Securing Identities for Electronic Health

Jack Mason, IBM Strategic Communications, HealthNex Producer

John Sharp at eHealth beat me to it again, but IBM has made a recent splash at the intersection between security and healthcare that may be of interest. See the details at:

"Open Source Initiative to Give People More Control Over Their Personal Online Information".

FYI I've been a little preoccupied the last couple of weeks preparing for a major strategy session with my IBM colleagues on the future of healthcare. While much of IBM's activity this fall (NHIN, rollout of PHRs in the U.S., etc.) in healthcare has undoubtedly nudged the public perception needle a bit, I suspect that it is only the beginning of a more concerted effort for IBM to lead in both market and thought leadership in healthcare transformation.

In fact, by way of some armchair market research that may help inform the strategic thinking this week, what are YOUR perceptions of IBM's interest in healthcare?  How aware are you of some of the ways IBM is striving to help both businesses and healthcare providers innovate?

Your thoughts will get a very close hearing this week, so please provide your comments today, and point others who are interested in being heard to this post.

IBMHealthNex

Comments

[Tim Gee]

Ah, Jack, you've brought up one of my pet peeves, and inspired an entire post on my blog.

To answer your question, I see IBM as a large world-class corporation with well developed core competencies in horizontal market information technologies. I've met many IBMers over the years, and to a person, they have been smart, professional, and personable.

But, IBM is no health care company. The acquisition of HealthLink was a terrific step along the path in becoming a health care company. Your open source announcement holds promise, but has a long way to go. Fortunately, I don't think IBM's promoted itself as cynically as a company like Cisco, who sells horizontal products into health care and dresses in health care drag through transparent marketing campaigns.

I have felt some cognitive dissonance from IBM's excitement over RHIOs, the national HIT infrastructure and similar topics that are mostly fads. Sure a small percentage of those with chronic disease and co-morbidities would benefit from an EHR, and there would be some savings, but the structural barriers to adoption are huge huge huge - and all this makes a non-health care company seem, well, overly optimistic at best and naive at worst. There are so many other areas in which IT could save much more money - and many of them represent better business opportunities.

Given IBM's position and the state of the health care market, you've got some great strategic moves available to you - moves that could transform the market and make IBM a health care company on par with GE, Philips and Tyco. Prudent acquisitions, hiring folks from health care, and getting into down and dirty health care products and services will (over time) make IBM one of us.

[Rod]

To be honest Jack I don't see IBM as a player in the healthcare market here in the UK - the contracts have been awarded & I don't recollect IBM being on any of them.

I've used IBM machines in the past both PC & mainframe systems - but it is a company which has "sliped beneath my radar".

Rod

[Jack Mason]

Tim, Rod:

Thank you both, and I'll be sure to share your perspectives with my colleagues. To Tim's point, I have heard from other corners that the most profound transformation of healthcare may come from less visible avenues than electronic records and the new infrastructure to support them.

Rod also makes a salient point that a global company like IBM may have very big aspirations in healthcare (and more than a few interesting successes so far) but it is really only as visible in a particular healthcare market as some of the major projects like the digital networking of NHS. This global dimension is, I can assure you, very important to IBMers working in healthcare.

[Matthew Holt]

I think Tim and Rod are being a little tough here.

So IBM is a consulting company (via aquisition) that sells lots of hardware.....or a hardware company that does lots of consulting. And it def has a big presence in health care although it doesnt have a health care specific software poroduct line.

What's wrong with that? Not much that I can see. And the big tech guys that have dived into the health care software business haven't exactly transformed the industry -- or for that matter launched a product that's really worked yet! (And we know who you are!)

So lay off poor little Big Blue...

Meanwhile Jack if you want (paid) help with your strategy work, I'm sure the three of us will oblige! Although when I had this chat with Neil he said that it would be tough to hire me as a consultant when they' just bought 700 of them!

[John Sharp]

Jack,
My take on IBM is that it is not primarily a health care company, however, it is making major ventures into the healthcare market. The Genomics project in partnership with major healthcare institutions is unique and builds from IBM's strengths - managing large volumes of data. The HealthLink acquisition is a wait and see situation as is IBM's role in RHIOs. But considering the depth of talent and resources, IBM can be a player in these spaces. The unique twist IBM can bring to health care is its embrace of open source solutions and open patents but it remains to be seen how these will be leveraged in health care. Finally, the use of WebSphere as a provider portal has some appeal especially since some many providers have IBM mainframes installed.

