— Rachel Phillips Terry, Corporate Vice President, Sales, BioIQ —
“Put individuals at the center of their care!”
– Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
The HiMSS Conference and Exhibition began on an inspirational note this year with a keynote address from Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, our country’s highest healthcare official. She offered perspective on how our nation’s healthcare system has transformed over the last seven years while providing a glimpse into the future of healthcare delivery and the shift to value-based patient care.
Secretary Burwell’s commitment to ensuring that every American has access to the building blocks of healthy and productive lives was evident as she outlined a three-part reform strategy to put individuals at the center of their care. She emphasized the importance of quality over quantity and the need to change how we pay for care, improve care delivery and unlock healthcare data to make it actionable.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ strategy puts patients first by:
- Making it easier for them to access their data
- Creating standardized and open APIs
- Enabling the flow of unimpeded, secure data and common implementation standards
Secretary Burwell also referenced three areas where the system currently falls short – consumer access, lack of a common data language and blockages that hinder the transfer of information. The Department of Health and Human Services has identified a new agenda for providing transparency in the Health Insurance Marketplace, which has led to a commitment from companies that provide over 90 percent of EMRs. These companies, along with the five largest systems in healthcare, have pledged to make the system work better.
“Today, three-quarters of doctors are using EHRs,” said Burwell. “There is now a digital care footprint for almost everyone in the country.”
Stay tuned for updates from BioIQ, as my colleagues and I continue to share insights from HiMSS16!
Rachel Phillips Terry