Cash crunch, cultural resistance curbing e-health

Cultural resistance - not the least from healthcare workers - and a huge shortfall of public funds continue to be major obstacles to the widespread adoption of e-health programs in North America. Canadian and U.S.thought leaders in healthcare transformation discuss these challenges and how to overcome them.

A couple of major obstacles are impeding widespread adoption of e-health programs in North America, experts say.

The first barrier is money, according to Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives -- the cost of these programs, and where the funds are to be obtained.

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Cultural resistance - not the least from healthcare workers - and a huge shortfall of public funds continue to be major obstacles to the widespread adoption of e-health programs in North America. Canadian and U.S.thought leaders in healthcare transformation discuss these challenges and how to overcome them.

A couple of major obstacles are impeding widespread adoption of e-health programs in North America, experts say.

The first barrier is money, according to Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives -- the cost of these programs, and where the funds are to be obtained.

The second, he said, is culture.

Embracing e-health technology, Gingrich noted, requires learning new things, and adopting new habits. "It's fundamentally different for workflow."

Gingrich -- founder of Center for Health Transformation -- was speaking at a recent panel discussion on e-health in Toronto.

Other panelists included Frank McKenna, former New Brunswick Premier and currently deputy chair of TD Bank Financial Group, and Peter Reuschel, founder and CEO of InterComponentWare AG (ICW).

Headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, ICW offers healthcare products designed to integrate various participants and systems in the heath care sector, including physicians, hospitals and patients. The firm actively promotes standardization in healthcare and has established the Global Standards Office.

Speakers at the Toronto event, which marked the launch of ICW in Canada, laid out the challenges, progress, and benefits of electronic health records. Those benefits, they emphasized, don't come cheap.

They cited the "resource crunch" as a major and ongoing obstacle, despite investments by both Canadian and U.S. government jurisdictions.

For instance, Ontario will be investing around C$2.4 billion (US$2 billion) in healthcare over the next few years, noted Wayne Gudbranson, CEO of Branham Group, an IT consultancy based in Ottawa.

While that's "wonderful", he noted that IT spend in the healthcare sector has been far less than in other verticals -- a situation that needs to change radically or "cost and efficiencies won't be improved."

ICW's Reuschel highlighted the role of government funding. "If you really want integrated health care delivery," he said, "at least at the beginning, there's a need for public money."

In Canada, much of this funding is being channeled to Canada Health Infoway, a non-profit organization that collaborates with the provinces and territories, health care providers, and technology vendors to speed up use of electronic health records.

Infoway is to receive $500 million from the Feds to support a national electronic health record system, expected to be fully implemented across Canada by 2016.

The Canadian government has already provided $1.6 billion to support Infoway's goals, according to the organization's Web site.

Infoway's development of the e-health certification process has been welcomed by ICW. The company said it would participate in the "formal certification process" for its own products.