See the Weeds' "Medicine in Denial." Improved population care has to come from improved patient-level care. And, yes, accurate, comprehensive, and actionable data must be at the fingertips of the caregivers (and patients themselves).
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"A culture of denial subverts the health care system from its foundation. The foundation—the basis for deciding what care each patient individually needs—is connecting patient data to medical knowledge. That foundation, and the processes of care resting upon it, are built by the fallible minds of physicians. A new, secure foundation requires two elements external to the mind: electronic information tools and standards of care for managing clinical information.

Electronic information tools are now widely discussed, but the tools depend on standards of care that are still widely ignored. The necessary standards for managing clinical information are analogous to accounting standards for managing financial information..." [MiD pp 1-2]

http://regionalextensioncenter.blogspot.com

Kim, thanks very much for your comments. I wanted to follow-up to your inquiry. I believe that reimbursement methodologies will continue to shift (by both public and private payors) to reward physicians/hospitals not just for how much they do, but for how well they do it. Once "pay for value" becomes the new normal, I would predict that providers will avidly seek out the adoption of EHR/HIE/Alternative technologies because such technologies will be essential to improve quality while reducing costs. I do not envision many more rounds of meaningful use incentives. HITECH has been effective in rewarding adoption and modestly effective use of EHR, but it will now be more comprehensive population-based payments/rewards and other drivers (e.g. market competition, transparency of performance data) that will incent "optimal use" of technologies.

I found this to be a very interesting piece and enjoyed its optimistic viewpoint. However, I'd very much like to hear what the author believes will be the driving force that makes all these positive changes occur. We've been talking about the importance of EHRs, HIEs, and other technology applications for a long time now. While EHR adoption has finally started to move in the right direction (thanks mainly to HITECH), other aspects such as community-wide HIE have struggled mightily. Many of the problems aren't related to technology but rather to business rivalries and cultural issues.

Will future iterations of "Meaningful Use" be the driving force that gets us where we want to go? Will we finally see sufficient pressure from the payer community (both public and private) to make this happen? Would this still occur if we see drastic cuts made to the Medicare program next year?

What we do know is that it's unlikely the provider community will change spontaneously.

Digital healthcare is becoming increasingly important for easier access and maintenance. More and more digital platforms are rooting their place in medicine and thus will help more health clinics.

http://www.ringadoc.com

Craig, thanks for the insight. I totally agree that EHR and MU are just the beginning. Patient data would need to flow as patients are served by different care providers. Patient data would need to fuel decision support to both patients and care providers. Once patients see direct benefits from having the digital health platform, patients will become the key driving force as well. So, in the short term, how to quickly use technology and data to engage patients in care is becoming critical, particularly for the underserved populations served by community health centers and clinics.