AHIMA Conference: Reporter's notebook on consumers, mobile health, and telemedicine

Perhaps the best advice [Iverson Bell, MD], gave attendees at the AHIMA Convention and Exhibit, where both he and [Travis Good] spoke, was that technology is merely an enabler.

“Focus on the patient,” Bell said, “not the device.”

...Indeed, as the industry shifts its concentration toward engaging patients, the accountable care model, presuming it gains widespread purchase, is poised to fuel the practice of medicine via telehealth and mobile technologies.

...The healthcare of the future, Good added, will be about value, avoiding catastrophic events, and connected patients — people connected to information about healthcare, connected to providers, connected to other people with information about their disease state or condition.

“Tomorrow,” Good said, “is all about patients.”