Healthcare Giant Faces IT Nightmare

Joan writes "Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO in the U.S., has spent about $4 billion on an unreliable electronic medical record system that is impacting patient care, according to a 722-page internal report revealed by Computerworld. The CIO resigned after the news came out, and CEO George Halvorson is telling the media that the goal is an alarmingly low 99.5% uptime and that all the problems are really just power outages. Yesterday, Slashdot covered a story about the possibility that the NHS in the UK could now claim the 'biggest IT disaster' prize, but Americans, fear not: so far, the Brits are running a much more efficient failure at $24,000 per physician per year, while America's KP is spending $76,920 per physician, per year on its failing project."

Comments

Re:maybe they can merge

[MyLongNickName]

We have an opening for Dean of our MBA department. You are a shoo in. When can you start?

Why the hell do they use Citrix?

[jmyers]

I have used Citrix and it solved some problems for us, but why the shell would you use Citrix for a new application developed from scratch? To me Citrix is a system to run legacy applications. Any time in the last 10 years I would think you would choose a platform that does not require a hack (multi user ms windows) to run.

"We're the largest Citrix deployment in the world," Deal said. "We're using it in a way that's quite different from the way most organizations are using it. A lot of users use it to allow remote users to connect to the network. But we actually use it from inside the network. For every user who connects to HealthConnect, they connect via Citrix, and we're running into monumental problems in scaling the Citrix servers."

Re:well this obviously can't be right

[networkBoy]

The term clusterfuck comes to mind...
-nB

Re:well this obviously can't be right

[Brandybuck]

The first word in "free market" is "free". That's free as in unhindered, unrestricted, unencumbered, etc. The US medical industry is not a free market, as there is a bewildering array of non-market forces hindering, restricting and encumbering it.

Re:Woo-Hoo!

[bfields]

Medical insurance, unless you have some severe, traumatic injury, is a worthless investment.

That's the way medical insurance is *designed* to work. It's a net loss as long as all we need is routine stuff (like wisdom tooth extractions). And we accept that in the understanding that in the case of a severe, traumatic injury--something we just wouldn't be able to pay for *at all* otherwise--we'll be covered.

Re:Woo-Hoo!

[John Newman]

That's the way medical insurance is *designed* to work. It's a net loss as long as all we need is routine stuff (like wisdom tooth extractions). And we accept that in the understanding that in the case of a severe, traumatic injury--something we just wouldn't be able to pay for *at all* otherwise--we'll be covered.

It may work that way for young, healthy, childless people, but the wheels fall off when you think about everyone else. Everyone will require significant medical care during their life. If not due to injury, then most certainly due to age or for routine care of children. The very idea of "medical insurance" starts to sound like an oxymoron when you realize that virtually every human being is guaranteed to have some sort of chronic and treatable - and therefore expensive - medical condition when they get older (and "older" may well mean 40s, not 80s). "Insurance" here acts less like true insurance - where the odds of having to redeem a claim are very low - and more like an investment plan where the bank can choose to seize your investment at any moment and pawn your needs off on the government instead.