John Halamka, aka Geekdoctor, has a thoughtful piece, "IT Spending: When Less Is More," in the current BusinessWeek that gives pause. For a long time, he's been hearing that "when it comes to information technology spending...the health-care industry should behave more like banks."
Given what's happened with the banks, maybe not. Here's the conclusion:
One thing is certain: In 2009, no one is going to tell me that health-care IT should run as well as that of Lehman Brothers. I've even talked to folks in the IT industry who are rewriting their Web sites and résumés to remove historical references to their overwhelming successes in financial-services automation.
I have empathy for everyone in the financial-services industry; the anxiety and stress must feel overwhelming. Given that every person in the U.S. will be paying thousands of dollars in additional taxes over time to rescue the industry, we're all going to accept responsibility for its IT systems and for the management that led the unsinkable ship of the banks into an iceberg at full speed.
Let us hope that the next generation of financial-industry business intelligence tools and dashboards provides the wisdom to help us avoid such disasters in the future
And if this isn't your cup of green tea, then take a look at Doc Halamka's post on okonomiyaki, about which I agree with him: it's the best Japanese comfort food that there is.
