Thanks in part to "The Electronic Health Record Gold Rush," the Nashville Health Care Council may be well on its way to becoming the "Silicon Valley of Health Care."
Founded in 1995, the council was created specifically to establish the Tennessee city as the hub for healthcare companies. Supporting this goal, on Jan. 20 Nashville hosted a luncheon for healthcare information technology heavyweights. Discussions centered around opportunities created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which is providing billion of dollars for health information technology under the Health Information Technology for Clinical and Economic Health (HITECH) Act.
Brad Perkins, M.D. EVP for Strategy and Innovation and Chief Transformation Officer, at Vanguard Health Systems, moderated the "Technology in Health Care: The Value & The Vision". The panel included Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft, who also was the featured speaker at the Nashville Technology Council's annual membership breakfast. Other speakers included Harry Greenspun, M.D., chief medical officer (CMO), Dell Perot Systems; George Lazenby, CEO, Emdeon, and Glen Tullman, CEO, Allscripts.
Healthcare has far to go in technology adoption, said Ballmer. Small physician practices provide the majority of care but their adoption of electronic health records hovers between 5% and 10%, he said. “We look at the healthcare industry and say, ‘It’s not working,’" noted Ballmer. "Yet more than most industries, it is all about information — getting the right information to the right person at the right time,”
Panel members predict increased investment in healthcare information technology, in part due to ARRA-HITECH. The electronic prescribing side of Allscripts' business is growing 100% every year, said George Lazenby, CEO of Emdeon. And Allscripts' sales are up 30% year-over-year, said Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts. E-prescribing is up 150% compared with 2009, he added. During a recent stockholders conference call, Tullman outlined Allscripts EMR domination plan.
Dell Perot's Dr. Greenspun cautioned stakeholders about the dangers of getting “bogged down” in complying with new regulations coming out of healthcare reform. Instead, healthcare IT providers should address the opportunities these new regulations create, he said. “Look at the type of innovation we’ll be capable of once we have the stuff in place and we’re actually able to do some very unique things to serve patients, to serve consumers and deliver care in very innovative ways,” Dr. Greenspun stated.
CEO quotes were reported by April Worthamare on Jan. 20, 2010 in the Nashville Business Journal.