Plans, providers: Ask these 2 questions when evaluating technology

SchmulandAs the chief health strategy officer of a global software company, one of the most frequently asked questions I get from executives and health professionals is, "What do you think are best technology solutions in the market today?"

For the past decade my answer has been, "It's the solutions delivering the right information to the right person at the right time and place."  In the volume economy era when autonomous providers were paid for procedures, tests, treatments, and length of stay and were the prevailing decision makers, the primary role of technology was organizing and presenting information to clinician decision makers.  That era produced the current bumper crop of technology solutions we have today: electronic health records (EHRs) and health information exchanges.

Related: Ten things healthcare executives should know about 'the cloud'

But we're now operating in a consumer-centric, outcome economy where technology has to take on a much bigger and challenging role than organizing and presenting information to decision makers.  Now it must help us bend the cost curve. And to do that, technology has to empower the people best positioned to bend the cost curve: health professionals and consumers.

Health professionals can bend the cost curve if technology can empower them to improve the safety, speed, outcomes and coordination of care.  Consumers can bend the cost curve if technology can empower them to live healthier, better self-manage their conditions, and minimize the functional and cost impact of chronic disease-all driving up demand, complexity and costs. 

But to empower people, technology has to do more than connect them to information.  It now must also connect people to people, teams, insights, and complex processes both within and beyond their four walls-and automate as many portions of those processes as possible.  It also needs to help coordinate those processes in a way that improves the outcomes and experience of care at a lower cost.

So today my response to the "best technology solution" question is to apply the "non-techie" empowerment test.  Passing it requires answering "yes" to two simple questions:

 

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