Purpose

Healthcare today is largely an information business.  With the exception of the few moments of physical interactions with patients in diagnosis and treatment, prescriptions, and medical equipment, we all trade in information.

Payers manufacture only good will.  They sell and service a binding promise to pay some part of a person’s or family’s health-related expenses in exchange for their regular payment of a premium.  

Providers gather data – more than ever before – to inform and support their diagnoses and guide their procedures and prescribing.

The new wave of Health 2.0 apps empowers consumers with information about health choices and costs.  

We all conduct the business of health by exchanging information: websites, money, claims, vouchers, EOBs, letters, phone calls, care guides…all information.

Information technology factors are obviously fundamental to the formulation of our business strategies.

The purpose of this series is to identify and examine key strategic information technology factors in the health solutions space and how they will shape and inform our work this decade.

Introduction

As we move into the 2020’s we find ourselves in a time of rapid technological advancement.    We all know the technology buzzwords of the day:  the Cloud, Mobile, the Internet of Things (IOT), Events, Big Data, Everything-as- a-Service, APIs, Rules Engines.   But trying to understand the discrete strategic impact of each of these new technologies on our businesses in the coming years is challenging. 

Much of the industry analysis I’ve read drives a buzzword technology to a shallow and obvious business conclusion: ‘The rise of mobile is driving consumerism!’ Or it takes a clear business trend and props it up with technology: ‘The rise of consumerism is enabled by mobile!’

Shiny, shallow technology ‘marketecture’ presentations frequently conflate the advantages of different technologies and blind the audience with science, featuring Rube Goldbergian diagrams populated with colorful components showing how we plumb our way to success.

Moreover, not all of the impact of technology will be at the high level of products and services:   much of the impact will be in the trenches, at a day-over-day operational level.  It is vital to address our path as well as our destination.

So I thought I would take a step back and try a different approach. 

Instead of starting with the buzzword technologies, and trying to figure out how each plays in, I will drive this analysis from the perspective of five broad, interrelated technology themes which position Cloud, Mobile, IOT, Events, Big Data, Everything-as-a-Service, APIs and Rules Engines in a common explanatory framework.

This approach will enable me to tell a much more cohesive, accessible story about how information technology will shape our business future.

These are the technology themes I see obtaining through the 2020s:

• The emergence of the individual narrative;
• The realization of rapid solution development;
• The increasing perfection of information;
• The primacy of decision contexts;
• The right-sizing of information tools.

Approach

I will begin by developing each of the five technology themes at some length, including how the current buzzword technologies fit into them.  Some of the perspective I provide will be broadly historical, positioning a theme or its elements in the relentless march of technology. 

For readers who aren’t engineers I will be including what I intend to be sufficient context to make my technical arguments accessible.    For more technical readers I hope to provide a fresh perspective on some well-worn ideas.

The five technology themes I will address are so interrelated that in order to describe one well I will necessarily have to make reference to the others.  At times that will be in advance of their individual expositions, which will introduce redundancy I trust you will forgive.

After the themes exposition I will focus on what the resulting business information terrain I have described entails:  like the Sunken Road and Shallow Wall at Fredericksburg, the terrain should have a significant influence on our overall strategy.  It will play a prominent role in how the battle to provide high quality, affordable healthcare to Americans plays out in the coming decade.

Next up, our first technology theme: the emergence of the individual narrative.

Stay tuned.