---Paul Dausman, CEO, Valiant Health See also http://www.valianthealth.com/blog/health-care-reform-as-a-technology-innovation-stimulus/
The regulatory and compliance requirements emanating from the Affordable Care Act, coupled with incentives for providers to move manual processes to automated ones has stimulated the growth of technology and service vendors to enable health care businesses to stay in the game. Some entrepreneurial vendors are aiming their innovative solutions at the patient; others are focused on the doctor’s office and the information which is needed while care is being rendered. Many are focused on cost management, fraud detection, or waste reduction at the population health or plan level. It has occurred to me, however, that solutions that consume the publicly available data and that data gathered by the doctor or member at the point of care will afford only a part of what is needed.
In fact, the change (as described in the New York Times Opinion piece link below) that is coming will require a complete re-engineering from the top to the bottom of the existing health plan and provider care models. Healthcare Performance Management (HCMP) systems will enable all parties within a program to be on the same page in terms of developing priorities and sound action plans.
Thomas L. Friedman noted in his NYT article that while the US has had the best but most expensive health care in the world, the goal of the new health care law is to “flip this fee-for-services system (which some insurance companies are emulating) to one where the government pays doctors and hospitals to keep Medicare patients healthy and the services they do render are reimbursed more for their value than volume.”
Proving that the “flip” is successful or just “cheaper” is going to require data, fed into HCMP systems that will shine a light on what health care organizations need to do first and whether or not they are risking failure over the course of time in any specific measurable area or for any specific patient.
Paul Dausman is the CEO of Valiant Health, LLC, and has an extensive history as an entrepreneur in the health care and information technology areas.
