Podcast: IBM’s Lorraine Fernandes talks HIE, public health, health reform

From the Department of Procrastination comes part one of a two-part podcast series from last month’s IBM Exchange 2011, an event the vendor put on to display its wares in health information exchange. The two-day conference took place in Chicago, home of the former Initiate Systems, which IBM acquired in early 2010. Here, I talk with Lorraine Fernandes, global healthcare ambassador for IBM (yes, that’s really her title), about how HIE enables healthcare reform and improved public and population health. (In part two, which I’ll post later this week, I discuss Watson with IBM’s Scott Schumacher.)

As usual, I had a minor technical glitch. Since it was a local event, I schlepped my bag downtown and set up a mixing board with two mics. I didn’t notice until the very end that I had my mic set way too low. I tried to fix that during editing, but raising the level just introduces more background noise. Ah, at least Lorraine’s words are clear.

Podcast details: Interview with IBM Global Healthcare Ambassador Lorraine Fernandes, recorded Sept. 14, 2011, in Chicago. MP3, stereo, 128 kbps, 22.0 MB. Running time 23:50.

1:00 Global problem of public health
1:45 Renewed focus on population health
3:00 Early successes and a search for better models
4:00 Private HIE in competitive U.S. markets
5:00 “Lowest common denominator” of EHR
6:30 Barriers to HIE
7:00 Building trust with consumers
11:30 Engaging people in the healthcare system
12:30 HIE for care coordination
13:30 Planning and executing ACO plans
15:15 Experiments in healthcare reform
16:00 Explaining healthcare innovations to the general public
18:05 Home monitoring for preventing hospital readmissions
19:45 IBM analytics, including Watson
21:10 Addressing continued physician resistance
22:30 Healthcare and American competitiveness