[Douglas Krell MD]

Jack,
You know I'm an OBGYN. On call and up all night, I sometimes sit and scan the internet for the latest healthcare IT innovations. I knew about the IBM Cleveland Clinic project a few years ago from a buddy of mine, but honestly I haven't seen your company making alot of
noise about it. It's likely that the average health care worker...nurse, doctor, pharmacist knows little about IBM's involvement in healthcare. I've seen the IBM Health and Life Sciences web site, but what about your target customers?

I like the BASF commercials...We don't make snowboards...We make snowboards better. So IBM doesn't provide healthcare, they help healthcare workers provide it better. How do you do it? With software, hardware, connectivity, ...whatever IBM's answers are, they need to be directed at people.
After all, IBM is about business, it's about machines. Healthcare however is only sort of a business, and the machines can be very frightening. After all, look what Dr. Frankenstein did with a dead body and a machine. So IBM,... you've got your work cut out for you.

But what IBM did for CC is what we're all looking for. You take the business out of the healthcare business so that people and doctors have the time to connect. You can take a computer full of data and network it into a solution to prevent an epidemic. Show people what happens when you make healthcare an On Demand business and I guarantee you that even the little old ladies who've been waiting an hour for their appointments will want it too.

Doug

[Tim Gee]

Wow, I didn't realize I was being so hard on Big Blue... Indeed, IBM is a successful and well known horizontal market purveyor in health care, and making some important moves to become "one of us." But there's still a ways to go, especially in market perception.

[Joseph Paduda]

Jack - coming at this from the payer end of the spectrum, i may have a different bias. not that i've ever been accused of bias...

the core of the problem with health care is validating that procedure A when performed on Patient B with Conditions C, D, and E and co-morbidities F, G, and H produces the following outcomes. because we can't assess outcomes with any validity we argue about inputs and process - a useless exercise.

If IBM wants to make a difference, and not just play in the margins, get into that analysis. Start w Wennberg's work and take it out from there. That's what payers want, and will buy into and buy.

And those with the gold rule.

[Marty]

Jack -

I think IBM is onto something that we HIT-ites tend to overlook: the power of the data we are trying to harness. We tend to think of "privacy" in terms of embarassment -- what if a public official were known to have contracted an STD, for instance. It's really much more significant than that -- it has to do with peoples' livelihoods and their ability to get ongoing health care. Peoples' biggest fears may not be that strangers would know about their health conditions, but their boss and their insurance company -- and even their doctor. Check out this recent survey: http://www.healthprivacy.org/info-url_nocat2303/info-url_nocat_show.htm?doc_id=317094 .

"One in eight consumers are putting their health at risk by engaging in 'privacy protective behaviors,' which include asking their doctor to not record a health problem, going to another doctor to avoid telling their regular doctor about a health condition, and avoiding medical tests. The chronically ill are more likely to risk their health over privacy concerns."

So IBM is doing something important in terms of giving patients a modicum of control over their own data. But if we want the benefits that come from sharing that data, we will also have to take away the dangers inherent in doing so.

[Matt]

Is IBM a healthcare company?

It would be hard to argue that IBM (especially after the HealthLink acquisition) is lacking in people with extensive healthcare expertise.

And it would be hard to argue that IBM has not invested heavily in healthcare-specific technology, people, and solutions.

IBM doesn't make an EMR, I'd assume, because if they did they'd compete head on with the "powers that be" in that market (instead of making money implementing those systems and selling hardware and middleware as part of those systems).

IBM competes with both hardware vendors (Oracle) and consulting firms (Accenture). If the hardware side of the business is perceived as running the show (i.e. the consulting wing is just a way to sell hardware), then the consulting side loses value. Sometimes IBM hardware isn't the right tool for the job and the consulting side of the house needs to have the ability to demonstrate that level of independence.

Answer this: Is GE a healthcare company? Siemens? Philips? McKesson?