Smart Health
In 2005, Joint Venture convened a task force of representatives of three major stakeholder groups – healthcare providers, employers and insurers – to try to overcome the barriers inherent in applying information technology to healthcare, and to develop solutions that would make a difference in the Valley and beyond.
Joint Venture hired executive director David Katz to carry out the initiative with the support of a representative task force co-chaired by Richard Levy, chairman of Varian Medical Systems, and Eric Benhamou, chairman and CEO of Benhamou Global Ventures.
The stated objective of the task force was to demonstrate and disseminate new healthcare models using information systems to facilitate cost-effective healthcare decision making for all Silicon Valley residents. One of our principal goals was to capture medical records in the electronic medium and have them universally available to authorized medical professionals.
After more than two years, we concluded that, while individual stakeholders were making significant internal progress toward this goal, Valley-wide solutions could not move forward within the current environment. Unfortunately, there is not universal agreement among the providers that medical records should be shared.
On May 1, 2008, we issued a report to the community that explains:
- The basis for the project and the benefits we hoped to achieve
- The actions we took and the lessons we learned in the process
- Our conclusion that there will be no collaborative solution to this problem, and that shared medical records will need to be a regulated solution instead.
