In an economy where gloom pervades, one bright spot is health care information technology. President Obama's 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes $19 billion for health care information technology, much of which will go to hospitals and physician offices which will be implementing an electronic medical record (EMR).


Why does the American health care system need EMRs? In 2009, the vast majority of health care transactions in the United States still take place on paper, a system that has been unchanged since the 1950s. All those shelves of paper files in your typical medical office are testimony to our inefficiency. And not only is it inefficient, it's unsafe.
Data in paper files are often unreadable (the old joke about physician handwriting still holds true). Also, data on paper can't be easily or efficiently exchanged. When the patient goes from the medical office to the hospital, the data needs to be collected again .... that takes time and it also opens up health care providers to more and more errors.
So, what does this have to do with marketing and communications? There's the obvious .... there'll be plenty of health care information technology vendors looking for dynamite salespeople to market their wares. However, there are other imperatives for us. As the nation's communication professionals, we need to help medical and IT professionals with the huge cultural changes ahead.
Just think of all the shifts afoot .... shifts that demand excellent communicators to help us through them. Health care professionals will experience the changes first. Time spent "charting" in paper files will be a thing of the past. Electronic templates will help them record data much faster. That should be good news all around. It should mean doctors, nurses and technicians have more time with the patient and more time collaborating to ensure the best possible outcome. (Note I wrote "should" .... that's where communicators can help health care teams make these important changes possible!)
For patients, electronic health records mean better data on their condition and information that is efficiently transferred throughout the health care experience (imagine, not filling out the same form or being asked the same questions over and over at the hospital!). It should also mean fewer communication errors among the health care team. And medical professionals will be able to share important outcome data to identify best practices in medicine .... meaning we will all receive better. care. Again, that's only if the implementation is well done .... which is partially up to us .... the professional communicators.
There are many critical conversations that must occur in the months ahead. Patients and medical teams will be looking for information on issues such as privacy protection, technical support, patient safety, job security and, the very cost of these paradigm-shifting systems. We as communicators will be needed to play a vital role in fostering communications in this brave new world.
Consider the worst case scenario that can happen at a hospital or medical office. The IT team installs expensive these systems and does not adequately train or communicate all the benefits to physicians and staff. There's a high probability the entire initiative will fall flat. It's happened before, and almost every time, millions of dollars are wasted. Given the enormity of our current economic crisis, the health care system can't absorb such huge losses any more.
Although all the specifics of the health care information technology stimulus funds have not been ironed out, the message is clear -- hospitals and physicians should begin planning the rollout of electronic health records systems now. And they need to enlist the support of some very good communications professionals.
Our president has set a clear agenda to make our health care more efficient and more collaborative in the years ahead. As communicators, now is the time to contribute to this mammoth effort.
Editor's Note: Susan welcomes discussion on health care IT communications. You can email her at sussol@gmail.com.