Journal of Healthcare Leadership

The proliferation of health information technology to support patient care, which gained accelerated momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic, has continued unabated in the post-pandemic period, with no sign of waning. The pandemic also served to expose and exacerbate disparities in healthcare and health outcomes both in the United States and globally. In the process, the pandemic served to highlight the potential of value-based payment models to reduce health disparities by encouraging organizations to develop partnerships and invest in infrastructure to address people’s clinical and social needs. Since value-based care requires a concurrent focus on improving outcomes and promoting population health, while keeping costs in check, the success of value-based payment models has been inextricably linked to the use of technology. This in turn has fostered growing recognition of the role of health information technology in reducing health disparities and advancing health equity.

With the growing emphasis on value in the industry and concurrent push towards health equity by public payers and policymakers, health information technology remains central to enabling the shift towards value-based equitable care. While barriers exist, value-based care is a concept that appeals to all stakeholder groups in the healthcare ecosystem, including providers, payers, and patients, who are all seeking better data, more interoperability across health IT systems, actionable, real-time insights, and more effective engagement.

At the same time, health information technology is also recognized to be central to meeting the increasing demands of patient consumerism. Consumerism refers to growing expectations of patients to be actively involved in decisions related to their own care. Healthcare providers and payers will need to work together to deliver on consumer expectations for convenient, functional high-quality services. In other words, achieving the goals of value-based care in an era of consumerism will require effective personalized care that is seamlessly corroborated across industry operators. This systemwide approach in turn will require organizations to bring together disparate sources of information to create an integrated approach to facilitating improved outcomes and consumer engagement.

As patients become more engaged consumers of healthcare, providers will need to continue to reevaluate how they interact with patients with the use of engagement and empowerment tools, data ownership and price transparency. Ultimately, as healthcare organizations learn to thrive in the emerging patient-centric, equity-focused, value-based healthcare system, technology that facilitates connectivity across disparate stakeholders, payers, providers, and consumers, will be a foundational cornerstone that enables high-quality, cost-effective care.

To successfully adapt to this industry transformation, leaders of healthcare organizations need to be prepared to proactively address a variety of challenges. Accordingly, this Article Collection invites original research papers and informed commentary for a global audience, on a variety of topics relevant to digital healthcare leadership in an era of value-based care, health equity, and consumer-centric technology solutions.

Topics of interest:

• Health IT and value-based payment models
• Health IT and health equity
• Health IT and consumerism
• Value-based consumer-centric technology solutions
• Use and impact of telemedicine use on health outcomes
• Use and impact of telemedicine use on health disparities
• EHR usability and clinician burden
• Personalized medicine and predictive analytics
• Population health analytics
• Data exchange and interoperability
• Data safety and privacy
• Adoption of advanced health IT capabilities
• Use of health IT for learning and continuous improvement
• Use of health IT to promote consumer, provider, and payer engagement
• Health IT and healthcare delivery system reform

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Prof. Pavani Rangachari, University of New Haven

Pavani Rangachari, Ph.D., CPH, serves as Professor of Healthcare Administration and Public health and Director of the Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) program in the School of Health Sciences at the University of New Haven. Her expertise is in health policy and administration, including healthcare organization, delivery, financing, health disparities, and public health. Her special interest lies in the implementation of innovation and change in healthcare organizations. Dr Rangachari holds an M.S. in Health Management & Policy from the School of Public Health at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), and a Ph.D. in Public Administration & Policy, from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY. Dr Rangachari also has extensive work experience in the healthcare industry, through service in leadership roles at both a state hospital association and a community hospital.

Dr. Rangachari has received independent research grants as Principal Investigator from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and has published numerous primary-authored articles in the fields of healthcare management, leadership, health informatics, and public health. Her scholarship has contributed towards the: 1) identification of evidence-based management strategies for successful innovation implementation in healthcare organizations and 2) development of policy implications for consistent implementation of evidence-based and patient-centered care practices to promote population health. Her research projects have also contributed towards improving healthcare practices and outcomes at her study institutions. Dr. Rangachari’s scholarship has been recognized at a national level with the "Best-Theory-to-Practice Paper Award" from the Academy of Management Healthcare Management Division and nomination for the "Distinguished Paper Award" from the American Medical Informatics Association.

 

Prof. Pavani Rangachari declares no conflict of Interest

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