McKesson's Hammergren talks interoperability, innovation

A more informed, educated and engaged consumer will help us transform the delivery system, said John Hammergren, chairman, president and CEO of McKesson, speaking Dec. 3 at the Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Health Innovation Initiative policy forum.

The forum brought together leaders from government and the private sector on bipartisan efforts to advance a risk-based regulatory framework for health IT that promotes innovation, protects patient safety and avoids regulatory duplication.

“The dimensions of access, quality and cost remain a critical issue for us,” said Hammergren. “We need to use tools like health IT for us to advance the ball.” While technology in healthcare has widely been focused on device and pharmaceutical innovation, he said it’s consumers who will “help us attack the challenges of not enough providers, costs and variability.”

Calling this a “very exciting time” in healthcare, he said all the changes and use of IT are taking their toll. “This is a significant transition for providers. It has been a Herculean task. To use the tools effectively and efficiently is a learning process.”

Interoperability is the most important thing to achieve to “get to where we need to go,” Hammergren said. “We will not accomplish our mission if we cannot share the data.” He asked the audience to imagine a cell phone that only connected to the caller’s own service provider.

Citing McKesson’s participation in the CommonWell Alliance, he said it is a group of organizations that fundamentally understand the issue of connectivity at a granular level. “We’ve been trying to put a patchwork together of code hospital by hospital and physician by physician. The cost associated with that patchwork of interfaces is unsustainable. There’s a tremendous cost burden.”

However, some still see interoperability or the lack thereof as a “supporter of their business model. “They say, ‘If I can keep patients’ data in my own systems that will prevent patients from seeking care somewhere else.’ That’s not a sustainable. As the industry breaks down the technical barriers to data sharing and interoperability, it will uncover and expose very quickly people who are trying to hold on to this.”

IT is the critical fuel to “help us transform and bend the cost curve. We have a tremendous opportunity before us. This is the most important time in healthcare.”