Let’s make physicians more productive instead of stimulating health IT revenues

Danny Lieberman, founder of Pathcare, the private social network for healthcare that enables  physicians to care for more patients with less stress in less time talks about the importance of focusing on the needs of the physician and the physician-patient relationship.

Dave Chase, founder of Avado has written a fantastic post on techcrunch - Government Poised To Provide A Huge Boost To Healthtech Startups.  Dave’s discussion of Meaningful Use 2 in the US HITECH Act raises a number of very fundamental questions.  But, first of all what is MU 2?

Stage 2 Criteria for Meaningful Use

In this proposed rule CMS proposes to specify Stage 2 criteria that EPs, eligible hospitals, and CAHs must meet in order to qualify for an incentive payment, as well as introduce changes to the program timeline and detail payment adjustments. These proposed criteria were substantially adopted from the recommendations of the Health IT Policy Committee (HITPC), a Federal Advisory Committee that obtains industry and provider input regarding the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, as well as through consideration of current program data for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs.

The proposed Stage 2 criteria for meaningful use focus on increasing the electronic capturing of health information in a structured format, as well as increasing the exchange of clinically relevant information between providers of care at care transitions.

Do we really need the US government for innovation?

Look around at the all the startups in Silicon Valley and Israel… There is no way the US Federal government is going to do a cheaper and faster job on healthtech innovation for reducing physician stress and increasing patient health.

Do we really need the US Federal government to legislate strong “patient engagement requirements”?

This is an integral part of the physician-patient relationship – no matter what model you use.
Why do we even need government mandated “patient engagement requirements“? Isn’t this like leading a horse to water but not being able to make him drink?

Except for people who have self-destructive behavior (and I suppose there are plenty of them out there) – the primary interest of a person and his/her caregiver is to be healthy. Patients will find ways to be engaged that you cannot imagine – although perhaps Mr. Obama and Mr. Peres are dreaming about them as we write. But – dreams are insufficient.

Although a minimum utilitarian availability of health care is desirable, taking care of your body is a personal responsibility, a Kantian obligation.

I know that in a period of self-management and informed consent this may be politically incorrect, but I think that we need to focus on the physician engagement requirements not the patient.

At the beginning, middle and end of the day – its the physician with the training, the evidenced-based medicine and experience and access to resources not the patient – no matter how many Android or iPad apps a patient has and no matter how much time they spend online consulting with other people in health forums and asking Dr. Google for a diagnosis.

Let’s make physicians more productive instead of stimulating health IT revenues

If we can make the physician more productive in his his physician-relationship management then we have done the world a very big favor.

In a time when more primary care providers are needed to take care of a growing and aging population, government bureaucracy can cut physician productivity by as much as 20-30%.

Most of the CMS Meaningful Use reporting requirements do not contribute to the quality of patient care.  That vacuum is a classic market opportunity for innovative healthcare startups to focus on physician needs for better physician-patient management, stress reduction and improved communications with less effort using modern tools like private social networking for healthcare.

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