By Todd Rothenhaus, MD
It’s no secret that the U.S. health care system is broken. It’s plagued with splintered information, wasteful duplication, and a severe lack of insight into the health of a patient, or population of patients. If you've ever sat in a hospital waiting room, filling out a paper form on a clipboard, you've experienced the crux of the problem: Data exchange in health care—getting providers the information they need to deliver care—is woefully behind that of virtually every other industry.
Using cloud technology to share data would make an enormous difference. It has for just about every sector of business, from retail to finance. You can, for example, download a book in moments. Transfer money between bank accounts with just a swipe and a tap. But what if you need to send CT scan images from Dallas to Detroit? You’ll likely encounter an antiquated process that requires an excessive amount of work and drives up costs. In 2014, communications advances abound, but the average physician still processes more than 1,100 faxes each month.
Widespread adoption of the cloud could change all that and more. It's exemplary for fast, secure, efficient data exchange—which is where physicians can truly begin caring for patients in a more meaningful way.
When doctors can access, update, and share patient information with ease, they can diagnose with greater confidence, avoid redundant tests, and improve patient safety. Your important data—medical history, current condition, insurance package details—can move right along with you, accessible by any caregiver you choose to see.
But there’s an even bigger health care picture at play here. When large volumes of medical data are securely stored and updated on the cloud, freed from closed systems, the entire industry can identify trends in population health, costs, insurance reimbursements—and use that insight to better serve both patients and providers.
On the cloud-based network at athenahealth, for example, we host more than 15 million clinical patient records for the 64,000 providers who use our nationwide network. Our research team taps into that “cloud intelligence” to monitor emerging trends that can help shape our understanding of the nation’s health. Earlier this year, for example, an analysis of available network data uncovered a rise in mental health diagnoses in children, revealing a 23% increase since 2010—and an even greater increase among kids on Medicaid and in southern states. The insight is there—simply because the relevant information, both clinical and financial, is in the cloud, available in ways that simply don’t exist with the current tech infrastructure.
So what’s causing the glacial pace of advances in health IT?
Some of the problem is with health IT companies that stubbornly hang on to an outdated model that allows them—even encourages them—to opt for the old world of expensive software. Instead of operating from the cloud, they use a platform that prevents the free, simple flow of information to doctors outside of their own system. And there’s absolutely no financial incentive for them to change.
These companies often charge medical practices and health systems millions of dollars in software fees just to get started. Once a purchase is made, the vendors no longer have money on the line as an impetus to continually improve their product for their clients’ success.
Government plays a role, as well. It needs to encourage health care players to converge in the cloud, not regulate them before they even get there. Unfortunately, outdated regulations make it illegal for any health care entity to get paid for securely sending patient information where it needs to go.
Whether you’re a giant corporation or a small disruptive organization, you should have financial incentive for moving health care data efficiently. If we want more patient data on the cloud—a move that could transform American health care—the industry needs a loosening of the laws.
Even with these disheartening conditions, the cloud’s power is evident. In just the past couple years, the athenahealth team has used our cloud-based data to develop national reports on childhood obesity, the Affordable Care Act’s effect on patient visits, and potential peak points for the flu (tracked when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was furloughed due to the government shutdown).
Having a national backbone of real-time health care information in the cloud has compound benefits: Not only does it yield essential insight for the nation’s providers, but it makes it far easier for each provider to access the right information for every patient they care for, right when they need it. Clearly, it’s time to ditch the clipboards and set the data free.
Todd Rothenhaus, MD, is the Chief Medical Officer of athenahealth, Inc.
