2013 Hospital EHR and Health IT Trends

There are a number of amazing milestones and trends happening with EHR and Healthcare IT. I think as we look back on 2013, we’ll remember it for a number of important changes that impact us for many years to come. Here are a few of the top trends and milestones that I’ll remember in 2013.

Epic and Cerner Separate Themselves – This has certainly been happening for a couple of years, but 2013 is the year I’ll remember that everyone agreed that for big hospitals it’s a two horse race between Cerner and Epic. There’s still an amazing battle brewing for the small hospital with no clear winner yet. However, in the large hospital race the battle between Cerner and Epic is on. Epic had been winning most of the deals, but Cerner just gave them a big left hook when Intermountain chose Cerner.

I expect we’re living in an Epic and Cerner world until at least a few years post meaningful use. The job listings on Healthcare IT Central illustrate Cerner and Epic dominance as well.

Near Universal EHR Adoption in Hospitals – I can’t find the latest EHR adoption (meaningful use) numbers from ONC, but the last ones I saw were in the high 80’s. That basically leaves a number of small rural hospitals that likely don’t have much tech infrastructure at all, let alone an EHR. Every major hospital institution now has an EHR. I guess we can now stop talking about hospital EHR adoption and start talking about hospital EHR use?

The Cracks in the Healthcare Interoperability Damn Appear – Interoperability has always been a hard nut to crack in healthcare. Everyone knew it was the right thing to do, but there were some real systemic reasons organizations didn’t go that direction. Not to mention, there was little financial motivation to do it (and often financial disincentive to do it).

With that background, I think in 2013 we’ve started to see the cracks in the damn that was holding up interoperability. They are still just cracks, but once water starts seeping through the crack the whole structure of the damn will break and the water will start flowing freely. Watch for the same with interoperability. Some of this year’s cracks were started with the announcement of CommonWell. I think in response to being left out of CommonWell, Epic has chosen to start being more interoperable as well.

Skinny Data Happens – I was first introduced to the concept of skinny data vs big data at HIMSS 2013 by Encore Health Resources. While I’m not sure if the skinny data branding will stick, the concept of doing a data project with a slice of data that has meaningful (excuse the use of the word) outcomes is the trend in data analytics and it’s going to dominate the conversations going forward.

As I posted on EMR and EHR, Big Data is Like Teenage Sex, but skinny data is very different. Skinny data is about doing something valuable with the data. Sadly, not enough people are doing skinny data, but they all will in 2014.

Hospitals Ignore Consumer Health Devices – Consumer health devices are popping up everywhere in healthcare. We’re quickly reaching the point that consumers can monitor all of their vital information at near hospital grade quality using their smartphone and sometimes an external device. This is a real revolution in medical devices. Many are still making their way through FDA approval, but some have passed and are starting to work on traction.

With all of this innovation, hospitals seemed to have mostly ignored what’s happening. Sure, the larger ones have a few pilot projects going. However, most hospitals have no idea what’s about to hit them upside the head. Gone will be the days of patients going to the hospital to be “monitored.” I don’t think most hospitals are ready for this shift.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

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