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That was an interesting article that my colleague Nancy Ferris wrote recently about people detecting a "pause " in the push for a paperless health care system, but I don't think it reflects the broader reality of what is happening in health IT.
If there is any exhaustion that's causing this timeout then it's focused almost wholly in the policy world and on Capitol Hill -- where topic exhaustion is a frequent event -- rather than in the technology world at large, where the attraction of what may be is driving increasing interest in health technology.
I guarantee you that IBM, Microsoft, Intel and dozens of smaller technology companies are not taking a breather. They know there are mega-billions to be made in the health field down the road, and they also know what it takes to stake claims in these big markets.
We've written about Intel before and what it is doing in health care, and what it sees as the factors driving the future market for its semiconductors. IBM may be even more of a pointer to what's happening in health technology.
Big Blue has been involved for many years in health institutions because of its computers and software, but even there it's expanding its presence. It's now pushing to be a bigger influence in high-end medical applications, as this collaboration with the Mayo Clinic shows.
But if you really want to see what IBM is thinking of for this market take a look at its vision for global healthcare management. Since it started to turn itself into a services company a few years ago. IBM realizes there's more to health IT than just IT. As those big markets develop, IBM intends to be an embedded presence.
Globally, in fact, the U.S. is probably the laggard in developing health IT. Europe and Asia are certainly not slowing down or taking breathers.
My attention was caught by this recent news story, for example, about a wireless experiment Japan is conducting on one of its islands, a part of which is to see how doctors can use wireless networks to monitor the health of elderly patients around the clock.
There's some thinking being put into that in the US. But, if this experiment in Japan proves out, the government there intends to expand the system to the whole of the country. You won't see that anywhere in the US for many years.
By Brian Robinson, GHIT Contributing Writer
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