"My point is that technology vendors need to change their approach to the medical market, and the medical market needs to change how it approaches technology, if we are to see the cost benefits from health IT we expect from it."
As a society we have monetized health. That is a root problem. Every cure or efficient cost effective treatment is a lose in profit. Nobody makes money with a one shot cure.
My father once told me if you give a man a fish, you feed him once and then he is helpless, but teach a man to fish and he will feed himself for the rest of his life. The problem is, what happens when the man has two broken arms and can't fish? Does society have an obligation to return the fisherman to a condition he can continue to fish and provide for himself?
As long as you have a society that tolerates a monetized healthcare system, you are going to have a population that is sick enough to provide profit but doesn't die off and cut the revenue stream. You will have expensive treatments that require lifelong maintenance favored over one time all done cures.
This is probably why you won't see Telepresence on oil rigs. They are betting the cost of airlifting the occasional person is cheaper than having a constant technological solution. They have monetized the health of their workers, figured out the margins, and do just enough maintence to maximize their shareholders profits.
Technology saves money when it makes people more productive.
Not all technology does this, especially in health care.
Imaging technology, for instance. Or robotic surgery. While Moore’s Law makes $500 the magic price point for PCs, what $2,000 was in my salad days, in medicine it tends to create new applications, new ways to save lives, new jobs, not cost savings.
What I wrote about early in the last decade as The World of Always On is now known by vendors like HP as The Internet of Things. Networks of sensors can measure changes in any system — a bridge, the Internet, or (as in this case) changes in the human heart.
The question should be, does it make doctors more productive?
If the application must be administered by a doctor, in their office, the answer is no. It’s just a fancier gizmo. If on the other hand this is something that can be worn by the patient, if it can be prescribed by any M.D. and report back on an emergency basis or upon the next visit, that’s different.
The same is true with another hot medical technology, Telepresence. As The New York Times reports it, NuPhysica is using this technology to deliver medical care on drilling rigs around the world. Before, people on these rigs had no quality care unless they could be airlifted to a hospital.
But does this application really save money? Sure, if you compare the cost of Telepresence to the cost of keeping a doctor on-site. But oil companies don’t keep doctors on-site. The application creates more care, it makes care possible, but is it a productivity enhancement? No.
Both The Internet of Things and Telepresence can improve productivity. In the case of Telepresence it can make specialists more available, reducing the need for specialists without top skills. In the case of The Internet of Things it can make highly-accurate self-administered tests possible.
Or these can just be costs, more care or better care rather than more efficient care.
My point is that technology vendors need to change their approach to the medical market, and the medical market needs to change how it approaches technology, if we are to see the cost benefits from health IT we expect from it.
