3 Places Where Healthcare is Ripe for Informatic Improvement

Informatics is the future of healthcare. We’re already seeing its value in the study of heart disease, cancer and neurological disease. These are major health challenges that deserve our full attention. But providers also grapple with many serious non-biological challenges. It is in these operational areas that informatics, health IT, big data and artificial intelligence can make a powerful contribution as well.

Consider the human voice. Few outside our industry understand the enormous amount of note-taking, recording, describing and ordering a working physician is expected to do in the course of a single day. There are dozens of voice transcription programs available to make this easier. But I envisage a next step: The development of data-rich systems, with access to the whole of published research that can be vocally accessed for diagnosis, treatment and rapid consultation.

I don’t believe for a second that I’m the only one to identify this as a potential “killer app.” So I’m confident that there are brilliant individuals out there already making it a reality.

Two other areas that are ripe for informatic enhancement are the “bookends” of healthcare – scheduling and billing.

Anyone who’s been in administration knows that scheduling and billing are among the greatest challenges in running a healthcare organization.

Appointment scheduling is like a game of 3D chess involving patients, physicians, their families, the organization, and a host of outside factors. Yet as complex as scheduling can be, billing is even more complex and confusing. Not only for the recipient, but often for the issuer as well.

Patients deserve timely access to caregivers. Waiting months for an appointment is not acceptable. And bills need to go out time, and give a clear, up-to-date overview of services performed and their charges – as well as what’s covered by insurance and what is not.

The point is not that hospitals are doing a particularly bad job with scheduling and billing. But that we could all be doing it so much better with the computing power now shaping up across the industry.

Today’s electronic medical record is only in its infancy. While it has done much to make patient care more effective, its growing pains have frustrated many a screen-weary practitioner. Some believe it is a culprit factor in the high rate of physician burnout. But as big data and artificial intelligence drive the integration of voice, scheduling and billing into more sophisticated iterations of the electronic medical record, we can expect a better user experience.

The goal of health informatics should be to enhance the lives of physicians: To eliminate mundane tasks, and make the full range of healthcare data accessible at the touch of a finger or – better yet – the sound of a voice. Every step we make toward freeing physicians to practice patient care to the fullest and most satisfying extent, is a step in the right direction.