What Is Health IT?

Health Information Technology, or “health IT” has found itself among the trends and buzzwords popular in pharma over the last decade, to the point that many pharmaceutical marketing departments have teams dedicated to the topic. But, outside of those teams—and frankly, sometimes even within those teams—It’s often hard to find a consistent answer to the question, “what is health information technology?”

Let’s start with the closest thing we can find to an official definition. The US government’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) says that health IT “refers to the electronic systems health care professionals – and increasingly, patients – use to store, share, and analyze health information.”

The ONC goes on to give some examples of health IT. Those include:

·      Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Almost everyone who has visited a doctor in the last few years is now familiar with these electronic systems that healthcare professionals use to capture information about your health, including diagnoses and treatments.

·      E-prescribing Systems. Today, e-prescribing systems are primarily found as a module within an EHR, although some free-standing systems still exist. Even specialty medications and controlled substances can now often be electronically prescribed.

·      Personal Health Records (PHRs). PHRs were envisioned to be a lot like a healthcare professional’s EHR, but with the information being added primarily by the patient. Data about things such as diet, exercise, medications, stress levels, and other information best entered by a patient are ideal pieces of information to store in a PHR, but frankly, they haven’t been as widely adopted by patients as many originally envisioned.

Traditionally, pharmaceutical marketers have focused their health IT efforts on EHRs and e-prescribing systems. This is, of course, understandable, as these tools shape the pathway that gets a product into the hands of a patient. Planning for and managing the EHR appearance of a product should be considered “table stakes” for any health IT focused marketing or access team, as this is imperative for the success of any pharmaceutical or biological product and serves as the foundation for any more innovative efforts.

In recent years, health IT has moved beyond the basics of record keeping and order taking. These advances have produced tools meant to improve care though expanded access, enhanced provider communication, data-driven standardization, and risk identification and reduction. In the last several years, we’ve tracked advances that include:

·      Telemedicine and Telehealth Platforms. These technologies enable remote consultations between patients and healthcare providers, allowing for virtual visits, diagnostics, and treatment plans. Telemedicine platforms are especially useful in rural or underserved areas, improving access to healthcare and reducing the need for in-person visits.

·      Health Information Exchanges (HIE). HIE systems allow for the secure sharing of patient data across different healthcare organizations and providers. This helps ensure that a patient's medical history, test results, and treatments are available to any healthcare provider involved in their care, even if they aren’t using the same EHR platform.

·      Pharmacy Management Systems. These systems have traditionally helped manage the dispensing and inventory of medications in pharmacies; but, more recently, these systems have begun to integrate with other health IT, such as EHRs, to track medication adherence and alert healthcare providers to potential issues.

·      Clinical Decision Support Systems. These systems provide evidence-based recommendations and provide recommendations based on patient-specific data.

·      Population Health Management Tools. By aggregating and and analyzing data from large populations, these tools identify health trends and target interventions for specific health conditions.

·      Wearable Health Devices. Fitness trackers and health monitors collect real-time data that can be shared with healthcare providers.

·      Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. AI is increasingly used to analyze healthcare data, predict patient outcomes, and optimize treatment plans.

While the basics of health IT are reasonably easy to understand, the ever-evolving tools and technologies that are used within it will continue to make the ways we use health IT morph, grow, and change in ways that we may not even envision today. The health IT and innovation-focused pharmaceutical marketing team’s job is two-fold: ensure a high-quality foundation for your product, by managing the information that is used to describe and interreact with your product within these health IT systems, while also continuing to look forward and work to define the role of pharmaceutical manufacturers in health IT growth and innovation.