John Halamka MD

The Rise of Telemedicine

By John Halamka MD – As reimbursement evolves from fee for service to alternative payment models, incentives will shift from treating sickness to keeping the population healthy. New investments will be made in technologies that reach into the home and enhance care team communication. 2016 saw an acceleration of telemedicine/telehealth. 2017 will see exponential growth.


Do We Need More or Less Healthcare IT Regulation and Legislation?

By John Halamka – “Do we need more or less healthcare IT regulation and legislation” is that we need the right amount of the right regulations/legislation. Sometimes when clinicians prescribe medication, although it does therapeutic good, it creates side effects which need to be addressed by changing a dose or by adding additional medications.


Care Coordination Innovation

By John Halamka MD – Would you buy an iPhone if the only apps that ran on it were written by Apple? Maybe, but the functionality would not be very diverse. The same can be said of EHRs. Athena, Cerner, Epic, Meditech, and self developed EHRs such as BIDMC’s webOMR are purpose-built transaction engines for capturing data.






Why I Disagree with the Snake Oil Analogy

By John Halamka MD – Earlier this week, the American Medical Association CEO called digital healthcare products modern-day “snake oil”. As a provider and a technologist, I think we need a deeper dive to understand the issues, avoiding the kind of hyperbole that’s so common in politics today.