How the Cleveland Clinic Treats Patients from Hawaii to Boston Through E-health in Cleveland
Posted on Tue, Dec 06, 2011 @ 08:50 AM
Global Partners, Inc. (GPI) was fortunate to spend time last month with Dr. Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. In our effort to help healthcare companies be leaders in their categories, we believe it is important to listen to the innovations and ideas of those who have accomplished so much. The Cleveland Clinic and Dr. Cosgrove certainly fall into that category.
In this interview, we talked with Dr. Cosgrove about the Cleveland Clinic’s innovations in E-health.
GLOBAL PARTNERS: The Cleveland Clinic is taking a leadership role in technology so let’s talk about either M-health or E-health.
DR. COSGROVE: Well, let’s talk about the E-health because I think E probably came before M even in the alphabet. We have electronic connections that allow us to examine patients distantly. Almost anything that can be digitized we can do remotely.
GLOBAL PARTNERS: What does that mean in terms of treating patients?
DR. COSGROVE: I think we have 30 some sites that do x-rays including three radiologists. So we can do pathology in Hawaii that can be digitized and people can look at specimens. We can do dermatology, so essentially anything that can be reduced to digits can be looked at in electronic format and done remotely.
GLOBAL PARTNERS: How does that raise the standard of healthcare?
DR. COSGROVE: It is very important, particularly for rural areas. I mean, I think about my hometown, there is no way they are ever going to have a neuropathologist where I grew up. But now, you certainly have access to one. So, there are lots of opportunities along those lines.
GLOBAL PARTNERS: Are you doing these innovations within your organization or are you working in partnerships?
DR. COSGROVE: The things I have talked about we have done ourselves.
GLOBAL PARTNERS: Do you see expanding into partnerships?
DR. COSGROVE: We partnered with Microsoft concerning heart failure patients in the EMR…about 300 patients…but it was really their initiative rather than a partnership. We’re looking into doing other things with Microsoft. We’re trying to have them use their cloud computing or their cloud for storage of our x-rays. That’s been our project.
It’s been about a year working with the idea of storing all our films with them - Apple to Microsoft to Mac and then back from Microsoft to Apple to the end user. And the combination of working with Apple and Microsoft is challenging.
GLOBAL PARTNERS: Do you see that as just one step in the future toward remotely working with patient data on a cloud basis?
DR. COSGROVE: Oh, absolutely, I think that’s where everything is going, especially when you get into the genomics which is going to be a huge data set that is going to be in the cloud.
GLOBAL PARTNERS: So you are happy with the solution. Do you worry about some of the security issues that Washington is raising about the cloud?
DR. COSGROVE: I think the paranoia in Washington is much greater than the reality.
All of us at Global Partners, Inc. get inspired by Dr. Toby Cosgrove. Listening to the innovations the Cleveland Clinic are doing, we’re able to see the future of healthcare a little more clearly. How do you see E-health in the future of your organization?
