Written by Frank Fortner, President and COO of Iatric Systems
Whether or not you plan on checking out all the latest healthcare IT trends and technologies at HIMSS18 next month in Las Vegas, I believe this is the year we may (finally) get back to real healthcare IT innovation. This is certainly true for our team at Iatric Systems, and I suspect it’s true for many others based on reasons I’ll explain below. In my opinion, it cannot come soon enough.
Before someone accuses me of dreaming when I wrote this, consider the following paradox I’ve been pondering. Almost all of us live our daily lives with modern technologies such as smartphones, smart tvs, artificial intelligence, connected cars, connected homes, and more. Our personal online experience is a virtual world where information is constantly socialized, personalized, streamed, and updated in real-time (or close to it). From Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to the way we stream music and videos, we live, we socialize, and yes, we even party like it’s 2018. But sadly, so many of us go to work each morning like it’s still 1999. Why is that?
One reason is that after almost a decade of increased regulatory burdens on both providers and software vendors, we as an industry have let innovation slip and now find ourselves with the need to play catch up. Don’t get me wrong; the Meaningful Use era produced some beneficial and necessary outcomes — namely wide-scale EHR adoption. But the long list of regulatory requirements that came with it left little time for innovation — the kind of innovation that directly supports the Triple Aim of healthcare. So, here we are in 2018. We’re still largely data rich and information poor, we react to events long after they’ve occurred, we make decisions based on static reports held in human data silos, we log into multiple systems for data that should be interoperable, and the list goes on. But I truly believe hope is on the horizon.
Today, more so than any other time in the past several years, we are experiencing a post-EHR, post-Meaningful Use, and more relaxed regulatory healthcare IT environment. This not only gives me great hope for a much-needed return to innovation, but it has given us at Iatric Systems the opportunity to join with others in leading our industry forward. This is why we’re so excited about this year’s HIMSS conference. We’re more than a little eager to show you what we’ve been up to!
Some examples include advances with interoperability, vendor risk management, and clinical workflow improvement solutions that turn stores of data into rich information and securely connect it to those who need it — when they need it. We all know providers are the real heroes of healthcare, and when they make faster and better-informed decisions around care and treatment, patients win. Lives are saved. We have seen this first hand through our Sepsis Insights solution.
Therefore, if you are planning to attend HIMSS18, I want to personally invite you to visit us at booth #7505. We welcome an opportunity to meet with you and hear about your innovation plans in this new and promising era. And yes, we’ve got a few innovations of our own we’re confident can assist your efforts. So, let’s party in Vegas like it’s 1999 then begin to work like it’s 2018!
