A Dutch and American commentary on IT in health care: roundtable discussions on IT and innovations in health care.
OBJECTIVE
This chapter reports on experts' perspectives on health information technology (HIT) and how it may be used to improve health care quality and to lower health care costs.


METHODS
Two roundtables were convened that focused on how to best use HIT to improve the quality of health care while ensuring it is accessible and affordable. Participants drew upon lessons learned in the Netherlands, the United States, and other countries.


RESULTS
The first roundtable focused on the use of (1) electronic health records (EHRs) by health care providers, (2) cloud computing for EHRs and health portals for consumers, and (3) data registries and networks for public health surveillance. The second roundtable highlighted (1) the rapid growth of personalized medicine, (2) the corresponding growth and sophistication of bioinformatics and analytics, (3) the increasing presence of mobile HIT, and (4) the disruptive changes in the institutional structures of biomedical research and development.


CONCLUSIONS
Governmental sponsorship of small pilot projects to solve practicable health system problems would encourage HIT innovation among key stakeholders. However, large-scale HIT solutions developed through small pilot projects--should be pursued through public-private partnerships. At the same time, governments should speed up legislative and regulatory procedures to encourage adoption of cost-effective HIT innovations.


CONCLUSIONS
Mobile HIT and social media are capable of fostering disease prevention and encouraging personal responsibility for improving or stabilizing chronic diseases.


CONCLUSIONS
Both health services researchers and policy makers should find this chapter of value since it highlights trends in HIT and addresses how health care quality may be improved while costs are contained.
MISQ Department, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
Grant T
GT
Savage
Leo
L
van der Reis
D019985:Benchmarking; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics* / Q000458:organization & administration*; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D006801:Humans; D008490:Medical Informatics; D009426:Netherlands; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014481:United States