The ideological change at the top in the federal government had the 42,000-plus attendees wondering about the future of American healthcare.
The big questions: What will happen if and when the Affordable Care Act is repealed and replaced, as promised, by the Republican-led U.S. Congress and the administration of newly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump? How would the impending changes affect the expanding nationwide adoption and use of electronic health records and, ultimately, the health IT job market?
As the 1,289 vendor-exhibitors and 300-plus breakout session leaders and keynote speakers shared their visions for the future with HIMSS17 attendees, an optimistic consensus emerged: No matter what shape the U.S. healthcare system takes in the coming years, it will almost certainly include a major health IT component.
“We’re very much looking forward to working with Secretary (of Health and Human Services Tom) Price and the incoming administration to continue momentum and to align direction to make sure that we’re seeing the digital dividends and the outcomes … and the promise that we know that health IT holds,” said Dr. Thomas Mason, chief medical officer of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). “We’re very early in the evolution of health IT. It’s just been a few years now that we’ve seen this tremendous wave of adoption.”
Mason, who also is the ONC’s acting director of the Office of Clinical Quality and Safety, gave a presentation on the ONC’s efforts to assist providers and patients with quality health care. He began by citing a couple of statistics that illustrate how quickly adoption of electronic health records (EHR) has occurred.
According to Mason and the ONC, in 2008 only 9% of American hospitals had implemented a basic EHR system; by 2015, that number had increased to 96%.
And in 2008, according to Mason, only 17% of ambulatory physicians had implemented EHR; in 2015, 78% of office-based physicians used some form of EHR.
The bottom line: 15 years ago, health data was a paper-based system, and now it’s a digitally based system. There’s no going back, Mason said, and cited legislative evidence to back up his assertion.
“Health IT has very much been a bi-partisan supported field,” Mason said. “We were legislatively mandated through HITECH. We were very excited to see within the 21st Century Cures Act that was just signed into law in December that there are very specific provisions within Cures that call out the importance and utility of health IT, as well as improving and building upon the infrastructure that has been laid out. … So, I’d like to focus on those sort of facts that we can build upon.”
While sounding that optimistic note, Mason also explained the role of the ONC’s Workforce Training Program, which he said maintains its goal to be sure that pressing population health challenges are met. These challenges include:
• Maternal and child healthcare
• Mental health care
• Care for the housing insecure and homeless
• Care for chronically vulnerable populations.
Mason’s and the ONC’s optimism about the evolving role of health IT in the American healthcare landscape were reinforced by the findings of the HIMSS 2017 Leadership and Workforce Survey.
The annual gauge of the hiring practices among health IT vendors and consultants and healthcare providers was conducted after the 2016 presidential election. It found that 61% of participating executives from vendors, consulting companies and hospitals anticipate an increase in the size of their workforces in 2017.
Lorren Pettit, vice president of research for HIMSS North America, also sounded optimistic as he discussed the potential ramifications for the future of health IT as illustrated by this year’s survey.
“What are the new roles that we can’t even imagine now?” Pettit said.
And Tom Leary, HIMSS vice president of government affairs and relations, said impending change is not to be feared by health IT professionals. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Change creates opportunity to further value health IT,” Leary said. “And that’s really what our team is all about.”
Carter Gaddis works at Bisk with USF Health Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida and writes about health informatics. Gaddis is an award winning journalist, and has been writing professionally for over thirty years.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker’s Hospital Review/Becker’s Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.
