Newswise — (FORT WORTH – April 30) The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) Foundation concluded its 100th Annual Meeting over the weekend – an event that this year included several presentations examining its future as well as celebrating its past.
During the opening session of “Forward to the Future: Building on 100 Years of Progress in Medical Regulation,” former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra identified several megatrends in technology that will significantly change the way patients and physicians interact, making the work of the medical regulatory community more important than ever before.
Chopra, who helped launch a national Wireless Initiative during his time in government in an effort to better connect citizens, said “the lines between doctor, payer, employer and patient are blurring” and that health care technology innovators are reshaping the way we define medical practice and patient care.
Chopra said the three mega-trends that will impact the health care system the most are “information liberation” – the opening up of health care data for more innovative use, a shift to incentives to more rapidly digitize the health care system, and major changes in the way we will pay for health care in the future.
“These will be breakthroughs that will transform our medical system, neighborhood by neighborhood,” he said.
Chopra highlighted new technological innovations, such as tiny GPS devices that are being used on asthma inhalers to help traveling asthma patients avoid conditions that lead to asthma attacks.
According to Chopra, technology development incentives can help physicians create a new relationship with patients based on “outcomes and value” and create a system in which physicians reach out to their patients proactively – in a preventive mode – rather than reactively.
Technology, if adapted in the right way, will help us break out of a system that is increasingly marginalizing the effectiveness of physicians – in which they have “ever more patients, ever less time.”
To view Chopra’s speech and other presentations from the meeting’s opening session, visit www.tvworldwide.com and look for FSMB’s annual meeting on the homepage.
About the FSMBThe FSMB is a national non-profit organization representing all medical boards within the United States and its territories that license and discipline allopathic and osteopathic physicians and, in some jurisdictions, other health care professionals. It assists these state and territorial medical boards as they go about their mandate of protecting the public’s health, safety and welfare. The FSMB leads by promoting excellence in medical practice, licensure, and regulation.
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