Network World’s Messaging Newsletter, 08/01/06
Why is the healthcare industry slow in adopting messaging technologies?
By Michael Osterman
>We all know that the healthcare industry has been fairly slow to adopt a variety of communications
I would call it glacial, or possibly even negative progress if such is possible.
I blame the technology industry primarily. Yes, you can pick your jaw off the table and let me explain.
No one has a good easy public key encryption system. I look for a “solution” with identification, authentication, authorization, accountability, confidentiality, non-repudiation, continuous protection, and recovery across the problem spaces of Users, Systems (Platforms and Operating Systems), Applications, DataBases, and Networks. Technology Industry has know the problem space for at least four decades. I remember being lectured about it when the personal computers were first put into use! This is all our faults. I could go on for hours.
PKI and GSSAPI are, were out there. Encryption engines abound. Yet, I can’t sit down and email, fax, call, or im my doctor. AND, the doc can’t communicate with me.
Next in line for derision is the gubamint and it’s asinine attempt to control every aspect of our lives worthy of a Communist country. They have ruined health care with several things: flawed policies (e.g., WW2 wage and price controls that created “company benefits”, disconnecting the payer from the consequences of their decisions, and many many others), regulations (e.g., FDA), licensing (e.g., Doctors, nurses, hospitals), Medicare / Medicaid rules ‘n’ reimbursements, the War on Drugs, and taxes. The inet has demonstrated what we knew in the late 1800s. No centralized control allows everyone to make decisions efficiently. The marketplace gives everyone the freedom for all participants to make the best decision for them.
Let’s look at one aspect of the current system that kills people, runs up costs, and is terribly inefficient. Paper prescriptions make me laugh. First, you have to payoff the doctor. Then you take this government order (It’s partially printed on the government’s official pad with the doc scribbling the important part in sanskrit.) The pharmacy checks with your insurance company to see if you can have it. That’s if the FDA has “approved” its use. Arghhh.
I have a solution. The doc tells me what I need and I go buy it. Period. I pay the doc for his advice like I do the tax accountant, the dentist, the vet, the lawn guy. I buy the products I need in a Home Depot or Wall Mart. No government, no rules, no expensive infrastructure. What do you bet that Wall Mart could have it all done with one trip to the store like eyeglasses, mobile phones, McDOnalds, and a bank if they’d let them.
So the problem is that industry did NOT solve the KNOWN general problem of which healthcare is a subset. Then the gubamint continues policies that guarantee the problem is unsolvable. IMHO
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