Picture: Visualization of some Internet routes
— The Opte Project
Namita Seth Mohta, M.D., David Blumenthal, M.D., MPP, president of The Commonwealth Fund, and Robert Galvin, M.D., MBA, chief executive officer for Equity Healthcare discuss why and how big private-sector health-care organizations are responding to the onrush of technology into the sector.
One of Dr. Galvin’s observations:
“Sometimes the unintended consequences exceed the benefits, to be honest. When you get into a system as big as health care, as resistant to change in health care, and inherently much more complicated, this is not buying goods and services over Amazon; this is not getting an Uber or using Lyft. These are in many cases very sick people with complicated diseases in a system that’s already very complicated.
“One unintended consequence is you make it more complicated for people, so the number of choices they have — and the array of opportunities they have to access these apps — can be overwhelming. The misinformation is another unintended consequence; I’m not sure how good Alexa is going to be, or whether there’s going to be any clinical judgment in Alexa. If you go onto the Web and look for health care information, it’s as likely to be inaccurate as it is to be accurate.”
To read and hear the full discussion, please hit this link.
