| Learn more about transforming America healthcare at the Center for Health Transformation... Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Talks on Embracing True Health Information Technology Transformation in Healthcare Reform
Behavioral Health Central
November 12, 2009
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was the closing keynote speaker at the 5th Annual World Healthcare Innovation & Technology (WHIT) Congress in Washington D.C. on November 6. His opening statement to senior healthcare executives on the topic of Embracing True HIT Transformation in an Era of Real Health Reform started with a sobering note, “we need to start talking about the reform we’re going to need after the reform fails,” Gingrich said. Yet, within moments, the attending thought leaders were motivated – and often humored – by Gingrich’s dry wit as he delivered solutions to transform the current delivery system into a 21st Century Intelligent Health System.
“I think it’s very important to recognize that, whether you’re for the current bill or against the current bill, there is nothing going on in Congress that is going to fundamentally change the underlying system. What we’re doing now is fighting over financing and bureaucracy, but we’re not actually trying to think about the underlying core challenges of the American healthcare system. I think probably because it’s so complicated. But I think it’s partly because we don’t really have good models for thinking about really fundamental alternatives. If you said tomorrow morning, 'Let’s go to a single-payor system', you might or might not change access, and you might or might not change the immediate pattern of financing of the job, but you wouldn’t change the underlying behaviors.”
Transforming and revolutionizing the current healthcare system, Gingrich says, into one that will create an economic boom for Americans and lead people to live longer and better, while paying less for care, will require three major changes:
Move knowledge from scientific laboratories to physician offices and patients as soon as possible. Today on average, it can take 17 years for a new medical discovery to reach patients. “We need to turn knowledge into solutions at a much more rapid rate,” Gingrich said. “It will require the FDA to rethink the time and cost of the current approval system in order to get away from an overly risk-averse system that increases the likelihood that you will die before new treatment is approved.” Gingrich says key steps in this process will include information sharing of best practices through telemedicine and video conferencing. To read more, click here... |