Health Care and IT - National Broadband Plan

Recently the federal government released something called the National Broadband Plan that lays out the framework for a national effort to ensure that, as a country, we are making the most of available broadband technology. One of the challenges the National Broadband Plan hopes to tackle is the synergies between health care and IT. The plan is comprehensive in nature and lays out 5 key elements that will allow our health care providers to utilize current and future IT trends to provide better, cheaper, and more efficient care.

Ensure Access to Affordable Broadband by Rural Health Care Providers - the plan suggests that the FCC make use around $400Million in annual funds already authorized. The concern is that commercially available broadband is often priced too high to be affordable, or is simply insufficient to support modern health care needs.

Create Economic Incentives to Encourage Broad Adoption of IT and IT innovation - this tenant of the plan aims to increase the use of innovative IT products to improve the overall health care system. It supports Electronic Health Records and E-care. This part of the pan recognizes that broadband connectivity alone is not sufficient to get the most out of the current and future IT environment.

Use New Techniques in Data Analytics - Given the mass amounts of data generated and stored by modern IT systems, a move to broader adoption of health care IT will allow providers to make use of advanced analytics techniques. Spotting patterns in data may lead to better treatment and new cures.

Revise Standards around Licensing, Credentialing and Privileging - Many of these rules were written in the 20th century in a time before broadband and the technology of today. The National Broadband Plan aims to re-write these rules to speed the adoption of E-Care.

Protect Privacy - This is probably the biggest issue in Health Care IT. We will not see widespread adoption of electronic health records, E-Care, or health care IT until providers and patients are comfortable with the standards of privacy. In a time when we expose more and more information about ourselves online, most people are still not willing to share their medical information with anyone other than their provider and their insurance company.

These are the five major points of the National Broadband Plan as it relates to Health Care IT. In other posts I will examine the plan as it relates to other areas of national interest.

Good Talk,
Tom