Friday, November 12, 2004
Cringely and Health Care
My Man, Robert Cringely has just written this week's piece for PBS.
In it, Cringely talks about a contract Microsoft was just awarded by the NHS in Britain. It's big contract, and it's a gamble for MSFT because they don't as of yet HAVE what they need to actually provide for the NHS. They will have to start from scratch. And they had to beat out EDS and IBM and Novell and huge companies like them who already have the technology available.
Now, normally I'd be pissed that Microsoft was trying enter into yet ANOTHER market and expand their money making ability AGAIN, but the truth is that the job of integrating health servies information and making it available and reliable is JUST NOT GETTING DONE! All the big guys in this business have been providing products that cost ten times more than they should (or were estimated to), take ten times longer to build than they should (or were estimated to) and on top of it all, they just plain old DON'T DO WHAT WE NEED THEM TO DO.
As far as I'm concerned, every doctor in Canada should be able to pull up my medical history in some type of anonymous research mode and compare what I went through to what they're dealing with in the patient right in front of them. ALSO, if I go see any doctor in Canada they should be able to pull up my entire medical history on their computer in a second and help me right there, regardless of what province I was born in or what province I live in now, or what the address on my driver's license is or ANYTHING ELSE!
Speaking as someone who builds software (for the enterprise environment no less) I know this is possible. For god's sake I could do it myself if we could wait 50 years for it to be done.
There is absolutely no reason why a company like IBM doesn't have a cookie cutter product that can be sold to (say) a government and integrated with any other government's system to share it's information - so New brunswick buys a solution and BC buys one, and they can share info with each other, and then the Feds decide that every province needs this, and so every province comes on board and they all share information together. - and replicated for EVERY GOVERNMENT ! FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS IT!
For that matter, this should be done for the whole world!
It's stupid for this county to keep THIS database and this Province to keep THIS OTHER database and this federal organisation to keep YET ANOTHER database and so on and on and on and on and on.... (this, by the way, is how things are done now)
I don't see why the UN or some other international body like the Red Cross or someone, doesn't set up a standard for what these systems should support and how they should support them, and then let all the EDSes and IBMs and Novells and Computer Sciences Corps of the world start selling products/solutions that support this framework.
It would be a lot of work, but can we afford not to do it?
In it, Cringely talks about a contract Microsoft was just awarded by the NHS in Britain. It's big contract, and it's a gamble for MSFT because they don't as of yet HAVE what they need to actually provide for the NHS. They will have to start from scratch. And they had to beat out EDS and IBM and Novell and huge companies like them who already have the technology available.
Now, normally I'd be pissed that Microsoft was trying enter into yet ANOTHER market and expand their money making ability AGAIN, but the truth is that the job of integrating health servies information and making it available and reliable is JUST NOT GETTING DONE! All the big guys in this business have been providing products that cost ten times more than they should (or were estimated to), take ten times longer to build than they should (or were estimated to) and on top of it all, they just plain old DON'T DO WHAT WE NEED THEM TO DO.
As far as I'm concerned, every doctor in Canada should be able to pull up my medical history in some type of anonymous research mode and compare what I went through to what they're dealing with in the patient right in front of them. ALSO, if I go see any doctor in Canada they should be able to pull up my entire medical history on their computer in a second and help me right there, regardless of what province I was born in or what province I live in now, or what the address on my driver's license is or ANYTHING ELSE!
Speaking as someone who builds software (for the enterprise environment no less) I know this is possible. For god's sake I could do it myself if we could wait 50 years for it to be done.
There is absolutely no reason why a company like IBM doesn't have a cookie cutter product that can be sold to (say) a government and integrated with any other government's system to share it's information - so New brunswick buys a solution and BC buys one, and they can share info with each other, and then the Feds decide that every province needs this, and so every province comes on board and they all share information together. - and replicated for EVERY GOVERNMENT ! FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS IT!
For that matter, this should be done for the whole world!
It's stupid for this county to keep THIS database and this Province to keep THIS OTHER database and this federal organisation to keep YET ANOTHER database and so on and on and on and on and on.... (this, by the way, is how things are done now)
I don't see why the UN or some other international body like the Red Cross or someone, doesn't set up a standard for what these systems should support and how they should support them, and then let all the EDSes and IBMs and Novells and Computer Sciences Corps of the world start selling products/solutions that support this framework.
It would be a lot of work, but can we afford not to do it?
Comments:
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Hey it's Jamie...
I was working (and will again after current project) with a doctor in town to create a national tracking system for organ donor-recipient matching, so that people don't have to call randomly across the country in the middle of the night, asking "Hey! I've this spleen, you need a spleen? from an O- 85kg male..."
All the hospitals across the country are slowly migrating to computer systems, and NONE OF THEM TALK TO EACH OTHER. It's idiotic.
I was working (and will again after current project) with a doctor in town to create a national tracking system for organ donor-recipient matching, so that people don't have to call randomly across the country in the middle of the night, asking "Hey! I've this spleen, you need a spleen? from an O- 85kg male..."
All the hospitals across the country are slowly migrating to computer systems, and NONE OF THEM TALK TO EACH OTHER. It's idiotic.
# posted by 
: 3:48 p.m.
: 3:48 p.m.
Especially since COMMUNICATION IS WHAT COMPUTERS DO BEST!!!
Well, second best, next to repetition.
To be quite frank, I don't know why BANKS and other financial institutions are so far behind on this one too. There must be money to be made for insurance companies and banks and everyone else in sharing information rather than redundantly storing everything about everyone. (privacy issues aside, of course. I think I would hate it (read: HATE HATE HATE IT!!!!) if every organization under the sun had access to purchase history, credit records, etc etc)
But really, for the greater good folks, let's get some goddamned health-services-IT-lovin' happenin.
(Personally, I think the first move is to STOP HIRING MSFT IT ADMINS!!!! You know, the guys who think if they can't find the check box to turn it on with Access then it can't be done.... Geez)
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Well, second best, next to repetition.
To be quite frank, I don't know why BANKS and other financial institutions are so far behind on this one too. There must be money to be made for insurance companies and banks and everyone else in sharing information rather than redundantly storing everything about everyone. (privacy issues aside, of course. I think I would hate it (read: HATE HATE HATE IT!!!!) if every organization under the sun had access to purchase history, credit records, etc etc)
But really, for the greater good folks, let's get some goddamned health-services-IT-lovin' happenin.
(Personally, I think the first move is to STOP HIRING MSFT IT ADMINS!!!! You know, the guys who think if they can't find the check box to turn it on with Access then it can't be done.... Geez)
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