The last two days at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco were inspiring and provocative, but the challenges that remain range from daunting to frustrating. Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya put together a magnificent program. The question is where do we go from here?

Thankfully, Matthew & Indu structured the last “Looking Ahead” panel with Brian Klepper moderating a panel consisting of four of the most thoughtful people in the country in terms of the role of HIT in the lives of real people. Here’s a brief synopsis of some of what they said (I’m sure I’m not doing them justice but maybe they can comment to fill in some additional detail)…

• Alan Greene, MD, CMO, ADAM; Founder, DrGreene.com (and at least a few more hats as well): He paraphrased Thomas Jefferson as saying that a “well-informed community can be trusted to govern itself.” Alan noted that the country’s founders apparently didn’t apply that to African-Americans and women (and, he didn’t mention it, but non-landowners as well), and that it still didn’t apply to “patients” in this country. Alan also highlighted that trust, simplicity and satisfaction are not only critically important but that they are two-way streets. Alan is helping to launch a new Journal of Participatory Medicine in January that I’m sure will make a valuable contribution to the health care delivery system.
• David Lansky, PhD, President of the Pacific Business Group on Health: He expressed concern that even the more progressive purchasers are not engaged in Health 2.0. He offered free registration to this conference to 80 of his business coalition members (large employers) and none took him up on the offer. What does it mean that purchasers were almost nowhere to be seen at this conference? Is legilsative action going to be necessary to drive Health 2.0 change?
• Rob Kolodner, MD, HHS’s National Coordinator for HIT: He pointed out that there are ripple effects in the economy when you create more effective and efficient ways to get things done. He offered the example of stage coaches–all the people in that sector went out of business with Ford’s democratization of the automobile but argued that it was still the right thing to do.
  • (My own aside given the example he chose: I’m not suggesting Kolodner is wrong, but it would also be worthwhile noting the long-term unintended consequences that technological progress sometimes produces–this example having such a dramatic one in our ultimate dependence on foreign oil and global environmental destruction.)
• David Kibbe, MD, formerly from the American Academy of Family Physicians but perhaps best known for his work on the continuity of care record standard: He warned that we have not yet changed the game. He also expressed concern that some of the HIT and Health 2.0 companies are not fundamentally changing things but rather (in some cases) just automating the same inefficiencies that exist in health care today. He urged everyone in the audience to talk to their own personal doctors about what they want (e.g., electronic access to personal health data, information therapy, etc.).

The session concluded with a lot of discussion about the need to bring more policymakers and practitioners into this discussion. It sounds like a great time to bring the IxCenter more directly into the Health 2.0 conversation…

…Which is exactly what’s going to happen!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Health 2.0 Space. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.