Seeing Our Healthcare Investments Pay Off in 2018 and Beyond

Our CEO Tom Skelton has had a long career in health IT, dating back to the 1980s when healthcare automation was primarily aimed at scheduling and payment. Back then, clinical records and prescriptions were on paper, and people really needed to be sold on the value of going digital.

Today, Surescripts transmits 12.8 billion transactions a year, including 4.8 million e-prescriptions daily, and delivers actionable patient intelligence to almost all electronic health records, pharmacies and clinicians—plus an increasing number of health plans, long-term and post-acute care settings and specialty pharmacy organizations—via a nationwide network.

In his new article, The Digital Transformation of Healthcare, Thirty Years in the Making, Tom takes a look back at the industry’s investments in a future where doctors, pharmacists and clinicians connect via a nationwide network and have access to the actionable intelligence they need to deliver safe, high-quality care. He explains, “What we’re witnessing today is the culmination of decades of investment by the healthcare industry in information technology and data sharing. And we are increasing safety while lowering costs as a result.”

But there’s still a lot of opportunity ahead for the Surescripts Network Alliance and the work we’re doing to advance healthcare, particularly when it comes to price transparency, prescription accuracy, interoperability and opioids. Tom explains, “History tells us it will take time, and it could get messy. But we keep our heads and hearts in the game, because in the end, millions of American lives depend on it.” 

Read Tom’s LinkedIn post for his thoughts on healthcare’s digital transformation, plus key trends and priorities for 2018.