Michael Dell today shared his insights with healthcare executives on how information technology is being used to improve the efficiency and quality of care today and how IT can support future innovations in prevention, wellness and personalized medicine.
“Digitizing patient information and making it available in a secure and convenient way across our healthcare system are among the best opportunities we have to improve U.S. healthcare and create a better system for future generations of Americans.”
Speaking at the Health Evolution Partners Leadership Summit, Mr. Dell encouraged healthcare organizations to expedite adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and cloud computing to create new information-driven efficiency and care advantages. A longstanding advocate of preventative health, Mr. Dell said that a key benefit of solutions like EMRs is the correlation between higher-quality information and higher-quality care. Based on insights gleaned from working with healthcare organizations around world, he encouraged public and private healthcare leaders to:
1. Unlock Information
Enhanced digitization and the management and sharing of patient information will help eliminate information silos between patients, providers and payers. Today, Dell is providing EMR solutions to 40,000 clinicians through 20 hospital-affiliated programs. Seventy percent of the hospitals who have achieved the highest level of EMR deployment are Dell customers.
2. Empower Caregivers
Mr. Dell said IT implemented at the point of care can empower caregivers and enhance their productivity, a growing issue as the U.S. faces physician and nursing shortages and increasing aging and chronically-ill populations. Point-of-care solutions such as Mobile Clinical Computing, which enable clinicians to securely access patient EMR information from any device, are saving clinicians several hours per week to help hospitals reclaim thousands of hours for patient care each year.
3. Improve Business and Technology Infrastructure
Updated processes combined with the right technologies can also improve the business of healthcare to help hospitals reclaim time and money in a challenging economy. For example, Dell has helped hospitals recover $15 billion through revenue-cycle process and technology improvements over the last seven years, Mr. Dell explained. One hospital with a large percentage of public-pay patients reduced unbilled claims by 30 percent and increased their cash flow by $8 million a month by improving revenue cycle processes.
4. Use Information for Innovation
With an effective strategy in place to manage the dramatic increase of digital data generated by EMRs, imaging and genomic research, healthcare leaders can tap data for intelligence that will lead to major innovations in healthcare and create new opportunities for the industry.
Mr. Dell discussed how EMR data will help pharmaceutical companies develop targeted treatments for patients who do not respond to conventional drugs. And the integration of genome information with EMRs will enable physicians to develop lifetime wellness plans for patients with genetic predispositions to specific diseases or health conditions. More targeted therapies and lifetime wellness plans will maximize the billions of dollars invested annually in research and create new opportunities for the industry globally.
Michael Dell Quote
"Digitizing patient information and making it available in a secure and convenient way across our healthcare system are among the best opportunities we have to improve U.S. healthcare and create a better system for future generations of Americans."
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