Top 10 Health Technology Trends for 2010

Forecasting the future is always a challenge, but as we begin a new year, let me share my choices for the most promising health technology trends that may prove significant in the year ahead. I will share 5 with you today and the remaining 5 later this week. 10) Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Expect the world of EMR's to grow significantly thanks in large part to over $30 billion in direct adoption incentives as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in the President's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. It is really unclear what impact this investment will actually have on clinical care or more importantly on health outcomes, but most would agree, the potential is significant. 9) Electronic Health Records (EHR)/Personal Health Records (PHR) – While there are no direct funds in ARRA or HITECH for PHR's, interest in PHR's will continue to grow in 2010. The key difference between EMR's and PHR's comes down to 2 things – who is putting the information into the record and who owns the information. Typically the information found in the EMR was entered exclusively by individuals or organizations considered part of the healthcare system. Despite unclear legal basis or precedent for the ownership of electronic protected health information, most clinicians contend that while the information is about the patient, it is actually owned by (and therefore under the ultimate control of) the doctor/healthcare system. On the other hand, the information found in PHR's can be entered by a variety of means including patients, caregivers, the healthcare system or third parties not historically considered part of the healthcare system. Growth in this area will be fueled by patient rights and privacy advocates, consumer interest, PHR developers/vendors/enablers like Microsoft (MS Healthvault), Google (Google Health) and large employers like Cleveland Clinic and Wal-Mart (Dossia). As with EMR's the health impact of these developments is unclear. What is clear however is that a growing number of patients want both access and control of their own information, large employers are exploring new methods to improve employee (and beneficiary) health while reducing healthcare costs and leading technology companies are anxious to offer an effective technology solution. 8) Telemedicine/Telehealth – While the idea is not new, providing care and patient support via telephone is certainly experiencing resurgence. Like EMR's this area is benefitting from some stimulus funding, but more importantly the global evolution of Information and Communications Technologies, the Internet, miniaturization and ever increasing computer processing power is enabling both synchronous audio and video communication, from fixed or mobile platforms using both wired and wireless networks at costs that are rapidly decreasing. Historically this medium was primarily used to connect rural patients to more urban providers or patients and providers otherwise separated by large distances. In addition it was primarily used among Geriatricians and rehabilitation providers seeking to improve Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) care or care for Heart Attack, Stroke or trauma patients living at great distances from specialty rehabilitation centers. Increasingly however the potential of these technologies to enhance provider productivity, streamline workflows, reduce inappropriate utilization of Emergency Rooms, reduce healthcare access barriers, increase patient convenience, satisfaction and lower health care costs is making "Telecare" applications increasingly important in the care of chronic disease patients, urban underserved populations (prisoner and the uninsured) and mainstream healthcare system redesign of the future (surgical robotics and teleradiology). 7) Populomics – It is increasingly recognized that the health of our nation is not simply the result of the sum of the care each individual may receive. We all have parents (known or unknown), who pass on diverse psychological and physical health traits, dispositions and disease susceptibilities. In turn we all also come from families (traditional, nontraditional, broken or unbroken), possess unique cultural and ethnic identities, live in communities, work, go to school, live and or play in environments that shape our exposures, beliefs, thoughts and actions regarding our health. To comprehensively understand illness, protect health and provide high quality effective disease treatments to every person, we need to understand how all these factors fit together. Yet we have a healthcare system that largely considers only genetic, psychological and other biologic processes as important causes of disease. Obviously putting all this together for any one patient, much less the entire nation, is next to impossible without recent breakthroughs in technology which enabled advances in Bioinformatics, Medicine and Public Health. Populomics represents this new comprehensive way of studying health problems and crafting health solutions. It is being advocated by some officials at the National Institutes of Health as a new science that should be supported as the population level equivalent of genomics, which may lead to quantum leaps forward in understanding health challenges and developing new effective therapies and treatments. 6) Health improvement Technology (HiT) – Health Improvement Technology is essentially the next evolution of Health Information Technology. It represents a shift from a focus on simply building another electronic tool or gadget to a dedicated focus on making electronic tools that are designed to actually improve specific things. This subtle yet profound shift in nomenclature and philosophy was launched in 2009 by executives at Microsoft. While Microsoft may see this primarily as a marketing strategy designed to segment the Health Information Technology market, define a market niche and begin building a customer base, I believe it represents something much more fundamental that is badly needed in the health technology world. If we are serious about developing technology solutions for healthcare problems, we must have a greater focus on the users (patients, caregivers as well as providers) and their problems, issues, needs and concerns. We must then use this information to develop effective technology solutions for user defined needs. Without this focus, health technology innovations will not realize the full potential they have to offer and will, like the broader healthcare system, become mired in debates about payment as practice policy and ideological compromise rather than health as a national strategic imperative engaging the best and brightest minds this country has to offer. Those individuals and companies that maintain a focus on HiT will prove to be most valuable to providers, patients and healthcare systems in 2010 and beyond.


Later this week I will share with you the rest of my top 10 health tech trends of 2010.