China exploring health IT advantages
While the US healthcare system is world renound for care at the individual level, any national health system with central governance has a significant leg up on the US system for effecting change at the national level. It is good to see China leveraging the (clear) advantages it has to mandate technology that should help tremendously in a country of that size.
HIMSS ‘09: Global Health IT Efforts, Prospects Highlighted - iHealthBeat: “China Hopes To ‘Leap Frog Rest of the World’
While China is coming into the health IT arena relatively late compared with much of the rest of the world, the Chinese system might actually use health IT better and sooner because of it, Dorenfest said.
‘It’s kind of perverse to look at it like that but it makes sense when you realize anybody starting up now can look at all the mistakes others made and avoid them,’ Dorenfest said.
He pointed to Hong Kong as an example. ‘They didn’t get started with health IT until 1999, much later than many other parts of the world — certainly later than the United States — and they are now state of the art in health information technology,’ he said.
China now has ‘a strong desire to leap frog over the rest of the world in health IT. They’re very motivated,’ Dorenfest said.
HIMSS officials also see the potential in the East and have scheduled a trade show in Beijing for May 2010.”