Episode 30 - The 'Great Connector' in Health Care

RED HOT HEALTHCARE

Jitin Asnaani has always carried an innate sense of passion and purpose. He's gravitated to roles and opportunities pitting him against hard, interesting problems deemed 'worth solving'. These include juice-flowing endeavors such as ecology, renewable energy, and of course health care.

He refers to these challenges as blending both a 'bleeding heart' and a 'bleeding edge'.

Asnaani is now the Executive Director for the non-profit CommonWell Alliance. A growing non-profit effort, whose member growth is skyrocketing. Their goal is to deliver full health data interoperability into the U.S. health system. CommonWell's efforts have proven fruitful thus far - capturing nearly two-thirds of the acute care EHR and one-third of the national ambulatory markets.

The value of this mission cannot be understated. As our healthcare system moves into outcome-based care, greater risk comes to providers and hospitals. Beyond the need for reimbursement, providers must demonstrate quality of care improvement, efficiency increases, effective multi-party care coordination of chronic conditions, as well as greater patient satisfaction.

Patient data and mass availability, is much like the freedom an artist has to paint a masterpiece with many unique colors on their palette. Expectations of improved care must include the ability for patients to have their data follow them, over time and location of care rendered.

In this Red Hot Healthcare episode, Dr. Steve and Jitin discuss:

• His passion and efforts to causes with a 'bleeding heart AND a bleeding edge'
• Why CommonWell began - and its driving mission
• Eyes now opening to the effect of connected data (and missing data) on front line care and patient results
• The working environment of today's interoperability standards and efforts.
• Why making interoperability the law MAY NOT be the best thing