HIMSS G7 Provides Strong Cross-Industry Transformation Platform

Ramping the business of healthcare onto a digital platform is a remarkable cross-industry undertaking – sort of like flying mankind to the moon! Yet even Neil Armstrong would be amazed at the synchronization required to meet the requirements of all the “actors” in the ecosystem.

Take for instance ICD-10 transformation. October 2013, the timeframe for “turning the ICD-10 switch on” that will find too many unprepared, is not the end point, but simply, a new beginning. Trying to get the entire industry onto the same page is a vital first step.

The HIMSS G7 demonstrated this can be done. On April 11, more than 20 groups attended the G7 Roundtable to create a new ICD-10 PlayBook Considering where the groups came from demonstrates the complexity of the task: AAHAM; AAPC; AETNA; AHIMA; AMA; Amerihealth Mercy; AHIP; ASC X12; Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois (representing HCSC); BNY Mellon; CIGNA; Comsys Healthcare, a ManPower Company; HIMSS; Humana; Ingenix; Kaiser Permanente; LifePoint Hospitals; Mayo Clinic; United Health Group; US Bank; Vanderbilt; WEDI; WellPoint; and Wells Fargo.

Visit the HIMSS G7 website for details on this meeting.

As if directing a cacophony of voices from a hastily thrown together choir and orchestra, the HIMSS G7 leadership, with assistance from the Vanderbilt Center for Better Health, led the group through a series of creative exercises that required cross-industry team participation. The new teams that changed throughout the day responded to successive issues that culminated with a doomsday scenario –

• What happens if October 2013 becomes ICD-10 “Doomsday,” as multiple provider and plans put off testing across their systems?
• What are the sustainability options?

The voices finally harmonized around one key “battle march:” mobilize today!

The level of cross-industry participation and heightened interest in the topic made the April 11 HIMSS G7 Roundtable a powerful event with the potential for a long-lasting impact. The ICD-10 PlayBook, which requires strong and persistent collaboration across all the industry players, is intended to become a reference point for the industry, and in many respects, embodies what the new HIMSS G7 platform is really intended to do: gather the industry around difficult issues required for digital transformation of our healthcare system.

Designing this next generation platform offers incomparable opportunities to increase efficiency at many levels. Yet the task is daunting.

• It requires coordination among providers, health plans and consumers.
• It involves an entire ecosystem of vendors.
• Banks, the core movers of the U.S. $2.5 trillion spend, must emphasize payments interoperability and support emerging consumer venues, like mobile health and social networking.
• Federal and state government issues around privacy and security must be “baked” into the system in a manner, and there must be recognition that there is no end point in privacy and security, as technology evolves new ways to compromise data.
• Employers are affected through reduced costs and new ways to engage employees to improve health and lifestyle.

By involving all these stakeholders, the HIMSS G7 lies at the nexus of a paradigm shift in healthcare that is truly transformative and exciting for the industry.

Contact John Casillas, Senior Vice President, Business-Centered Systems, at jcasillas@himss.org, or Juliet Santos, Senior Director, Business-Centered Systems, at jasantos@himss.org, for more information.