Who knows more about the issues involved in developing a secure, portable patient healthcare records system, Google, Microsoft or a CIO deeply involved in building a health records system? Right, my money is with the CIO.
John Halamka writes a blog called Life As A Healthcare CIO. His blog covers a lot of territory, but one project he has been involved in is a $1 million electronic health care records project. In his February 23 entry, Halamka writes,
“As I’ve indicated in my blog about managing IT projects and managing consulting engagements projects do not manage themselves. Although we’ve put together a remarkable partnership of vendors and service providers for our Electronic Health Record for non-owned doctors project, it’s all wrapped in $1 million dollars of project management, coordination and “air traffic control”. The geographically dispersed set of independent physician practices makes the project that much harder to manage.
If you are at all interested in the health care industry, IT or project management, this blog is worth reading.
Now that Google has entered the health care records industry through an affiliation with the Cleveland Clinic which follows an earlier move into health care records by Microsoft with its Amalga product line, it is worth taking a good dose of reality medicine by reading Halamka’s blog.