DORAL, FL - Healthcare executives looking for the next big thing in information technology or finance management at this week's Gartner Healthcare Summit are being given some rather simple advice: Bigger isn't always better.
And, never overlook the patient, because he or she certainly isn't overlooking you.
With representatives of payers, providers and vendors on hand from Washington D.C. to Washington state, Gartner analysts are leading a number of workshops under the heading of "Successfully Navigating Healthcare's Ongoing 'Perfect Storm.'" Opening the four-day summit Sunday evening was Dr. James Rosser, chief of minimally invasive surgery at New York's Beth Israel Hospital and CEO of the Stealth Learning Company.
A former college football player with a booming voice and presence, Rosser wasted no time getting to the point.
"Healthcare has defied all efforts to develop a cost-effective product in a timely fashion," he pointed out, adding that "we are presiding over a sick-care system," rather than a healthcare system.
Added to the mix, he said, is an "unprecedented product innovation arms race" that threatens to overwhelm the industry.
The answer, Rosser said, lies in simple solutions, like better education and quality control.
"If something simple gets the job done, that's what you use," he said.
Rosser has made headlines recently for his belief that video gaming technology will help healthcare. He points out that the video gaming industry is a $40 billion industry, and that 94 percent of the nation's adolescents play video games. In addition, he said studies have shown that doctors who have played video games tend to be 27 percent faster and make 37 percent fewer errors than doctors who don't play.
Little wonder, then, that he advocates video gaming in education, with the goal of creating a technologically savvy younger generation that will use those tools in the healthcare sector.
"We are going to use this kind of empowerment to establish the frontline healthcare workers of tomorrow," he said. "This is the ground work that we must do now in order to survive later."
Gartner analysts added to the theme during a Monday morning breakfast session, at which Bob Booz pointed out healthcare executives are facing "a fundamental change in the way we do business." The most important change, he said, is the rise in consumerism - the ability of the consumer, through advances in technology and transparency, to gain hold of and manage his or her medical information and to make decisions about healthcare.
Gartner's healthcare summit will continue through Wednesday at the Doral Resort in Doral, Fla.