Bill Gates – The US Got Off to a Bad Start With Using Computer Data – Healthcare Wasting Money and Needs a Better Model

One thing Mr. Gates certainly has correct is the fact that the way we interact with computers, cell phones, etc. is changing, and it is changing rapidly, and anyone who reads this blog regularly is aware. Look at the various medical devices I include here for a quick example. When I engage in conversations with those who are maybe not “read up”, they are amazed at what I have to say relative to where healthcare technology is and where it going, and you don’t get all this information on the daily news either.

He also agrees that there’s a lot of money that goes to waste, which it does, and much of the waste is by not using technology and relying on old paper methodologies. That makes more time and waste for everyone. What I also got a kick out of here too was his admitting that Facebook took up too much of his time and the overburden of too much “social” information to sort out daily. I feel that way too, but everyone is entitled to their own choice and thank goodness for aggregating data so I only really have to focus on one area for input and feedback, otherwise I wouldn’t get much done either, but at least with aggregation I can include those who do use Facebook to relay information.

Devices, well look at what sends data to the HealthVault if you want a simple explanation too, glucose machines, blood pressure machines that take the burden off of manually typing in data, there’s one big example of how we are changing the way we interact with computers and cell phones. Do you want to have to sit there and type it in yourself, of course not, so jump on a small learning curve here and move up and dump the fear factor of doing something new. Our government and Congress though set some of the pace for this too though as they live in the 70s much of the time and are non participants, but yet have the responsibility to create laws that relate to new technology, blind leading the blind at times, I think so. Back in January the Senate put a video up on the web showing exactly what I am talking about as nobody had ever seen a personal health record, duh!

We are still living in the world of “Magpie Healthcare”, full of people who like to talk about it, but know little and do nothing but criticize each other and cling on to the old paradigms that no longer apply today. BD

NEW DELHI, India — In a far-ranging speech on Friday, Bill Gates criticized the American government’s policy on immigration and data privacy, predicted giant leaps in technology in the near future and explained why he had to shut down his Facebook page.

“Over the next decade, the entire way we interact” with computers will change, Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, told hundreds of government officials and information technology executives in New Delhi. Mr. Gates spoke of cellphones that would recognize people around them or be used to test for diseases, computers equipped with voice recognition and an Internet that was used for much more than Web pages.

Mr. Gates was also critical of the United States government’s unwillingness to adopt a national identity card, or allow some businesses, like health care, to centralize data-keeping on individuals.

The United States “got off to a bad start” when it comes to using computers to keep data about its citizens, he said. Doctors are not allowed to share records about an individual patient, and virtual doctor visits are banned, he said, which “wastes a lot of money.” The United States “had better come up with a better model” for health care, he said.

He acknowledged that he once had a Facebook page, but every day “ten thousand people tried to be my friend.” He said he spent too much time trying to decide “Do I know them? Don’t I know them?” Ultimately, he said, “I had to give it up.”