Kazira

So what is bugging you these days? Energy, drugs, tobacco, politics, Iran, unemployment, the automotive sector, our primary education system - take your pick. There are plenty of choices out there these days. But then there is one problem that seems to have been around for the longest time - Healthcare.

We are about to wrap up the first decade of the 21st century and healthcare continues to become more high tech, expensive, complicated, and to quite a few out there, elusive. One would have logically concluded that with time, there would be productivity improvements and this would drive the costs down. But the fact is that despite there being improvements in procedures, hardware, software, etc., healthcare costs have kept going up and up. Some blame it on the expensive equipment and devices that the suppliers keep pushing into the system, which the doctors have to keep utilizing to justify their costs. Others say the costs are high due to the constant barrage of medical malpractice law suits that the providers have to insure themselves against. Yet others say that the providers have no clue about what their true costs are and tend to charge figures that are guestimated based on what the market is willing to bear.

Based on my research and assessment, the healthcare sector is probably the most inefficient sector in all of the industry. There is a lot of waste in terms of drugs, devices, and diagnostics. There is a lot of duplicity of effort, sub-optimal utilization of energy, reliance on paper, and lack of process transformation. There is a glut of information, which in turn is not organized in a manner that is readily accessible, transferable, reliable, or trend-able. Information sharing and collaboration across service providers is lacking. Private practices, clinics, and small businesses have very little incentive to innovate and transform there operations since they have a captive customer base – us – their patients. Despite a large number of providers, true competition and a will to change is lacking.

Let me share a visual that I came across that will tell you why healthcare is so inefficient, cludgy, and out of touch with reality. Instead of moving to solutions that are based on human interactions and usability, the healthcare IT sector continues to produce applications that are transaction oriented. Its another fine example of the clutter that has been the hallmark of our fat and obese healthcare system. Be sure to leave your reactions/comments to this visual.