The Economics of Networked Health Information


Chairperson:

Bruce R. Kingma, State University of New York at Albany


Panelists:

Arthur E. Schiller, Jr., Value Creation Strategies

Ann Geyer, Health Information Services, Pacific Bell

Victoria Weisfeld, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Steve VanNurden, Mayo Foundation

Tim Kieschnick, Kaiser Permanente

Patricia F. Brennan, Case Western Reserve University



While technology has provided methods for lower cost delivery of higher quality information to the consumer, the roles of the private, public, and nonprofit organizations in financing the creation of, delivery of, and access to information must be determined. This requires measuring the costs and benefits of information creation, ownership, accuracy, storage, and access by health care consumers and health care, information, and network providers. It requires understanding the economics of network externalities whereby individuals, beyond the immediate consumers and producers of the information, receive benefit from it such as a reduction in the spread of infectious diseases or reducing the cost of government subsidized health care. Finally, it also requires determining the various roles of prices, government subsidies, tax policies, provisions, and regulation of networked health information.



Issues that shape the economics of networked health information for the public include costs and benefits, copyright and ownership, accuracy, privacy, pricing, storage, access by information "haves" and "have-nots", creation, distribution efficiencies, and provision of health information.

Distributed architectures, integration and aggregation of information for managed care, physician group practices, hospitals, and the inclusion of consumers in the health care information value chain will dramatically alter the economics of health care. That process is already underway and will have a profound impact on government policies and the health care private sector.

High quality systems will provide comprehensive information services that are accurate, appropriate to the individual user, and integrated with clinical care. When systems with these qualities are made readily accessible, patient/provider satisfaction and health outcomes may improve, which will, in some cases, lead to decreased costs.



  1. Create partnerships of many parties, including network providers, public utilities, entertainment providers, government, health care organizations, and individual users for funding high quality systems that will provide comprehensive information services that are accurate, appropriate to the individual user, and integrated with clinical care.

  2. Government and the health care private sector: Policies must acknowledge that distributed architectures, integration and aggregation of information for managed care, physician group practices, hospitals, and the inclusion of consumers in the health care information value chain will dramatically alter the economics of health care.

  3. Foundations: Broaden their circles of giving. Although foundations vary markedly in their grantmaking interests and are generally conservative in their own adoption of new technology, the situation is changing. Foundations are funding health information projects that meet their program priorities and are effectively presented.


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