The University of Connecticut School of Business has developed classes and programs to address the growing intersection of healthcare and technology.

The School of Business is focusing on healthcare and healthcare technology as fundamental issues in the growth of healthcare knowledge. We have developed a Healthcare Informatics & Technology certificate program designed for adult learners who are seeking additional information and/or career advancement related to healthcare. It’s built for entry to mid-level IT staff members employed within healthcare, IT professionals from other industries looking to learn about healthcare, clinicians looking to expand their knowledge of technology, and healthcare business consultants who want to learn more about how technology will affect their industry. Continue Reading

The four things I see coming down the road for healthcare information technology:

First, the cost of technology is going down. With the cost going down, it enables the second aspect – pervasiveness of medical devices and technology. We’re going to see HIT more and more in different places at different times. The third major aspect is in the tools and methods from other industries. We’re going to see the kinds of innovations that exist in banking, or travel, or manufacturing being used in healthcare. And finally, there’s an issue that we need to address as a society. That’s the idea of data ethics: “Who gets my information, how do they get to use it, and what do I reserve that only I can access?” Continue Reading

How Governments Are Impacted by Healthcare Information Technology (HIT)

Governments are the largest purchasers of healthcare services in the United States and many parts of the world.

Nearly 50% of all healthcare in the U.S. has been bought by the government, either for their employees, or through public programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Because of that, governments are greatly interested in the costs of healthcare, in the quality of healthcare and in the access to healthcare. So we’re going to see more regulatory pressures on healthcare providers, insurers, and even patients, to lower the cost of care and improve its outcome. Technology will help to enable these organization to meet all of the goals. Continue Reading

Healthcare in the age of technology, offers different tools for the consumer.

To prepare for healthcare technology, you have to understand what types of technology exist. For the individual, there are personal health tools, often in the form of wearables. Continue Reading

Health insurers can use HIT to help keep premium costs down, but other industries also benefit from healthcare IT advances:

For medical care providers – HIT is good because it creates greater personalization, and it allows for more consistency in the way health is treated. Continue Reading

Healthcare IT is increasingly complex because of the policy and regulation uncertainties that dominate industry strategic planning. Savvy CIOs have always understood that innovation arises from ambiguity, however, this is truer today than in the past. Continue Reading

Healthcare Information Technology enables the patient to affect their own health, from personal research to early prevention, to effective treatment.

It matters to the individual, because technology will give them new tools and new ways of thinking about themselves. It helps them with their personal research, with concurrent state monitoring–in other words: knowing what’s going on, and finally prevention through early detection. It matters for a patient because it allows them to lower their personal healthcare costs and improve their outcomes. And for the employer, it lowers their premium expenses allowing its employees to be more productive.

Listen here:

This audio clip originally appeared on the Connecticut Business and Industry Association’s CBIA Business Minute.

 

Robert Booz
Healthcare IT Faculty, Healthcare Management & Insurance Studies
Robert H. Booz is a healthcare professional with extensive experience in policy analysis, business operations, and technology enablement. Author of over 125 research articles and having conducted over 2,000 client one-on-one inquiries, his strengths are analyzing the current challenges, emerging trends, and future opportunities of healthcare and the vendors that support them. He has been teaching at UConn for more than 15 years. View Posts

Healthcare is on the forefront of technology.

Healthcare information technology, or HIT, is the use of computers to enable tools through the course of healthcare. It’s trying to figure out, ‘how can we make things more consistent, better, and more able to help patients?’ Continue Reading