Promoting eHealth Adoption: When Will Doctors Get It

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• Promoting eHealth Adoption When Will Doctors
  Get It?

Mark Leavitt, MD, PhDChairman, Medscape Inc.
eHealth Developers Summit Aptos, CA November 15,
2001
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Healthcare lags in IT investment
3.9
Percent of operating budget devoted to
information technology
Source Gartner Group
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The costs of unwired healthcare are enormous

• Wasted money WHO study ranks US 37th in
  healthcare efficiency among developed nations
• Wasted quality compliance with guidelines only
  20-40 17 year delay before new knowledge
  affects practice (IOM 2001 report)
• Wasted lives medical errors kill 44,000-98,000
  people annually (IOM 1999 report)
• Privacy risks no audit trail of accesses, entire
  paper charts copied, mailed, or faxed

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Six powerful drivers of eHealth
Healthcare
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Mnemonic The six Ds
Diseases
Dollars
Healthcare
Data
D.C.
Drugs/DNA
Demands
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Then why hasnteHealthcare been embraced by most
providers?
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Barriers to physician adoption of clinical
computing

• Cultural
• Technical
• Financial
• Systemic

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The Internet phenomenonhas helped, but

• Cultural
• Technical
• Financial
• Systemic

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Then how will Americas doctors get wired?Not
in one great leap,but through a series of steps
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The Internet adoption staircase
ValueandDepth
Commitment and Trust
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Physician adoption the Medscape and MedicaLogic
experience
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Latest statistics are encouraging
Physicians are

• Going online 87 (1)
• Online at the office 56 (1)
• Using computers in the clinical work area 40
  (1)
• Having some kind of website 42 (1)
• Using email 55 -- but only with colleagues (1)
• Buying PDAs 19 graduating residents 75 (2)
• Using some kind of EMR 22 (3)
• Now considering purchase of EMR 68 (3)

Sources 1. HarrisInteractive, Feb 2001 2.
CyberDialogue, 2000 3. MGMA/Pfizer Survey, Oct
2001
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Summing up

• Physicians and healthcare organizations have
  lagged badly in adopting IT for clinical settings
• Efficiency, quality, and safety could be
  significantly improved by eHealth technologies
• The Internet has reduced many of the cultural and
  technical barriers to technology adoption, but
  financial and systemic barriers remain
• Adoption may be slow and incremental, but there
  is progress on many fronts
• Real acceleration probably requires system reform
  to provide clear, financial incentives rewarding
  service, quality and safety

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About the speaker
Mark Leavitt, MD, PhD has worked in the digital
health information field for 20 years. He
founded MedicaLogic in 1985. Under his
leadership as CEO and Chairman, the company was
listed on the Inc 500 roster of Americas fastest
growing private companies for four consecutive
years, culminating in an Initial Public Offering
in December 1999. MedicaLogic merged with
Medscape in May 2000, and the combined company is
now known as Medscape Nasdaq MDLI. Today, he
continues his guiding role as Chairman of the
Board of the integrated company, which focuses on
the timely delivery of clinical data and
up-to-date knowledge to healthcare professionals
and consumers, with the goal of saving time,
money, and lives. As of June 2001, more than 15
million patients had digital health records
created with these applications, and Medscape had
more than 3.5 million registered users, with over
600,000 physicians from around the world.. For
company information, please visit
www.medscape.com .   Dr. Leavitts education
includes a BS degree from the University of
Arizona and a Doctorate from Stanford University
in Electronic Engineering. After working six
years in that field, he studied medicine at the
University of Miami, performed postgraduate work
at the Oregon Health Sciences University, and
received board certification in Internal Medicine
and in Geriatrics. He practiced internal
medicine full-time for ten years in
Portland.   He is a popular and acclaimed keynote
speaker on the topic of eHealthcare, for national
meetings of the American Medical Informatics
Association, the Health Information Management
Systems Society, eHealthcare World, the Medical
Group Management Association, and many others.
He has served on blue ribbon panels including the
National Healthcare Policy Forum and the Jackson
Hole Group, was a speaker at the Wall Street
Journals Technology Summit 1999 on the topic of
Healthcare and the Internet, and in 2000 he
testified before the Joint Economic Committee of
Congress at their Summit on the High Tech
Economy. In 2000, he received the Entrepreneur
of the Year Award for Healthcare in the northwest
region, as well as being named one of 25 Rising
Stars of the Net in Internet World magazine. He
is on the Advisory Board of The eHealthcare
Initiative, a senior member of HIMSS, and has
served as the Oregon Chapter President for both
HIMSS and the Society of Internal Medicine.   Dr.
Leavitt can be reached at Medscape, Inc., 20500
NW Evergreen Parkway, Hillsboro, OR 97124, via
email at mleavitt_at_medscapeinc.com, or by
telephone at [phone] voice, and (503)
531-7090 fax.