I've worked in IT for 10 years, which means I have the annoying and perplexing habit of examining IT infrastructure at the businesses, service bureaus, and institutions I regularly visit. I observe each place's processes, how they use IT to solve problems and save times, how they identify their customers, etc.
And no place I visit regularly has it down quite like Kaiser Permanente, the huge west coast HMO founded by shipbuilding/industrial magnate Henry Kaiser.
As a Kaiser patient for 10 years, I don't think I've once had to fill out an old memeographed form. I've never once had to physically carry my X-rays from one office to another. Prescription notes with a physician's notoriously bad handwriting? Not a worry at Kaiser. Visiting a Kaiser branch in some far off place, like Hawaii? You don't need to fill out paperwork- they've got your complete medical history right there on a computer inside the examination room. What's more, the physicians actually know how to use the computers.
All you need is your little Kaiser membership card, and the admitting receptionist, nurse, pharmacy assistant or physician can see your entire record, all on the computer. If your physician prescribes some medicine for you, it will be on the computer screen at the pharmacy within minutes. The same is true of X-Rays- I wonder how much Kaiser saves by using X-Ray machines that output to a digital file, rather than expensive x-ray material.
On the policy side of things, Kaiser proves that you can save money and serve your patients well when you have a large network, a single payer (of sorts) and smart, centralized information technology. It's a model that, in a rational world, we would duplicate nationwide, in every Dr's office, hospital, and outpatient clinic.
Instead we cling onto the utterly irrational, inefficient and decentralized system we have now, then we fret and wonder why costs keep rising and outcomes keep falling.
Kaiser Permanente IT Delivers the goods
And no place I visit regularly has it down quite like Kaiser Permanente, the huge west coast HMO founded by shipbuilding/industrial magnate Henry Kaiser.
As a Kaiser patient for 10 years, I don't think I've once had to fill out an old memeographed form. I've never once had to physically carry my X-rays from one office to another. Prescription notes with a physician's notoriously bad handwriting? Not a worry at Kaiser. Visiting a Kaiser branch in some far off place, like Hawaii? You don't need to fill out paperwork- they've got your complete medical history right there on a computer inside the examination room. What's more, the physicians actually know how to use the computers.
All you need is your little Kaiser membership card, and the admitting receptionist, nurse, pharmacy assistant or physician can see your entire record, all on the computer. If your physician prescribes some medicine for you, it will be on the computer screen at the pharmacy within minutes. The same is true of X-Rays- I wonder how much Kaiser saves by using X-Ray machines that output to a digital file, rather than expensive x-ray material.
On the policy side of things, Kaiser proves that you can save money and serve your patients well when you have a large network, a single payer (of sorts) and smart, centralized information technology. It's a model that, in a rational world, we would duplicate nationwide, in every Dr's office, hospital, and outpatient clinic.
Instead we cling onto the utterly irrational, inefficient and decentralized system we have now, then we fret and wonder why costs keep rising and outcomes keep falling.