MGMA 2009: Emanuel avoids controversy, calls for greater use of analytics

Anyone expecting Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel to say something controversial about the rationing of care would have been sorely disappointed to hear his speech to the Medical Group Management Association annual conference on Sunday.

Rather than add more fuel to those who view Emanuel as the Maximilien Robespierre of President Obama's supposed death panels, the special advisor for health policy to the White House Office of Management and Budget talked about "high-touch medicine" in a high-tech age. Included in his vision for a better health system is care coordination, driven by data collection and analytics to help identify patients at risk for developing the kinds of chronic diseases that drive so much healthcare spending today.

"The problem in the system is not that we don't have the right technologies," said Emanuel, chair of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, in addition to being the older brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "It's how we connect with patients."

Connecting with patients also means being more accessible in non-office settings. "There needs to be greater use of online communication," Emanuel said. He also advocated such things as non-physician care when practical, on-site health clinics at large worksites and even a return to house calls. There's this little thing about changing the payment incentives to favor quality over volume, which Emanuel did spend much of his talk explaining, but it's good to know that policymakers are aware of the potential for IT to facilitate some of the major change in American healthcare. - Neil