Law Students

Why yes, of course. Don't believe that healthcare innovation is real then read this interview where David Harlowe has a great discussion with John Glaser CIO of Partners. Here's one of many money quotes from the interview:

So there are a lot of demands on the systems, there are a lot of demands on the implementation process and the workflow change process and there are a lot of demands on support, and obviously there are a lot of demands on the practice who goes through this.  Nonetheless once you get through that we have never had any clinician of any form say I wish I could go back to paper.. 

Sure, once an organization goes through the pain and starts to see the gains then you NEVER hear providers saying "give me back my paper." It is only the "pain part" that providers want to avoid and there is simply no avoiding it. Everyone wants painless change and change doesn't work that way.

Here's another money quote regarding the ROI argument, and it is directly on point:

So I think we will see a return broadly speaking - realizing how tangible or intangible, how dollarizable or not dollarizable it is, to the sort of settings in which it?s delivered.  I think at the end of the day it is one of those things which you say listen, this is a given.  It is hard to imagine that we would sit here today and say if ten years from now we ran our health care system on paper that would be okay or a good thing.

Electronic records are just the way healthcare will be done in the 21st century. It's a cost of doing business. The ROI will be real (and significant) in the mid to long run. This return will be manifested in a number of ways, not the least of which will be a gain in market share? Why? Because providers that choose to go through the pain now will be (much) better positioned to use the technology in ways they can't even imagine today. This is true across industries and healthcare will be no different.

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