Roger Holzberg Discusses Integrating Technology Into Healthcare

The US health system has done a poor job of integrating new technologies into practice, while other countries do better, said Roger Holzberg, BFA, co-founder and creative director of Reimagine Well.

Transcript

How well do you think health systems and practices are currently integrated technology into healthcare?

I think it’s kind of embarrassing how poorly the US health system is integrating technology into patient care. I know from a patient point of view the fact that my EMR is not readily available at all of my providers and all of my specialists wherever I go in the country is frankly embarrassing.

If our health system doesn’t have the ability to even share something as basic as a patient’s electronic medical record, I don’t know how any newer technologies are going to integrated into the system when it can’t even function doing the basics yet.

Other countries have been doing so much better than we have technologically that I wind up shaking my head at times. For over a decade South Korea has been able to do insulin analysis instantly via a cellular device and transmit numbers to physicians and patients immediately. That’s been available over a decade in South Korea. In Thailand, compounding robots have been building custom-made pharmaceuticals for patients in hospitals for 15 years now.

We’ve nothing like that in the US. I don’t understand why our hospital system can’t accept, integrate, and utilize the kinds of technologies that are out there.