By Rich Noffsinger
Itís not at all unlikely that some day in the
not-too-distant future, the old joke about bad handwriting being a prerequisite for becoming a doctor will have to be explained to first-year medical students around the world.
Why? In a word, technology.
Instead of hurriedly scratching notes onto medical charts and orders for prescriptions, doctors will transmit patient information instantly to pharmacies, dieticians, and insurance
companies, using a dazzling array of hand-held, interconnected devices that put the power of technology, quite literally, at their fingertips.
In many cases, a new model of the doctor-patient-provider relationship is already in place. As doctors communicate more at all points in the health-care spectrum and spend less time taking notes, the
questionable quality of their handwriting will fade to a footnote.
Thereís no doubt that technology is changing the way we live, work, and communicate in a way that
is nothing short of revolutionary. And there are few places where this revolution is making a bigger mark than healthcare.
Healthcare affects all of us at one time or another. Consider the numbers. In 1999, 13.7% of the U.S. gross domestic product went to healthcare. In terms of dollars, Americans shelled out between $844
billion and $1 trillion.
We currently invest $36 billion per year in technology in the health-care field alone. While that investment is yielding some obvious dividends, the field still faces major challenges.
The health-care arenaóthe woven tapestry of patients, doctors, providers, HMOs, hospitals, clinics and clinicians, technicians, and emerging treatmentsóis extremely complex. For each of these areas
to interact and improve patient well-being requires an awesome level of system interoperability.
The heavy regulation of the healthcare field and the tendency to continue to rely on legacy technology
only add to the complexity of the challenge. Sadly, healthcare underutilizes current technology.
All of that is about to change.
Microsoftís vision of empowering people through great software any time, any place, and on any device is ushering in a brand new way of approaching technology. We call it the PC-Plus Era.
Using the power of the Internet as the foundation, important informationó
e-mail, voice mail, patient records, lab results, and on-line medical encyclopediasóis instantly
available to the professionals who need it. This is achieved by using not only the traditional PC, but devices such as hand-held computers, general-purpose tablet PCs, Web TV, and even cellular telephones.
The era of browsing the Internet wasnít all bad. It was simple, easy to understand, and offered a sense of global connectivity. But it required a keyboard, created too many islands of information, and
gave the user very little control.
Taking the Internet beyond the era of browsing puts us on the brink of a computing revolution. By
providing a natural interface for interaction among everyone on the health-care continuum, the Internet is erasing previous barriers between the user and the device.
While this erasing of barriers is far from complete, there is already compelling evidence of the impact it will have on our approach to healthcare.
In South Dakota, for example, housebound patients are visited by traveling clinicians, who use hand-held devices to transmit the patientsí data instantly back to the office. This dovetailing of
healthcare and technology saves paper and the time it takes to fill out forms as well as cutting back considerably on travel time, meaning more clinicians can visit more patients at less expense.
And in Southern California, one medical group set out to streamline its administrative tasks and workflow without short-changing the quality of care for its more than 10,000 patients, half of whom are
geriatric. Automating the workflow by providing Web-based access for anyone with authorization to view a patientís chart has certainly simplified the medical groupís paperwork processes. Itís also
saved the practice $45,000 per yearóor 23%óin administrative costs.
The move toward paperless practices also dramatically increases the quality of care that doctors can provide.
Physicians can use wireless connectivityóa general-purpose tablet PC, for exampleóto communicate with one another about a specific patient or ailment, drawing on one anotherís areas of expertise to
offer the patient an unprecedented level of care.
As technologies continue to emerge, physicians will be able to spend more time collaborating with
each other and seeing patients. Rather than exchanging e-mails and voice mail messages, physicians will conduct on-line discussions. Rather than sending for a patientís medical file, the
patientís entire medical history will be accessed on the screen with one simple click. A patientís chest radiograph, for example, will be viewed and discussed in real time by several physicians, all of
whom will have access to links and references, such as medical encyclopedias or the findings of studies completed just the previous week.
Natural interfaces are a big factor in the new Internet user experience. A keyboard and a terminal used to be at the heart of the very notion of computers. Now, technologies read, interpret, and deliver
by drawing on the very human elements of handwriting, speech, and vision.
Imagine combining the telephone and medical expertise from around the world. The concept of
telemedicine will grant patients access to some of the worldís best physicians by fully utilizing the power of the Internet, using e-mail, streaming media, and multiple point-of-care devices, which
specialists will use to offer live adviceóand real care.
Using emerging technologies, doctors will be able to perform such previously unimaginable tasks as
reading and programming a pacemaker or other implanted devices from a remote location. Put in the most basic terms, that means a heart patient in Cheyenne can visit a doctor associated with Harvard
Medical School without ever leaving Wyoming.
The applications of technology in healthcare already show great promise. Used effectively, technology
offers the patient and the physician a more seamless and hassle-free experience. It has also demonstrated its muscle in the difficult task of cutting costs, which will ultimately make more care available to more people.
Rich Noffsinger is worldwide health-care industry manager for Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA
