John Sharp is an IT Manager for a major medical center in Northeast Ohio. Areas of expertise include: ehealth, personal health records, Web 2.0 technologies, social media and project management. He is active in the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society and the American Medical Informatics Association. The opinions expressed on this blog are those of the author.
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Archive for May 9th, 2007
Two Perspectives on Consumer Directed Healthcare
May 9, 2007
Dr. Bill Crounse of Microsoft writes about If Wal-Mart did Healthcare to compliment his recent post on If Disney did. He draws a scenario of no insurance coverage for medical costs under $5000 – “healthcare would behave like other industries were it not for the perverse effects of traditional insurance programs on the supply side of the business.”
On the other side is e-Care Management quoting a study that shows that those with chronic conditions do worse on CDHP, not surprising, since skipping appointments or medication to save money could easily result in a hospitalization.
No simple answers here – healthcare may act like a business and may need to change incentives, but incentives should move toward the best outcomes, not just market forces.
