On Nov. 17, healthcare communications agency Sudler & Hennessey convened a Health + Technology Summit at New York City’s Millennium Hotel. The invitational meeting brought together practitioners and healthcare information technology experts to examine the opportunities and challenges in the rapidly changing landscape. The stated purpose was to “focus on where technology can facilitate alignment across divergent national, payer, provider and patient agendas, particularly as the health care system evolves to focus more on accountable care and quality health outcomes”—or, as one participant noted, to face the current “insurmountable opportunity.” Topics included the experiences of New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital healthcare network as it rolled out electronic medical records (EMRs) and communications systems linking both staff and patients system-wide, the impact on health information technologies on the care of vulnerable groups (such as Latino or homosexual and transgendered patients), and the relatively slow pace of adoption despite incentives that include the $19.2 billion HITECH grants intended to speed physicians’ EMR adoption.
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