Originally Published MX September/October 2004

SPECIAL REPORT: IT IN HEALTHCARE

Medtech manufacturers should play a more active role in developing products for clinical connectivity.

Art Kerley

Information technology (IT) in the healthcare sector is making a lot of headlines these days. President Bush has called for the nationwide implementation of electronic health records within 10 years, while Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson has appointed an IT healthcare czar to coordinate and expedite the effort.

Healthcare has been at best a marginal participant in the IT revolution that has brought profound productivity gains to large and small commercial and industrial businesses over the past 25 to 30 years. While IT has made significant inroads in the administrative area (billing, scheduling, and the like), implementation on the clinical side—which, after all, is the business of healthcare—has been lackluster.

Healthcare's Slow Response