Future of medicine in the hands of your bank

I am a believer, maybe a visionary, but mostly a pragmatist.

I do see the writing on the wall and it is not hieroglypics…it is the closest thing we have to a market driven solution to healthcare and healthcare technology. William Yasnoff, previously senior advisor in the Dept of Health and Human services is spot on… “If getting an EMR was profitable for doctors, they would all have them” and “Asking docs to pay for something that benefits others will not work”
Further he believes that banks can pay physicians to embrace EMRs….He has proposed several models for financing this…some I don’t necessarily see happening ..
But, here are the reasons why I see this shift inevitably happening…
1. Consumer buy in is easier with banks given that consumers already share their personal information with banks
2. Banks have incentive to provide consumers and physicians these services.
3. Banks have the infrastructure to provide most of the security back bone as well as the access technology backbone to implement this.
4. Consumers already understand how to use online banking for financial purposes…now consumers would just use online banking to transact information rather than money.

So, be aware, as banks and health insurance and health IT converge as a result of natural market forces, (the best type of convergence) to ultimately service the consumer, the physician and to compete in the healthcare IT world…..