Social Media and Health Care: Integrating Health Care to Improve Patient Care

“Health care is the most information-intensive industry, yet it lags behind every other sector of the national economy in its adoption of information technology,” Mongiardo said. “The banking industry is 20 years ahead of health care in implementing information technology.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) has been issued seeking vendors to help establish this information exchange system. A vendor’s conference was held today in the Capitol Annex for vendors.”

When Kentucky’s Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo announced in 2009 that his State was going to be one of the the first, if not the first to capitalize on President Obama’s pledge to spend billions in stimulus dollars on e-health and implement a Health Information Exchange, he wasn’t just talking about simple automation.

Instead the Lt. Gov. used terms like “innovative and groundbreaking” to describe his vision of how technology could be used to “save lives and significantly reduce costs.”

Given the historic Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that was passed into law on March 23rd, 2010, in which the number of uninsured Americans will drop from current levels by 32 million people, a goal of improving health care while lowering costs would seem academic.

However, and in line with an easier said than done perception, the disconnect between visualization and realization in terms of Mongiardo’s stated goal may mean that it is more laudable than achievable.

In the June 10th PI Window on Business Thought Leaders Series which airs live at 8:00 PM EST, I once again welcome our health care expert Jeff Knott to discuss why he believes that the State is actually in a unique position to successfully implement the Kentucky Health Information Exchange and, why it may become the model for other states.

Jeff Knott’s Book:

The Mongiardo article* also cited a number of interesting statistics relative to why Kentucky Health Information Exchange is a critical program:

• Americans pay more for health care than other industrialized countries, although they have comparatively shorter life spans and higher infant mortality rates.
• At the same time, the United States spends almost twice as much as other leading industrialized nations on health care, placing the country and employers at a severe economic disadvantage because of soaring insurance premiums and health-care costs.
• Kentuckians, in fact, spend more than 16 percent of the state’s gross domestic product on health care even as the state has among the country’s highest rates of chronic illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes.
• It is estimated that a stimulus investment of $10 billion in health information technology for one year would create as many as 212,000 jobs, over half of which would be in small businesses and high-paying, high-tech industries.

* Kentucky Implementing Statewide Health Information Exchange from Government Technology (June 2009)

Remember to use the following link to access both the live and on-demand broadcast “Social Media and Health Care: Integrating Health Care to Improve Patient Care” on Thursday, June 10th at 8:00 PM EST on the PI Window on Business Show on Blog Talk Radio.

Broadcasting Live from New York City July 27th & 28th

The PI Window on Business Show will be on the road covering the Strategic Social Media for Healthcare Conference New York, U.S.A. on the 27th and 28th of July. (Use #pihealthmedia to follow event tweets on Twitter.)

“Taking the Pulse of Patient 2.0: Transforming the Healthcare Industry’s Online Presence into an Engaging Marketing, Communications and PR Strategy“

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