REDMOND, Wash. – March 4, 2013 – There’s no one cure for all that ails healthcare, whether in the U.S. or abroad.
However, Microsoft today showcased its comprehensive plan to help
healthcare providers of all sizes meet increasing productivity and
security demands; improve mobility, collaboration and communication;
control ever-burgeoning costs; and focus on patient-centered care.
Dennis Schmuland, M.D.
March 04, 2013
Dennis Schmuland, M.D., chief health strategy officer of Microsoft U.S. Health & Life Sciences.
At the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's
2013 conference (HIMSS13) in New Orleans today, the company also
announced new customers and partners who are using these solutions with
success.
Though revolutionizing health information technology (HIT) will be
key to delivering quality, cost-effective healthcare in the future, the
solution is not merely to digitize and move health information, says
Dennis Schmuland, M.D., chief health strategy officer of Microsoft U.S.
Health & Life Sciences.
The healthcare crisis is a tangled web of ever-increasing medical
costs, an increasing demand for documentation (and a corresponding
decrease in care provider productivity), a shortage of qualified care
providers, and increasing systemic waste, Schmuland says.
Improving health IT isn’t the lone solution, but could be a major
factor in solving the crisis. That is why Microsoft is working with
health organizations, communities and partners worldwide to address
healthcare’s toughest challenges and rebuild the industry.
“If we can’t increase productivity in healthcare using technology,
and we can’t leverage technology to enable virtual multi-disciplinary
teams to work together and coordinate hundreds of processes in a way
that improves the quality, safety, speed and outcome of care, we will
not be able to solve our medical cost growth problems,” Schmuland says.
“On the other hand, if we use HIT to improve productivity and to enable
clinicians to do new things, securely, in less time and at a lower cost,
we have a chance of solving our medical cost growth crisis.”
Cost is one of the major benefits of adopting Microsoft solutions.
On a large scale, healthcare spending is now 18 percent of the
U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), up from 14 percent in 2000 and 5
percent in 1960. The United States spends twice as much on healthcare
per capita as other industrialized nations, yet access to care and
health outcomes are worse. In addition, people’s out-of-pocket costs
have doubled in the last decade.
“We’ve all heard about the runaway growth in medical costs. This
is now everybody’s problem,” Schmuland says. “Every additional dollar we
spend on healthcare now comes at the cost of something else we value,
such as higher education and global competitiveness.”
In order to reduce cost and inefficiencies, the practice of
medicine must be transformed from provider-centric piecework to
patient-centric teamwork, with providers working across organizational
barriers to improve health and outcomes for patients quickly and
efficiently, Schmuland says.
That’s where the power of HIT comes in.
Imagine a healthcare system full of highly mobile doctors and
nurses working with their Windows 8 devices in hand, and with access to a
full spectrum of health information, patient information, and
communication and collaboration tools. Instead of having to log on to a
different computer in each room or clinic, instead of leaving voicemails
for colleagues to request information on a case, instead of having to
locate a patient’s physical file or test results, care providers can
carry at their fingertips the keys to all of that.
On a Windows 8 tablet equipped with an electronic health record
and Office 365, they can securely access a patient’s records from
multiple and even non-network care providers; form virtual teams with
experts next door or across the world to provide the best care possible;
examine test results; instant message with colleagues; take notes using
touch, a stylus, a keyboard or voice dictation; and run a variety of
healthcare apps including the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Mayo Clinic on Pregnancy or an electronic health records (EHR) app from Greenway Medical Technologies.
“Right now, healthcare providers’ ability to be productive and
collaborative is limited by fixed devices and physical phones,”
Schmuland says. “There are more than 1,500 new devices to choose from in
the Windows 8 ecosystem, and the beauty of that is that in healthcare,
one device never fits all. Some may prefer a clamshell, some a
convertible laptop, and others a tablet as they move from room to room,
patient to patient, and clinic to clinic.”
In addition to the capabilities of a mobile office in Windows 8,
the cloud-powered Office 365 comes embedded with the security and IT
controls required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA), which sets national standards for the security and privacy
of electronic health care data.
“What’s particularly exciting is that Microsoft is uniquely the
only major cloud productivity provider to offer a business associate
agreement to enable customers to comply with HIPAA and to offer
productivity, collaboration, relationship management, application
hosting, and storage, backup and disaster recovery services that cover
the complete range of public, hybrid and private cloud solutions,”
Schmuland says.
When
a provider chooses Windows 8 and Office 365, they’re surprised not only
at the ease of implementation, but at the cost being so much more
favorable than traditional solutions.
Dennis Schmuland, M.D. , chief health strategy officer of Microsoft U.S. Health & Life Sciences
This means that by using Windows 8 and Office 365 together, an
organization of healthcare providers can do things like securely store
and access private patient information, create an internal directory of
physician areas of expertise, and even communicate securely with other
health organizations using Office 365 to work and collaborate as if they
were on the same team, even though they’re in separate organizations.
Microsoft has teamed up with healthcare providers large and small
to provide the latest IT solutions, and the results have been positive,
from massive healthcare systems to small-town clinics where physicians
manage their own IT.
For instance, Advocate Health Care, the largest healthcare
provider in Illinois, has 30,000 employees, 10 acute care hospitals, and
two integrated children’s hospitals. The company adopted Office 365,
and has used it in some innovative ways.
“They are using SharePoint to create a single network out of 250
care sites, so that each can connect to the other, but it all rolls up
to the larger network,” Schmuland says.
Advocate Health Care is also using Office 365 tools to help track
patients when they’re discharged and to make sure they’re following up
with discharge instructions so they don’t relapse and end up back in the
hospital. They’ve also created a database of provider skills,
capabilities and interests that their staff can use to find expertise,
topics or solve problems.
Mihills Webb Medical, a small family practice in Texas, has five
care providers. By using Office 365, they realized they could improve
workflow, reduce delays and reduce costs overall. With just one
receptionist manning the front desk, relaying important patient
information to doctors and nurses used to require placing calls that
didn’t always get answered right away. Now, the receptionist can instant
message nurses and doctors as soon as a patient walks in the door to
begin the triage process, a practice that improves speed and enables
employees to provide a better patient experience. Not only did Mihills
Webb Medical improve its ability to collaborate, communicate and work as
a team to deliver exceptional customer service; at the same time they
drove down cost while meeting security and privacy regulatory
requirements.
“Compliance in particular was critical for us, and it’s a
non-negotiable requirement that we demand from our technology solution
providers,” says Dr. Cody Mihills. “Because Microsoft cloud services are
HIPAA-compliant and came with a HIPAA business associate agreement,
we’ve used Office 365 to unify communications across the office with
confidence. Tasks like coordinating schedules between employees and
collaborating with peers outside the office who support patients now can
be executed in an efficient, HIPAA-compliant manner. Office 365, from a
business standpoint, has been a winning proposition.”
Schmuland says health IT is at a tipping point, and when
organizations combine the power of Windows 8 and Office 365, along with
exciting breakthroughs in electronic healthcare records and medical
apps, all kinds of new things become possible.
“Usually the assumption has been that you have to have a complex
solution to solve this complex problem of healthcare collaboration and
service,” Schmuland says. “When a provider chooses Windows 8 and Office
365, they’re surprised not only at the ease of implementation, but at
the cost being so much more favorable than traditional solutions.”
As this week’s HIMSS show demonstrates and as the industry
continues to evolve, HIT holds new promise for clinicians and hospital
administration, with Microsoft solutions serving as a critical component
to making intelligent and mobile health a reality.
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