PRx Blog

Healthcare IT Trends to Watch, Week of 5/14 - 5/18

Each day at Schwartz MSL, the Healthcare IT Practice shares news items on the latest industry trends. Following is a glimpse at some of the most relevant story highlights from the past week:

Susan D. Hall of FierceMobile.com wrote an interesting piece based on the friendly point-counterpoint articles at Forbes, where contributors Dave Chase and David Shaywitz faced off on the question of whether mobile apps could someday be more effective than prescription drugs. In her piece titled, “Debate: Can mobile apps achieve what pills can't?” she asks whether apps pose a threat to the pharma industry or if pharma should get its head (and money and people) in the game?

John Sharp of Healthcare IT News put his predictions on the line in his piece titled, “A Look at Social Media in Health Care -- Two Years Later.” Since 2010, pharmaceutical companies have joined startups, patient communities and providers in the social media realm. Many startups, particularly those enabling patient communities, have matured and broadened their scope. He also takes a stab at the next two years. If you are a mobile app provider, you’re in the right place as John believes that the app world has widely expanded how social media can impact care, and it holds much promise in the future.

Pam Dolan at American Medical News wrote about a study published in the May issue of the Journal of the American Medical Information Association about members of the MidSouth eHealth Alliance in Memphis in her article titled, “Study highlights how health information exchange can cut costs.” During a 13-month period in which emergency physicians were given access to patient information through a health information exchange, there were reduced admissions and costs associated with cases for which the HIE was accessed. The results were a testament to the act of exchanging information, said Mark Frisse, MD, one of the study’s authors.

According to Nicole Lewis of InformationWeek-Healthcare, “The federal government's incentive programs for the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) is widening the digital divide between large and small providers.” This came from an online study in Health Affairs which reported that the 15% gap in EHR adoption between small and large hospitals seen in 2010 has grown to nearly 22% in 2011.

Ken Terry of FierceHealthIT was one of many who reported on the web-based tool which the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched to make it easier to find detailed U.S. healthcare industry data. His story titled, “HHS' Measurement Project presents comprehensive data on U.S. healthcare system,” discussed how The Health System Measurement Project will allow policymakers, providers and the public to develop consistent data-driven views of changes in critical U.S. health system indicators. The project combines datasets culled from a number of different federal agencies. The data spans topic areas such as access to care, cost and affordability, prevention and health information technology. It presents these indicators by population characteristics, such as age, sex, income level, insurance coverage and geography.