Recently, the publication Health Affairs focused their attention on the pressing and currently buzzworthy topic of health information technology with their latest March/April issue. Why is this topic suddenly on the lips of many healthcare professionals? Well if you haven’t heard by now, President Obama has enacted a stimulus bill that will allow for $19 billion to be funneled toward health IT innovations. In order to get the ball rolling with conversation about this potentially industry changing pot of gold, Health Affairs teamed up with the Markle Foundation, the California HealthCare Foundation, and the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to put on a briefing in Washington, D.C.
I’m really excited that Health Affairs put this gathering on because it’s very important that we take the time to think about how this stimulus will impact health care and the delivery of quality changes through technology. Since I wanted to get the word out through Pulse + Signal about the meeting and what was discussed (since I wasn’t able to be there in person), Health Affairs notified me of some multimedia options that I get to share with you readers! See below for links to coverage of the event (the video/audio is little over three hours in length).
Here is the full length video of the briefing
If you would like to listen to the briefing, there are also podcast/audio alternatives -
Drop it into iTunes OR listen to the mp3
Either way, you’re going to want to hear what these folks are saying about the state of health IT and how it’s imperative to be careful how the stimulus money gets doled out.
Powerpoint slides and a full listing of speakers can be found here on the Health Affairs website.
Here’s to hoping a great new frontier of technology applications for the advancement of the health world.
(photo credit: Rutty)
