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Posted by fellow at 10:12 PMSpeaking to a standing-room-only audience at the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco this morning, Shirky explained that in going forward, we must focus on three things: information, co-ordination and collaboration. The idea expands on his recent article Health Information Technology: A Few Years Of Magical Thinking? (with Carol Diamond), which warns the health care IT establishment against the dangers of "magical thinking."
From Health Information Technology: A Few Years Of Magical Thinking:
"The challenge of thinking of IT as a tool to improve quality requires serious attention to transforming the U.S. health care system as a whole, rather than simply computerizing the current setup. Proponents of health IT must resist "magical thinking," such as the notion that technology will transform our broken system, absent integrated work on policy or incentives."
The problem, according to Shirky, is that we are overestimating the value of individuals accessing information, and underestimating groups collaborating.
"Patients in aggregate behave very differently than when solo," Shirky explained today. "Think about what you do when you get a bad diagnosis - you fire up Google, find out who has what you have, and then talk to them. That ability, for patients to pool their resources, is a massive change to the health industry."
