HIMSS14: athenahealth COO issues call to action

ORLANDO--“This coming year, we’ll spend more on healthcare than on everything else we buy combined,” said Ed Park, executive vice president and COO of athenahealth, during a talk at the Health Information and Management Systems Society annual conference. Park discussed the customer-centric success of Amazon and what healthcare can learn from the online giant.

The company’s mission specifically says its goal is to build the most customer-centric company. That starts with big data, said Park, which means analysis of the pedabytes of data Amazon gets from its 152 million users. With mathematical precision, the company can track its fulfillment centers and processes. But, Amazon didn’t stop there, Park pointed out. Since no one entity can stock every single item, Amazon rents its online presence to partners so that the shopping experience is seamless to the end user. “They figured out very, very early on that the right way to build their business was to partner with others.”  

Because Amazon offers one million unique items, it went beyond sharing its website in order to deliver terrific customer service. Its focus on innovation is not more in evidence than in the Kindle which allows users to get access any book within 60 seconds. Originally, Amazon wanted to become the world’s largest bookstore and it invested millions to create the infrastructure that would allow for that. It then invented a new device that would bypass all that investment, Park said. All to provide a better customer experience.

In 2006, Amazon created Amazon Web Services (AWS) and “the results have been astounding.” Companies such as Pinterest, Netflix, Dropbox and hundreds more all run on AWS. Netflix is Amazon’s archrival in streaming video service. This shows that Amazon is willing to cooperate if it means value delivery to the customer, Park said.

“At the end of the day, Amazon is a commercial business trying to maximize customer returns,” he added.

Meanwhile, our government’s definition of success of EHR adoption is automating paper charts, he said. “Thanks to Meaningful Use, more organizations are using EHRs but that’s still not directly translating to better patient outcomes. We’re still largely automating broken processes.”

The key problem, he said, is that technology is never an end. It is a means.

There are stark differences in the technological infrastructures that run Silicon Valley and healthcare, Park said. Every healthcare system has its own storage center and someone devoted to keeping it running. “The real costs are more intangible—in opportunities wasted for innovation.”

Healthcare remains an enormously complex team sport, Park said. “We have to work together.” The average hospital gets half of its admissions from non-affiliated physicians so they’re not using the same EHR. “The average doctor today gets over 1,100 faxes per month still. That’s a tragedy and a little bit of a crime.”

Amazon architected itself for collaboration from the get go. "What if we put the patient at the center of that kind of collaboration?" Park asked. The idea was unheard of a few years ago but recently, several consortiums and alliances have popped up focused on patient centeredness and interoperability.   

“This is a call for action. You are an enormously influential group. How you spend your money and time will determine whether we will see innovation the same as in Silicon valley or doomed to another 10 years of stalled progress. Start with the patient at the center of care. They need it, we need it and maybe it will make a difference.”