Blogs

Population health management- a term that is widely used and heard in healthcare, but scarcely understood. Some focus on bringing about better clinical outcomes. Others focus on measuring the outcomes and becoming accountable. Regardless, healthcare organizations across the country are developing and implementing population health initiatives. More and more organizations are looping in health IT to streamline patient care, risk assessment and preventive care.

Not too long ago, I read an article which claimed that “health care businesses acting like Amazon will gain an edge.” It got me thinking how consumer centricity in healthcare if applied to healthcare can open doors for health organizations all over the U.S. to cut down costs, enhance quality and more than anything else, improve the patient experience. The reason being that consumer centricity is simply a well-structured approach towards patient-centric care.

Artificial intelligence – created and introduced as something that could imitate the human brain and its capacity for cognitive thinking. Ever since its inception, AI has widely been used in developing various spheres such as selective defense, space exploration, and lately, intelligent personal assistant like Siri, Google or Alexa. While AI, no matter how powerful, can ever replace physicians, it is slowly making its way into modern healthcare and changing the realm of healthcare as we know it.

Blockchain- the technology that took the world by storm by its revolutionary work in data management and exchange, especially in the financial sector. Its immense success across different industries has left the healthcare world rattling with questions too. People are calling it the ‘answer to interoperability,’ and the ‘technology that can solve healthcare’s looming problems,’- but if the confusion looms, blockchain will take double the time to make a difference in healthcare.

Technology can never replace humans because the ultimate decision-making authority always lies with the individual. He or she can, however, in the course of time, opt for technological solutions that simplify their work and bring about efficiency.

Simply put, interoperability is making the right information available to the right person at the right time across the healthcare continuum, in a way that can be relied upon and meaningfully used by the recipients. Given that, this is the perception of interoperability in the U.S. healthcare industry, the acceptance and adoption of interoperability has been appallingly slow.