Aneesh Chopra: Innovation and Technology in Health Care (SF)
Innovation and Technology in Health Care
Aneesh Chopra, United States Chief Technology Officer
Thomas Nesbitt, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Vice Chancellor for Strategic Technologies and Alliances, UC Davis School of Medicine - Moderator
Chopra, assistant to the president and the nation's first-ever chief technology officer, has made it a priority to advance America's health-care reform goals through the use of technology and innovation for one of the administration's top priorities. He will discuss using technology, such as telemedicine and mobile health, to drive new care models for disease management, independent living and appropriate virtual care for people in their own homes. With millions of Americans about to apply for health insurance for the first time, Chopra is leading the effort to make enrollment as easy as using the Internet to pay bills or file income taxes. He will also discuss how policies, standards and harnessing the potential of technology, data and innovation can transform the nation's health-care system and improve the lives of everyday Americans.
Location: Commonwealth Club - SF Club Office
Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program
Cost: FREE
Also know: Underwritten by the California HealthCare Foundation
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Aneesh Chopra (CTO to Obama Admin): Progress has been made...
I first heard Aneesh speak at a TiE Silicon Valley event at least six months ago and at that time he was talking more about the administrations vision for changes in healthcare and how technology would play a part in creating that vision. This time rubber met the road. He shared plenty of examples of actions taken to date to make information readily available to healthcare consumers, the role government is playing in facilitating those changes and how everyone interested can participate. I've shared some of the most memorable points that he made with you below:
1. The creation of www.healthcare.gov by July 1, 2010 is one of the significant accomplishments mentioned because it's the first step in allowing healthcare consumers to shop for their own health insurance policy rather than relying on employers. The founder and former CEO of Athena Health has been tasked with the design to ensure information is accessible by meaningful categories so that it is easy for consumers to identify the appropriate plan for their stage of life (elderly, young family, small business owner etc.)
2. The government is incentivizing providers to adopt electronic medical records by providing $20 billion of additional reimbursement to those that demonstrate meaningful use of the technology. To qualify providers must demonstrate that they are using the systems to improve quality, engage the patient and family, coordinate care, improve public health and ensure the patient's privacy and security. He acknowledged that the financial incentives alone with not drive adoption. The technology must be designed in a way that is easy to use and integrate.
3. Interoperability is key for the sharing of information across platforms and organizations. It simply means that the systems have to talk to each other and be easy to integrate. He provided an example of a physician sending a chart to another provider. The physician downloaded the chart, save the file and attached it to an email. The receiving partner downloaded the attachment, saved it and then uploaded it into the system. They were delight it worked. Aneesh and others listening almost died just thinking of the privacy and security issues that will be created if everyone starts emailing health information in an unsecured way. So they started a contest open to the public to create a way to integrate systems to make the sharing of information easier.
4. Application innovation has to continue indefinitely and the way that systems will continue to evolve is through the development of module applications that can ride on all legacy systems. Doing so will give providers more choice and make technology more affordable and accessible. A Smart Apps store similar to that for iphones applications is being developed so that healthcare providers can select any apps they like and download it for use.
5. Emerging technology is making health information more accessible to the end user. Aneesh talked about how Microsoft is "baking" the data from several government healthcare sites into their search engine Bing and provided an example of how health information is being mobilized. Pregnant women can now receive 3 relevant text messages a week from Text for Babies about what to do and expect during their pregnancy by texting 511-411-and their due date.
6. Mobile services are creating new challenges and requiring collaboration across government agencies to ensure information is kept safe and secure. Those agencies are stepping up.
7. More data mining is needed. Retail industries use our purchasing habits to predict future behavior and consumer preferences, yet we don't use any information in our current systems to advance the care of patients. Comparative analysis deployed in a meaningful way will empower patients to make informed decisions that are right for them. Microsoft has modeled some interesting examples of how that might look utilizing Health Vault.
8. More research and development is needed to design better devices that will help us capture more meaningful information, be easier and more comfortable for the patient to use and result in higher patient compliance. irhythm from Stanford Bio Design was an example of this type of innovation. In short, we need to reinvent things that we've already done.
9. There are numerous developer challenge with sizable rewards for the winners. A few mentioned include: West Wireless Health Institute($10k prize), the Health 2.0 developer challenge, healthchallenge.org and VA-I2 Challenge ($80k in prizes). Check them out for more details.