Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1476979
68 CIO / HEALTH IT Will Amazon change healthcare? Health system CIOs weigh One Medical's acquisition By Naomi Diaz A mazon's plan to buy primary care network One Medical in a deal valued at $3.9 billion would bring almost 190 clinics, a subscription telehealth service, an electronic health record and contracts with thousands of employer clients under Amazon's umbrella, but health system CIOs have various takes on the acquisition with some saying this is all noise while others take the stance that the retail giant could change primary care delivery. Becker's spoke to five health system CIOs who answered the question: What does this acquisition mean for healthcare and primary care delivery? Note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity. Rich Rogers. Senior Vice President and CIO of PrismaHealth (Green- ville, S.C.). Time will tell. I still think healthcare is personal and local. Pa- tients like to know their physician and have a trusting relationship. ey also like to go to their local hospital for services. is is just one more industry giant trying to influence healthcare. From a CIO perspective, this is just another independent group that we hope to exchange patient information with for the continuity of care and experience for the patient. But, primary care is a difficult business. It will be interesting to see what Am- azon can do to change the business model. It will also be interesting to see if patients and employers will be comfortable with a Big Tech firm having their most private and personal health information. History says "no." Zafar Chaudry, MD. Chief Digital and Information Officer and Senior Vice President of Seattle Children's Hospital. Amazon is obviously serious about healthcare with this level of investment and this will give Amazon broader physical primary care access across multiple markets and may ben- efit patients in terms of primary care competition. Certainly, Amazon Care appeared to struggle to bring on clients, probably due to its lack of a track record. Near term ramifications are probably min- imal, although I don't think this acquisition is going to help them fix what's broken with healthcare but will give Amazon access to more data for sure, which could be controversial. Whether Amazon can monetize this remains to be seen. One Medical wasn't exactly profitable before acquisition so this will help One Medical be more sustainable and help them as they venture into more value-based care arrangements. Amazon will still face the same staff recruitment and retention issues that healthcare delivery organizations are facing. e other challenge may be medical malpractice liability as Amazon, as the parent company, has huge assets that may be exposed in the case of any future possible medical mal- practice claims. Raymond Lowe. Senior Vice President and CIO of AltaMed (Commerce, Calif.). is acquisition is a prime example of how healthcare delivery will change. It also depicts how large organizations continue to examine inef- ficiencies in healthcare delivery and see opportunities to enhance this in traditional healthcare organizations. Tech no one's talking about — yet: 3 health system CIOs on the future of health IT By Naomi Diaz and Giles Bruce F rom facial recognition to the next generation of digital health tools, CIOs see the health- care sector investing in more innovative new technology as a growing number of health sys- tems further their advancement in software, sen- sors and other technologies that can enhance the delivery of care. Becker's spoke to three health system CIOs who answered the question: If you had a crystal ball, what would you say is coming in the future for health IT that people aren't really talking about yet? Note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity. Rich Rogers. Senior Vice President and CIO of PrismaHealth (Greenville, S.C.). I believe we'll see rapid consolidation between payers and providers. The health insurance premium is the last profitable dollar left for providers. This will increase the need for greater analytics capability, interoperability and the next generation of digital tools for IT. Randy Davis. Senior Vice President and CIO of CGH Medical Center (Sterling, Ill.). Facial recog- nition has untapped potential in healthcare as well as ambient scribing. But, ambient scribing has significant problems. It's great if all you're interested in is a transcript, but not great if you want to quickly learn what the physician is thinking after a full context of data and conversation. Companies like Decoded Health (among others) are going beyond ambient scribing and they ar- en't getting much press, but give it a few years and we'll see something truly useful for physicians. Saad Chaudhry. CIO of Luminis Health (Annap- olis, Md.). Plug-and-play platforms that standard- ize the data layer for other applications that can be installed on top of them, much like iOS and Android operating systems that allow for easy to install and uninstall apps. These PnP platforms will be vendor-agnostic, al- lowing healthcare organizations to easily and flu- idly install and uninstall any vendor's system or app per function. n