Week 6

This week's class dialogue strayed from the usual informatics topic and was instead invested on the class response to the elections.  Instead of dwelling on the emotions I have towards the results of the elections, I want to stay on track with informatics.  I firmly believe information technology will never be lesser of a priority with this presidency or with any other presidency.  As we have read from this class and others, health care has invested far too much and has had bipartisan support all along.  Although our MHA community as well as the rest of the health care community has been shaken with the results of the elections, health care has historically time and time again been resilient through change and has been able to sustain because ultimately people believe health care is a human right for all.

In terms of strategy for health IT, I think one of the more larger scope strategies will be to ensure there is healthy competition between vendors.  This is something that regulators and legislators will need to get more involved with.  Over the years, large entities such as Cerner, EPIC, and McKesson have held a strong hold over health care delivery systems.  This is the case because they have contracted with delivery systems that are able to afford the services.  However, there are plenty of smaller entities that have been surviving when the larger entities refuse to invest due to smaller payments not worth the time.  I think legislators will need to work more aggressively to ensure that a few companies do not monopolize the health care industry and continue the legacy and practice of the failure of interoperability.