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Charles D. Baker: Can IT Drive Change in the Health Care System?

Wellesley, MA (PRWEB) November 7, 2007 -- On the blog Let's Talk Health Care (http://www.letstalkhealthcare.org), Harvard Pilgrim Health Care CEO Charlie Baker comments (http://www.letstalkhealthcare.org/?p=172) on a Wall Street Journal op-ed "Health Care Needs an Internet Revolution (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119154401245949675.html)" by Bill Gates, whose company had recently launched the HealthVault EMR project. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (http://www.harvardpilgrim.org) is a not-for-profit health plan that provides a variety of insurance plan options and self-funding arrangements to more than one million members in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Charlie Baker proposes that organizational change within the health care system will be necessary before widespread adoption of a comprehensive, Internet-based health care information system can be achieved.

Charlie Baker, in part, wrote:

"Can the technology itself be the catalyst he supposes it can be?

"I know that some people think if we just connect the clinical information dots with IT solutions, the organizational issues will go away. But I'm not convinced that more online capabilities and digitized clinical information solves these problems. In the end, IT is just a tool. It's how it gets used -- and the motives, interests and expertise of the users -- that makes it a great tool or a non-issue.

"If Bill Gates is serious about this space, he'll spend some time thinking about how we educate physicians, organize care delivery and study performance before he worries about IT. What he'll discover is that we train clinicians to be autonomous performers -- wedded to their patients and their departments first -- and all else after that, that our care delivery system isn't organized to treat chronic, complex cases, and that we spend almost nothing as a nation on trying to understand how we implement the knowledge we already have about what works and what doesn't on a day to day basis.

"If he comes up with some ways to change these fundamentals first, it would then make sense to consider how an IT strategy can complement these insights. But hey -- he's a wicked smart guy -- way smarter than me -- and if he wants in to the health care space -- to quote NYC Detective John McClain -- one of my cinematic heroes -- 'Welcome to the Party Pal!' Happy to have you along."

The full text of the post is available at letstalkhealthcare.org (http://www.letstalkhealthcare.org/?p=172)

Related blog posts by Charlie Baker:

- Electronic Medical Records (http://www.letstalkhealthcare.org/?p=99): Impact of EMRs and their ability to reduce costs and improve health care quality.

- The Doctor Is In (http://www.letstalkhealthcare.org/?p=123): A day in the life of a family physician; the complexity of managing a business and patients.

- An Object Once in Motion (http://www.letstalkhealthcare.org/?p=134): Forecasting health care policy and financing in 2020.

About Charlie Baker

Charles D. Baker is President and CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc. Under Baker's leadership, Harvard Pilgrim has finished first in the country for four years in a row on the National Committee for Quality Assurance's (NCQA) annual ranking. Prior to joining Harvard Pilgrim, Baker spent eight years in Massachusetts state government, where he served as Secretary of Administration and Finance and Secretary of Health and Human Services. Baker received a Master's Degree in Management from Northwestern's Kellogg School and a BA in English from Harvard College.

About Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is a not-for-profit health plan that provides a variety of insurance plan options and self-funding arrangements to more than one million members in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Harvard Pilgrim provides innovative approaches to health improvement and disease management, unique online tools that speed and simplify key transactions for employers and providers and personalized health support at www.harvardpilgrim.org (http://www.harvardpilgrim.org).

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