Few will argue with the premise that innovation helps drive growth in the economy. And most 
people would agree that innovation isn't something one can pull off a shelf. To stimulate 
innovation, we must be able to foster a climate where new ideas can thrive. 

Defining what that ideal climate is and then figuring out how to create it, however, is no easy 
task — especially since the very nature of innovation is changing as we advance in this new 
century.

Given the complexity of our most pressing societal problems and the diversity of skills and 
resources required to solve them, innovation will increasingly require collaboration on a 
broader scale then ever before, drawing upon the brightest and most creative minds across 
industry, government and academia. 

Since innovation transcends the invention of new technologies — it is the application of these 
technologies to some useful purpose — it will require collaboration among creators of technology,
those with the skills to apply it, and the beneficiaries of the innovation.

Leave out any element of that co-operative process, and the result will be diminished. 

Often, this will actually involve a diverse group of interested parties, raising an interesting 
Babel-like challenge: how to communicate effectively.

The common tongue that will bind collaborators will not be English, French, Spanish or Chinese —
it will be standards, open business standards not controlled by any one participant. 

This has been the fuel behind the successful emergence of technologies like the Internet and 
the open software movement as exemplified by Linux.

The best way to illustrate the potential impact of collaboration and open standards is through 
an example, and what better example of an area ripe for innovation than the US healthcare system.

Calling it a "system" is being generous; in fact, a "system" is exactly what healthcare in the 
US lacks. 

In its current incarnation, it’s characterised by thousands of little islands of information, 
very few of which are connected or even consistent in the information they store or the way they
store it.

Much of that is due to competing vendors’ solutions, each of which is designed around proprietary
technologies that the supplier hopes to establish as ubiquitous and then reap the benefits as 
quasi-monopoly.

In reality, all healthcare vendors are losing out on the opportunity that many could share if 
some consensus were reached (collaboration). 

Developing a national health information technology infrastructure is actually a very obtainable
goal — at least from a technology perspective.

But in order to be successful, all parties have to come together to surmount many obstacles, 
ranging from agreeing on standards to guaranteeing privacy and accessibility of patient data.

The information, usually an individual’s medical record, has to be "liquid" — that is, accessible
when we need it, wherever we may be, or it is not worth the effort.

Part of the problem is that the term "medical record" refers to the data that is embedded in 
clinical documents maintained by a variety of healthcare providers, each of whom typically use 
their own proprietary archiving system to file and update medical records.

There is nothing liquid about electronic systems that are proprietary or, worse, not even 
electronic but handwritten paper forms.

The US Department of Health and Human Services has issued a challenge to the industry: agree on 
standards and figure out a way to make electronic health records a reality, or the government 
will impose standards unilaterally. 

That push is being driven by rising costs. The US spends more than $1.7 trillion (RM6.46 
trillion) a year on healthcare and electronic exchange of data is estimated to be able to save 
some 10 per cent of that.

With the stakes so high, failure is not an option. There is a will among all the parties — the 
payers, the providers, and the patients themselves — to do this right and work together. But how?

Perhaps the biggest IT challenge is achieving interoperability — what works within the walls of 
a hospital or an insurance company must translate across business models and environments, from 
the process-driven rigour of a large enterprise to the more "mom-and-pop" environment of many 
doctors’ offices.

For inter-operability, open standards are a must. Efforts like the recently-formed Inter-
operability Consortium, where eight of the largest technology companies, including IBM, have 
agreed to embrace open technology standards as the basis for creating a national healthcare 
network, are already exploring the right way to build this infrastructure. 

At IBM we’ve also begun building a simulated electronic medical information system in concert 
with partners from the healthcare field to conduct research into collaboration across offices 
and geographic borders.

We hope to find ways to resolve technical issues, test open standards and accelerate deployment 
of such technologies and improve the effectiveness of the healthcare system. 

But perhaps the greatest reason for achieving "healthcare information liquidity" focuses on the 
obvious: better healthcare.

Substantial progress in innovative medical treatment, such as predictive medicine and more 
targeted treatment depends on fully integrated healthcare records. 

Without them, we cannot conduct the collaborative research and epidemiological studies crucial 
to a deeper understanding of sickness, wellness and how to avoid the one while promoting the 
other.

As is often the case, we have the technology; the challenge will be to apply a new collaborative
model of innovation to create a radically new, and greatly improved, healthcare system. 

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Sunday/Features/20050820151304/Article/indexb_html1