Can a physician adequately serve multiple patients—in four or more different locations—in the same morning? Andrew R. Watson, MD, MLitt, FACS, knows the answer is yes because he has done it. Executive director of telemedicine for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and a practicing colorectal surgeon, Watson has found that his real world experience prepares him well for the naysayers—but patients are not among the skeptics.

When President Obama signed PPACA into law three years ago, 2014 was a country mile down the road. Just months from now, open enrollment for plans participating in the health exchanges will begin, and the expansion of coverage is nigh—though questions persist. Will a potential 30 million new health care customers result in lower or higher premiums? Can providers achieve the efficiencies necessary to operate on reduced reimbursements—and hit quality benchmarks? Will the uninsured participate in anywhere near the numbers expected?

Consolidation, the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), and efforts to use capitation for Medicare patients will all have an impact on health-related stocks, over then next few years.

When it comes to mobile access to patient data, CIOs have two choices: Provide a secure access method, or continue to plug the hole in the dike with their fingers—and pray. With smartphone use among physicians at 98%, according to a 2012 report from Spyglass Consulting, attending and referring physicians who find themselves locked out of mobile access to patient data are likely to be looking for workarounds to circumvent hospital policy.

When Robert London, MD, received a phone call from an executive recruiter who suggested that he interview for a position at Walgreens, he was flabbergasted. “I wondered what I was going to do,” he recalls. “Would I stand at the door and greet people? Let them know about a new shade of nail polish?”

As health-care providers tackle the unruly task of managing population health, they are engaging in the mythic—and transformational—practice of changing shapes into different forms. Providers, payors, employers, and even the corner drugstore are swapping roles: opening the door to more competition, but also introducing powerful new partners with which to share the growing burden of patient-care accountability.

Within the competitive healthcare areas of Colorado, California, Kansas and Montana, SCL Health System has integrated evidence-based decision-making directly in its EMR to support, enhance and speed patient care decisions. One-click, fully integrated access to a clinical point-of-care resource was a must as was a clear implementation strategy and plan to spur physician adoption.

At the close of the CMIO Leadership Forum: Transforming Healthcare Through Evidence-based Medicine last fall in Chicago, Clinical Innovation + Technology invited five luminaries to build on the abundant discussions and dive deeper into the quality of the evidence in medicine, the lack of evidence in many cases, the struggle to engage physicians and patients, and strategies for integrating evidence-based medicine (EBM) into clinical practice. Will the adoption of EBM reach 90 percent by 2020? Should evidence-based medicine be expanded to evidence-based healthcare? Will we see the rise of EBM as a medical specialty? Read on to find out.