Patients’ medical records are typically scattered about—in doctors’ scribbled notes, in treatment histories, or in hospital computer systems. But integrating this information could help improve care, lower costs, and make the health care system more consumer-centric, according to John Quelch, professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
Quelch said that any organization hoping to take the lead in creating a successful patient-data integration system—whether a hospital, insurance provider, or some other type of business—would need adequate resources to pull off the task and great credibility with consumers because of privacy concerns.
“Trust on the part of both the consumer and doctor is hugely important in determining who is going to be the likely winner here,” Quelch said in a June 29, 2015 article in Working Knowledge, forum for innovation in business practice from Harvard Business School.
Read the Working Knowledge article: Consumer-centered Health Care Depends on Accessible Medical Records