It’s undeniable that the healthcare sector has been in a state of transformation. With Congress making numerous attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rolling back regulations, healthcare is evolving.
But to Wolters Kluwer Health CEO Diana Nole there’s a silver lining: “While policy may alter timing and specifics, everyone is focused on what can be done to enhance care.”
“We know that, at its core, it’s about improving outcomes,” said Nole. “Whether you’re still in a fee-based environment or have made the leap to value-based care, your end goal is higher quality care.”
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While disguised as a challenge, value-based care provides an opportunity to leverage technology to improve care, explained Nole. And standards and interoperability will make the biggest difference in advancing those opportunities.
“The reality is that none of us can solve all the problems with value-based care in a silo. Everybody is working on the same problems with gaining access to patient data and using it for patient-centered care, but interoperability remains a roadblock,” Nole said. “We are making progress, but it’s happening more slowly than what the industry wants.”
Value-based care is complex for many, as interoperability and standards aren’t working together in the same ecosystem, explained Nole. But it gives the industry a chance to get the next generation of evidence-based, decision-making tools into the hands of providers.
But it’s important the industry doesn’t “lose sight of the uniqueness each patient brings to the healthcare process,” said Nole. “Standards are important, but we can’t create cookie cutter approaches to medicine.”
To ensure this, tech innovators should focus on keeping the patient at the center of its plans. For example, using technology to make evidence-based content more accessible, integrated and automated to improve patient experience.
“While technology can be an enablement, it is not the end-all, be-all to success in health IT,’ Nole added. In fact, she strives to empower her team to understand the role of tech, “which is secondary to working hard to understand the customer.”
To Nole, “success lies in knowing the customer and the customer’s unmet needs, complexities and challenges — and then finding a way to understand how technology can be leveraged to help the customer address those issues.”
Wolters Kluwer will be in Booth 3232.
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An inside look at the innovation, education, technology, networking and key events at the HIMSS18 global conference in Las Vegas.
Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com
