href="http://bpmforreal.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/11751050_s.jpg"> class="alignleft"

src="http://bpmforreal.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/11751050_s.jpg?w=300"

alt="" width="300" height="180" />New-to-healthcare

technology brings significant disruption to the traditional

healthcare technology market for one simple reason, laid out in a

recent article in TechCrunch,

href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/17/money-ball-for-medicine-business-models-for-healthcare/"

target="_blank">Money Ball for Medicine - Business Models for

Healthcare: "By definition, the

legacy HealthIT vendors have optimized their

solutions around the legacy reimbursement and

delivery models that have created the hyperinflation in

healthcare crushing family, business, and government

budgets."

Lean and Six Sigma techniques, data

analytics, business events and process technology will be used to

break the reimbursement model and its attendant software

norms.

This is a veritable sea change. What

was locked into paper records is now being captured for the first

time in electronic medical records (EMRs). By itself, this is

simply shifting from paper to an electronic record. That won't be

enough. Smart healthcare will go further and manage

many data sources simultaneously. It will be able

to sort through this new avalanche of data to find the

information, often a combination of data from multiple systems,

which can predict problems and allow for intervention before an

expensive crisis occurs. This borrows from the way banks detect

credit card fraud and is easily applied to avoiding healthcare

mistakes and intervening early.

Digital

technology also underpins the collaboration necessary for

cross-network accountable care described by Seattle Children's

Dr. Jeffries in href="http://www.thetibcoblog.com/2012/05/08/healthcare-you-cant-improve-what-you-cant-measure/">Healthcare,

You Can't Improve What You Don't Measure.

The rise of social media means that what has progressed from

paper to fax to email is now moving to href="http://www.tibbr.com/">enterprise social

networks as the most secure and effective

way to draw together the patient and a network of healthcare

providers, or to connect health insurance to

healthcare delivery. While reform was designed to reward

cooperation, Medicare, Medicaid and insurers have the power to

incent this to continue, even without

legislation.

As Dr.

Howard Landa, Chief Medical Information Officer at Alameda County

Medical Center, and href="http://www.amdis.org">Association of Medical Directors

of Information Systems President calls it,

"…looking at the entire population and their health rather

than focusing on the provision of clinical care." Landa forecasts

that, "…clinical decision support will extend beyond alerts

and reminders to presenting information in a more efficient,

timely and usable manner so that we can do the

right things with the right information in the right

moments that matter."

Beyond

technology, there have historically been limited methods for

advances in process, treatment or technology in one healthcare

organization to be readily compared, understood, and adopted

elsewhere. Analytics performed for both improvement projects and

patient care need to be "attached" to

standardized healthcare work. This has been done in other

industries through the use of frameworks like href="http://www.itil-officialsite.com/"> ITIL for

information technology, href="http://supply-chain.org/scor">SCOR for supply

chain management and href="http://www.apqc.org/PCF">APQC's PCF for

enterprise-level process management. A healthcare

framework is the key ingredient for communication.

Responding to this, the latest href="http://www.healthit.gov/buzz-blog/from-the-onc-desk/2012-year-meaningful/">requirements

put out by the Federal Government's National Coordinator, Dr.

Farzad Mostashari, make it clear that collaboration must be

available across organizational boundaries.

"The framework opens the door to process improvement, a

structure for social conversations, and managing metrics and

events. The organizations that understand this will be the

leaders of the future," says APQC's Executive Director of

Research Services Ron Webb. Webb is actively engaging healthcare

professionals to bring about such a framework.

All of these changes go far beyond legislated reform and

relate more to the healthcare dynamics that, as Dr. Landa says,

"…are driven by an aging population, provider shortages and

a burning need to align payment with quality."

Digitization is the reality of

healthcare that has little to do with

politics.

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