving patient's access to their health records, they can better manage their health. Big deal. After ten years, where's the evidence, where's the track record, where's the logic behind that statement. It's not even an argument, it's a sales pitch.
Compare it with this, from the above website:
"New interdisciplinary knowledge generated within this theme will lead to a fundamental change in the way medical conditions are managed. This includes the developing technologies that will provide new diagnostic capabilities and allow for more personalised and effective therapies with reduced side effects.
Central to these goals is our state-of-art institute infrastructure that includes a suite of nano-bio-characterisation facilities and strategic partnerships with industry partners.
With this approach we aim to bring about significant societal and economic benefits, including reduced morbidity, extended lifespans, accelerated recovery and overall improved quality of life."
Biomedical engineering has already delivered many advances in healthcare. The Nano Institute is continuing the good work already delivered.
In the past 15-20 years the Institute of Medicine and people like Dr Eric Topol and the RAND corporation , have been predicting the benefits of better health records.
The real culprit in all this is the Department of Health. It looks very much like that this is yet another example of a hollowing out of expertise in the public sector. They read and believe the publicity from vendors and base their policy decisions on marketing hype. I suspect this isn't going to stop any time soon. Watcher's contribution just adds to the misinformation.
@9:11 AM "They read and believe the publicity from vendors and base their policy decisions on marketing hype."
While I agree with your conclusion I think it would be fair to say ......
-.... the vendors can legitimately claim their focus is on improving the secure, seamless, workflow, exchange and sharing of administrative and clinical information between multiple users across multiple domains and between a diversity of users to achieve advances in patient care management and a more integrated, efficient and less fragmented health care delivery system.
That seems to be what everyone has been calling for; bureaucrats, peak bodies, clinicians, other health workers and patients.
Who among you can disagree?
"...the vendors can legitimately claim ..."
The gulf is between claim and delivery. Trump made many valid claims about problems with the USA's economy and foreign policies. Where he failed miserably was in fixing those problems.
meanwhile, back in the land of reality:
https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-12-13
Development of solutions today is an iterative process, building on success, bit by bit. Add progressively to the MVP (Minimal Viable Product), generate a cash flow and keep reinvesting.
If nobody wants the solution because it doesn't solve anybody's problem, there will be no success and no net cash flow. MyHR has had no success and the net cash flow is negative in the extreme.
That should tell you something. If the ADHA was a public company the product would have been abandoned years ago. Governments can be stubbornly stupid without even trying. Decisions are made, not on positive cash flow or even success it's all about negative publicity. Hence the major role of ADHA is not to improve healthcare, its to keep up appearances and distract from the ugly truth.
Sufficiently broad and vague enough to get the majority of b and c list digital health celebrities warm and fuzzy and flocking to this like flies to the Christmas ham.
With healthcare transformation being clearly a generational progression line - five years seems naive in scope and thought. I am always weary of using ‘golden age’ leaves me with an impression prior to this everyone was I enlightened barbarians and post is simply a decline. Insulting those before and those to come might not be a value add strategy.
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