Comments on: Microsoft: Don't just throw money at health care

Head of software maker's health care unit says he's glad the Obama administration cares about digitizing medical records, but stresses what's needed is planning, not just investment.

[TheTechKid]

Finally someone comes out and states what is so obvious that it is easily overlooked! I can speak from personal experience that setting the wrong goal for something as simple as programming will lead to an inappropriate solution. When we develop any type of product, the focus must always be to achieve the purpose behind the project otherwise we will end up with lost time and nothing useful to show for it.

[William Crow]

All government can do is throw money at it. Planning is not a recognizable word for the government.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Throwing money at the problem is the automatic response to any issue. I'm glad a company is willing to stand up and ask first how that money ist to be spent- or if it is even the right time for that.

While I don't like the government involved in health care, and I don't want Microsoft, Google, or any other tech company involved either, it is good to see some resistance to the automatic cash machine that the government tends to be.

[Penguinisto]

"Don't focus on spending money on tech per se. Focus on what outcomes do we want."

Translation: As long as we (MSFT) get to define what those outcomes are ($$$$$ in MSFT's pocket), we don't mind telling you the obvious.

/P

[dhavleak]

Way to be a ****** penguin. Neupert also said:

"We should be building an asset with this investment--and the asset is not an application...but a health data asset that can be used to improve both individual outcomes and the performance of the institutions and the system overall."

Care to give us your spin on that?

[KristoferA1234]

Exactly. They are scared to death that ORCL, GOOG, MCK etc will get a bigger share of the $50Bn than MSFT. Pretty obvious.

[YankeePoodle]

Peng,

Get over yourself and hate towards Microsoft.

[dargon19888]

Don't be fooled by Microsoft's comments. They want the money, only the problem is that digitizing patient's medical records isn't the biggest problem wrong with medicine. While there may be cost savings in billing and processing insurance claims, the larger issue with medicine is tort reform.

Add to this the fact that insurance companies are squeezing the doctors in the name of controlling costs, yet in reality its a way to squeeze profits out of a system and in to their pockets.

Sorry if I seem cynical, I've seen this happening over the past 30 years.

[kenyee]

I worked in telemedicine for a while (web apps done using Lotus Notes/Domino believe it or not...fast prototyping and development :-). We faced two main issues: doctors didn't want to use the technology (the older ones that were "in power"...the younger ones today are ok with it) and billing didn't work across state borders. You couldn't get paid for diagnosing cases across a state border. There are lots of fundamental issues like this that have to be solved before we can modernize the paper bound old school medical field...

[adamgard]

This is the most intelligent warning from the center of the IT Universe I have ever seen. Honest and informative. Keep your money until you have analysed the problem and chosen the best mix of non IT and necessary IT and rolled out parts of the soloution to be tested and implemented sequentially using proprietary technology, building up gradually to a workable blueprint for a national health care system. Microsoft know that if they take the money and stand back and watch the system roll downhill to the inevatible chaos they will be crucified for it. The near impossibility of building workable and affordable national IT systems is an industry given - I notice that IBM haven't been cited as the flag carrier - they have had too much experience of national IT disasters to want to take any part pf it.

[J. Blow]

1. End the employer tax credit for heath care
2. Require anyone that wants to be an employee to have proof of health insurance
3. End the limitation on crossing state lines to sell insurance
4. End the 3+ hours that Dr.s are spending on claim forms everyday.

Result - Boom - Competition, lower prices, individual responsibility for their heath care choices.

It is hard to see the gov't doing anything but making it worse.

[medicalbanker]

Peter's approach towards the issue resonates. I differ with the final line about banks. MBProject (www.mbproject.org) has been working with banks since 2001 - reviewing data protection policy, technology, marketing, monetization and other areas - to lay the framework for "health-wealth" portals. These portals will support the national quest to build a "medical internet". Some 55 million American households rely on online banking, making it one of the most trusted and used consumer applications. Linking to a personalized healthcare informatics platform is a viable path forward, with full cross-industry compliance (HIPAA, FACTA, GLB, FFIEC) and cross-geographical compliance (EU, etc) as well. We're featuring this idea, among others, at our Institute on March 11-13, 2009 in Nashville, TN and invite all interested parties to learn more.