Role of Information Technology in producing breakthroughs. Not Just innovations, but game changers, to solve the nation challenging medical problems.

Sandy Hausman: Today we’ll talk about the role of Information Technology in producing breakthroughs. Not Just innovations, but game changers, to solve the nation challenging medical problems. Healthcare professionals know, for example, that Information Technology is essential to accurate diagnosis and treatment. But we’rejust beginning to see how it can change the way care is delivered. Heath IT is an area to watch for its potential to change the delivery of Healthcare. At Press Ganey, an organization that helps hospitals assess and improve the patient experience, Dr. Thomas Lee says, IT is improving communication and cooperation. Dr. Lee: The ability for patients to interact with the system to receive information. Receive queries, to give answers, to express their own queries to the Doctor and the Doctors team. And doing this via smartphone, tablets. It’s not really speculation, we’re entering that phase now. Sandy Hausman: And Dr. Anne-Marie Audet, ‘v’ice President for Delivery System Reform and Breakthrough |Dpportunities of The Common Wealth Fund says, electronic medical records create new avenues for engaging patients. Dr. Audet: There’s some really interesting work now being done to try to have people and their provider co—create their medical records. Which means co—create the plan for their management, and therefore, having more accountability and more involvement of the person in their care plan. So for instance, the physician could say, "Well I would recommend you have a colonoscopy." With this co-creation using an electronic medical record the patient and the provider could actually sign in the medical record, “Yes, I agree I will have a colonoscopy." So it’s like signing a contract, you want to really understand what you are signing. So it opens up a lot of new channels of communication. You know a patient asking, well what is the real value of this test? What are the complications? What are the benefits? So there’s a lot of new areas of engagement that are possible with the electronic medical records.