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In the US, the cost of health care has not significantly decreased since the introduction of rules, regulations and government money pushing healthcare organiza

In the US, the cost of health care has not significantly decreased since the introduction of rules, regulations and government money pushing healthcare organizations to implement and use EHR systems. I would say all of the intervention by the US federal government has made everything much worse. The EHR vendors (I'm looking at you, Epic) managed to consume the money thrown at the problem and yet have only moderately improved. In my opinion it also pushed smaller hospitals into expensive contracts with EHR vendors, eroding their already tenuous financial health and leading to even more consolidation.

mixdup 3y ago
>I would say all of the intervention by the US federal government has made everything much worse This is assuming without intervention things would've gotten better. It's entirely possible things would be just as bad as they are, or worse, without said intervention
to11mtm 3y ago
Epic is an extremely weird case. I knew someone who worked at a company that was contracted to be a support provider; they had at least one nervous breakdown. Also interesting to note that the wikipedia article for the company mentions that in some European countries, moving to Epic was a huge pain that caused doctors stress. OTOH apparently their actual corporate campus is some whimsical Alice-in-wonderland world with no expense spared.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
Lack of timely access to accurate information is and was a huge problem, that can be solved by electronic health records. Whether or not the currently implementation is worth the cost/benefit ratio is debatable. I envision a scenario though, where all EHR vendors integrate with Apple/Google, and someone’s phone can give access to their healthcare data, maybe even involuntarily in the event of an emergency.
rchaud 3y ago
Precisely, and for this reason, AI will be the snake oil panacea, just as computerization of records were. Both will be important, but the size of the contract will be based on the "transformative" messaging around the pitch. The real value as you've said will accrue to the consultancies and vendors as it always has, so even without the enormous compute bills for AI tools, prices will keep going up.

mixdup 3y ago

>I would say all of the intervention by the US federal government has made everything much worse This is assuming without intervention things would've gotten better. It's entirely possible things would be just as bad as they are, or worse, without said intervention

to11mtm 3y ago

Epic is an extremely weird case. I knew someone who worked at a company that was contracted to be a support provider; they had at least one nervous breakdown. Also interesting to note that the wikipedia article for the company mentions that in some European countries, moving to Epic was a huge pain that caused doctors stress. OTOH apparently their actual corporate campus is some whimsical Alice-in-wonderland world with no expense spared.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

Lack of timely access to accurate information is and was a huge problem, that can be solved by electronic health records. Whether or not the currently implementation is worth the cost/benefit ratio is debatable. I envision a scenario though, where all EHR vendors integrate with Apple/Google, and someone’s phone can give access to their healthcare data, maybe even involuntarily in the event of an emergency.

rchaud 3y ago

Precisely, and for this reason, AI will be the snake oil panacea, just as computerization of records were. Both will be important, but the size of the contract will be based on the "transformative" messaging around the pitch. The real value as you've said will accrue to the consultancies and vendors as it always has, so even without the enormous compute bills for AI tools, prices will keep going up.