Originally Published MX September/October 2004
EDITOR'S PAGE
Medtech Leadership for the IT Future
In July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services brought together a wide range of public officials and private-sector leaders for a Secretarial Summit on Health Information Technology. The central event of the summit was the release of a progress report on the healthcare technology agenda announced by President Bush earlier this year.
The report, The Decade of Health Information Technology; Delivering Consumer-Centric and Information-Rich Health Care: Framework for Strategic Action, outlines strategies for implementing a nationwide electronic health record system within the next 10 years. It is expected that such an IT-based system will reduce medical errors and variations in care, make individual medical records available in a portable and protected format, and enable physicians to spend more time on patient care.
Panel participants in the summit included representatives of information technology developers, employer–healthcare purchaser groups, health plans, physician groups, consumer groups, and organizations with a focused interest in healthcare IT. But the medical technology manufacturing community was conspicuous by its absence. So far, in fact, few medtech manufacturers have sought to take a leadership role in advancing the adoption of IT-based systems.
Medtech executives will benefit their companies and industry by becoming involved in healthcare IT now. It is clear that the HHS initiative will have wide-ranging implications for the development of medical technologies. And manufacturers will have to begin developing IT-based products if they are to succeed in the medtech marketplace of the future.
With this special report, MX launches a year-long series on information technologies in healthcare, which will explore how IT is altering the practice of medicine—and the nature of the medtech marketplace. With a unique eye toward the role of medtech manufacturers, the MX series will explore the potential for advanced IT-based devices to advance the delivery of healthcare and stimulate company growth.
Copyright ©2004 MX
