Major Healthcare Issues I Think IT Could Help Solve  Yesterday
and today I spent my time at the Accountable Care Expo in Las
Vegas. It was a small intimate event, but those that were there
were some really smart people who knew a lot about healthcare
and about accountable care organizations. It was quite the
education for me. Plus, as with most learning, as I learned more
about ACOs I realized how much more I still don’t know.  During
the conference I started to think about something I’d heard
quoted quite a few times. At this conference they said, “3% of
patients are consuming 60% of healthcare dollars.” I’ve heard a
lot of different numbers on this. I remember hearing that 10% of
patients have 80% of healthcare costs. Regardless of the exact
numbers, I’ve heard this enough to believe that a small number
of patients drive a abnormally large portion of the healthcare
costs in this country.  When you think about this, it becomes
quite clear that these “expensive patients” are likely those
with chronic conditio