Pay for Performance

I am a true believer of pay-for-performance model rather than fee-for-service (FFS) model. I understand providers order additional tests to rule out diseases and also to mitigate any potential litigation. Nevertheless, many providers just simply order wasteful tests or expensive imaging procedures to earn extra bucks. For example, high-cost technology such as  MRI machines are used to make diagnoses when a simple X-ray would do.  

Retailers and products are well used to be rated for their quality and services. Consumers are willing to pay more for quality services. This principle should also apply to healthcare services, and I also believe this will lead to control healthcare cost. One item that I do cheer for in this healthcare reform bill is to promote pay-for-performance payment model. Although I do not know how this will turn out, I think it is a good start. Being as Healthcare IT Guru, it's so critical that we can create a system to connect a patient's episode and a quantitative outcome. Certainly, we have many tools that we can allow us to query patient session information. However, linking these datas from disparate systems together and present them in a useful way is not easy. In addition, how do we quantify performance? What benchmark should we use when comparing healthcare providers? This information is crucial to create the rules of the system. Stay tune as I will do more research in this area.

If you want to find more information about pay-for-performance model, you can read from this article. Creative payment reform initiatives

Helpful Resources:

Minnesota Health Information - Since I live in Minnesota, I of course want to compare healthcare costs in the state. This portal provides information to compare healthcare costs in different healthcare providers. I wish the user interface can be better and more user friendly.

Healthcare Reform

One of the big news here in America today is about the bill of Healthcare Reform.  The passing of the Healthcare Reform fundamental changes the health system in America.  It's a milestone step, but I wouldn't comment if it's good or bad.  However, I would like to talk about the impact to me being as Healthcare IT guru.

This Healthcare bill will add about 32 millions of uninsured Americans to the under staff health care system.  Primary care providers are already in severe shortage, and yet they are the first gateway of all the patients who seek medical attentions.  In addition, allied health staffs such as nurses are in shortage too.  How can we care for these additional 32 millions Americans.  We can add 32 millions of Americans in one day, but there is no way that we can even add additional 32 thousands of doctors and nurses in a year.

So, what can we do??  I think this is how innovation comes in.  American Healthcare systems need to reduce medical waste and improve efficiency to delivery healthcare to patients.  People who have both worked in healthcare facility can tell you many ways how one can reduce waste and improve efficiency, and yet these improvements were difficult to tackle due to unwillingness of people and other factors.  Activities, such as TeleHealth, Health information exchange are just some of the technology that we might use to delivery more efficiency healthcare as information hopefully can flow between between medical providers if these technologies are implemented correctly.

I am hopefully and yet caution about how this reform changes the lives of million Americans and an industry accounts for 16% GDP.  I cheer for the pay for performance and simplify healthcare administration, but I am not excited for the potential premiums increased as I might have a so called "Cadillac Plan".  One thing I am certain is that numerous working opportunities being as healthcare IT guru.   Now, may be it's time to polish your skills to acquire an Healthcare IT certification.