February 28, 2019

HIMSS19 — health IT needs to be useful!

HIMSS19 was huge. In the exhibit hall were many of the leading vendors in health IT. But walking the length…

HIMSS19 was huge. In the exhibit hall were many of the leading vendors in health IT. But walking the length and breadth what struck me was how many real world healthcare problems were actually being solved? It unfortunately appeared to be a case of technology for the sake of technology…

That’s quite the wrong approach. Health IT should be just like product design. The best product designers in the world start by identifying and understanding a problem, and then solve it with the best solution. For the betterment of the life of the user. You should never, ever, start with a technology solution and try to find an application for it!

Health IT needs to be useful! We must recognize the importance of where we are today as an industry and the need we have to make a difference, to make the health of people better.

We’ve written before that healthcare must innovate more in the next decade or it will fall behind as an industry. But to be real clear, what we’re saying is that innovative effort must be directed at fixing a problem. A real world problem, that providers and patients are suffering from today. That’s how health IT can be useful and help reduce the strain on the healthcare system.

To do this, human-centered design is how we should be thinking. What are the problems providers and patients are encountering? How can we find them? The answer is simple. Go see for yourself! There’s a huge amount of talent in health IT and by getting them to experience firsthand the lives of providers and patients they will see what they can do to make a difference. A real world difference. And that’s the moment for technology and innovation to then be applied, as we did here at Relaymed.

If I were a provider walking around the exhibit hall, I would have been left wondering how much of what I saw was going to help me or my patients. For me, that’s missing the need of the industry and a commercial opportunity.

That’s my personal takeaway from HIMSS19. Join us at Relaymed and help make health IT useful. Solving even a small problem can make a big impact, so imagine what collectively we can do across something the size of our healthcare system…

Neil, CEO at Relaymed.

 

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