Health Data Management | I.T. Can Help Tip Health Care (September 18, 2007)

Health Data Management | I.T. Can Help Tip Health Care (September 18, 2007): "LATEST NEWS September 19, 2007 I.T. Can Help Tip Health Care (September 18, 2007) Health care has become more expensive because it's been more successful at keeping people alive, said Brandon Savage, M.D, chief medical officer and general manager global marketing at GE Healthcare, Milwaukee. 'A lot of the health care dollars are spent on keeping people alive that have chronic diseases--and we're having success in that area,' said Savage, who gave a keynote speech at Health Data Management's Clinical Automation Summit, Sept. 17-18 in Chicago. But to get health care over the tipping point--where it can help save lives and money--I.T.must be the driver, he said. For example, the health care industry must increasingly focus on early health rather than late disease to start this paradigm shift, he said, and use I.T. to help diagnose and monitor a patient's condition ahead of the disease curve to prevent further complications, he added. Hospitals then can use I.T. to transform information into insight, Savage said, by building order sets, decision support and other outcomes measurement tools into clinical applications such as EHRs. 'Electronic records can connect your overall understanding to get to one strategy, one view of the data,' he said. Patients also must use"