US Performance in Healthcare

Abstract

The United States (US) like many advanced countries of the world, is transitioning its healthcare industry from paper to electronic health records (EHRs). During the preceding decade, this move to EHR has marked a critical advance in the US medical and healthcare arena. The US is the leader in the EHR marketplace and continues to grow that area. Unfortunately, the US EHR growth is not commensurate with the provision of care and is a far cry from the cost of healthcare in equally developed countries. What the future would hold for the US healthcare despite current performances, and in the context of electronic (all be it) portable health records is worthy of discourse. The abysmal performance of the US healthcare even in the face of uncontrollable rising costs is of major concern. An emerging area with a promise of solution path is commoditization. Commoditization robs companies of their competitive edge and for that reason, companies strive to avoid it. However, commoditization of healthcare information technology (IT), specifically, the electronic health records (EHRs) seems very compelling if the exploding cost of US healthcare can be curtailed. The drawbacks for commoditization of healthcare IT includes the danger of limiting the advances in the field and that of potential reduction in innovations. The dilemma is that the varied presentations of EHRs need to be portable in order to be useful, and just like software products, meaningful portability requires some standards and modularity. Modularization plus standards are elements of commoditization that would be geared towards a downward spiral of IT costs in the US healthcare field. The jury is still out on what commoditization would yield in the US healthcare industry. Is a “market” system a possible outcome? Would affordable healthcare IT solutions be encouraged? Would commoditization enable hospitals save money on EHRs? These questions remain to be answered as the US seeks solution paths to the uncontrollable costs of its healthcare IT. One potential solution path for sure is that commoditization and standards are enablers for the portability of electronic health records.