The rising cost of healthcare is a massive issue - and it's only going to get worse unless significant action is taken - according to Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve Chairman.
"We need a much broader set of policies," Bernanke said at a House Budget Committee hearing. "The elephant in the room is really health care costs."
The healthcare industry will account for 1/5 of the US economy by 2020, according to a government study. Compared to 1990, healthcare spending in 2008 tripled. Bernanke also noted that federal spending on health care costs is expected to exceed 9 percent of the United States' gross domestic product in 2035, up from about 5 percent of GDP in 2011.
This runaway train of healthcare costs further underscores the importance of healthcare cloud computing. Since historically healthcare management solutions have been closed and proprietary, information silos have been generated prventing the ability to gain healthcare intelligence. With healthcare relationship management effectively deployed, these silos are unified. Specifically within the lab to provider cycle, where Lab Information Management Systems are the only option for Lab Analytics, a tremendous opportunity exists to tap the goldmine of intelligence that was previously locked up by using healthcare cloud computing.
You can read the entire Bernanke article here.
