Health IT Week Reminds Us People Are Most Important

By Greg Bengel, contributing writer

As organizations raise awareness for the potential of health IT, it is worth remembering that helping people is at the core of the field

This past week was Health IT Week, which saw provider groups and physicians across the nation reflect on the importance of health IT in the midst of healthcare reform and a push toward patient-centered care. One such reflection, a recent post in a LinkedIn group, sums up the importance of health IT quickly and succinctly. 

The post notes the recent passing of Red Burns, and quotes Facebook’s Product Design Director Margaret Stewart, who says that Burns’ legacy was the realization that “technology was a means to an end – and that the end was people.” The post also quotes Burns directly, who once rightly said, “Don’t see the world as a market, but rather as a place that people live in.”

Health IT has been a hot topic for some time now. As recently reported, a recent study reveals that healthcare needs to 50,000 IT jobs in the next 5 to 7 years, and also provider organizations have been steadily staffing up on health IT talent.

The field promises to aid providers in navigating the rocky healthcare landscape, as they cope with meaningful use incentives and requirements, new HIPAA rules and challenges with getting paid in full and on time. Health IT offers valuable opportunities to providers to overcome reimbursement challenges and stay afloat. But it is important to remember, says the post, that “those opportunities are only made possible by patients, clinicians, caregivers and technologists (people) continually striving to find a greater value in the use of information technology for the betterment of our nation’s health (helping more people).”

Gary Palgon’s Health IT Week article here on Health IT Outcomes shows how the push for patient-centered care goes hand-in-hand with changing legislation. “At the same time,” Palgon writes, “patients are becoming more engaged about their needs and their healthcare options—they demand a better, more inclusive patient experience that eliminates duplicate tests and time wasted having to provide the same information repeatedly to different entities.  They also want a complete “picture” of their health instead of a “snapshot” from each doctor they visit.”

The message – the bottom line must always be people.