Other major milestones, from HIPAA changes to Health Exchange preparedness, were harbingers to substantial shifts for physician offices in 2014 and the years to come.
“To navigate the rapid evolution of reimbursement, care delivery, and consumer participation, physicians will increasingly rely on technology that offers them greater connectivity and opportunity for innovation in their practices,” said Lauren Fifield, senior health policy advisor for Practice Fusion.
Among the Top 5 newsmakers for health information technology this year include:
#1 – EHR Adoption Builds
An EHR Incentive Program – and the realization that the inevitable was about to occur – motivated an upswing in health IT adoption. Doctors and hospitals’ use of EHRs more than doubled since 2012. And as leaders in the technology have begun to emerge, providers began switching from their existing systems to leading providers such as Epic, Allscripts, Cerner and Centricity.
“The huge paper inertia to change in healthcare is being largely addressed by ARRA and the HITECH Act, incentivizing practitioners to digitize care records,” said Gopal K. Chopra, founder of pingmd, Inc., a healthcare solutions company designed to advance between patients, physicians and their colleagues.
#2 – Cloud Forecast
“The movement to cloud-based solutions is definitely a high point in healthcare technology for this year,” said Tom Giannulli, chief medical information officer at Kareo, a provider of practice management solutions. A recent Gartner Group study showed annual spending on cloud-related transactions may grow to almost $150 billion worldwide in 2014. Cloud-based solutions offer a tightly integrated environment that can include billing and EHR.
#3 – Incubating Ideas
While large companies are grabbing the market share in healthcare – Epic in the EMR business; Apple in mobile devices; Oracle in data management – many medical companies are all integrating but few are innovating, said Chopra, founder of pingmd, Inc. He believes the big mover to watch is the provider network, especially the incubator attitude of the Clinics such as University of Pittsburg Medical Center, Johns Hopkins, University of California San Francisco, Cleveland Clinic and many others.
“They are spurring a culture in microcosms akin to the startup environment of Palo Alto,” said Chopra.
#4 –On the Go
A recent study by Manhattan Research showed that 95 million Americans are using mobile phones as health tools, up 27% from last year. As mobile and digital health technology explode, healthcare providers are moving to mobile solutions, and patients are beginning to use the many applications that are available on the market to help monitor their health.
“This was the year that healthcare really began to successfully adopt broader technologies and apply them effectively. We are seeing mobile platforms go from being novel to being a main interface tool for physicians,” said Giannulli of Kareo.
#5 – Consumer Power
With the launch of the Health Insurance Marketplaces, individuals can compare and shop for health plans online. Though the offerings on the Federal site have been embroiled in controversy following the troubled release of Healthcare.gov, the basic premise that health insurance plans are now made available to individuals is a sea change. And as coverage through the Affordable Care Act plans begins next year, Lauren Fifield of Practice Fusion said patients will increasingly take more responsibility for their health and care management.
What lies ahead? 2014 will be the year of the patient, said Unity Stoakes, co-founder of StartUp Health, a global startup platform to accelerate health wellness innovation. “There will be more innovation, leading to rapid healthcare transformation,” said Stoakes. “The best thing physicians can do is be open to change and support digital health innovation, both from the patient and practitioner standpoint.”
