Power Shift - Small Physicians become a large Healthcare-IT market in USA
Some more predictions/extrapolations:
Obama’s incentives package has put power in the hands of Physicians.
So what is expected to change:
1. Pharma co: Physician’s reliance on pharma companies for drug education updates will reduce because they will get direct access to latest version of electronic drug databases in the EMR. Many EMR will have CPOE and Medication Management built into it, which will guard against unnecessary/incorrect prescriptions. Cross-selling and Up-selling of drugs will get minimized. However the drug compliance will go up in chronic disease management.
2. Insurance: Private sector Health Plans will have to compete with Public sector Health Plans for their bread-and-butter. US has a very large aging population [Baby Boomers].
3. Hospitals: Will have to figure out how they can increase their Medicare and Medicaid practice. They will also have to depend more on Physicians that already have a greater mix of Medicare and Medicaid practice.
4. CDC: Public Health initiatives and Disease Surveillance will gain power because they will start getting valuable Public Health data through Medicare and Medicaid. So far private enterprises didn’t want to share member/patient/outcomes data.
5. Healthcare Economics: will shift towards measuring clinical outcomes rather than business value. Public Health, Disease Management and Preventive Medicine will gain because US has a very large aging population [Baby Boomers].
6. M&A: New business models and major consolidations should be expected. I can see Pharma companies [maybe JnJ??] and Insurance companies [maybe UHG??] buying out EMR/EHRS, Healthcare-IT companies [which one, I keep guessing..].
Initially I was skeptical about what 1 President can change. However Obama is surely exercising the power vested in the highest office of US. This looks like the dawn of a new era in US Healthcare. I can see US moving towards a Social Medicine practice i.e. Canada eHealth and NHS UK model.
