I was in San Francisco yesterday for the launch of a new company called Healthspottr. From their site:

“We believe in the future of healthcare. We exist to showcase emerging innovations and the new faces of leadershop who will bring this future to you.”

They created a list (in no particular order) of 100 of the most creative and influential innovators working in healthcare today…I’m happy to say that I am one of them.

There were about 20 people at the launch/salon last night in Palo Alto. We all introduced ourselves and then had a free-for-all discussion about the future of healthcare. There was an exec from the largest insurance company, a distinguished person on the health IT team with Camp Obama, physicians with innovative practices, individuals building sites that can help us understand our own health, and many more…

The message was clear. We need disruptive innovation partnered with healthcare companies willing to experiment and change the current business model of healthcare. Most importantly, we need to change the way physicians are paid, put Health IT in the hands of providers that focuses on good communication rather than billing codes, and we need to take away from the specialists raking in the cash and encourage more doctors to enter primary care. We need to kill the current Health IT business models and siloed, billing code data.

And we need all of this sanctioned by Obama. The single most important thing Obama can do to reform healthcare is to encourage innovation in the business and delivery of healthcare in America.

One of the members of Team Obama said that Obama absolutely gets this. In regards to Health IT and its need to focus on communication rather than codes that are meaningless to physicians and patients, Obama understands that data needs to be freed and meaningful.

If there’s one thing I ask of you President Obama, please don’t make the mistake of throwing your $20 billion at Windows 95 and 1986 business models. The business model requires that the data  is closed and the cost is out of the reach of 80% of physicians. And if you can’t measure health data (because 80% of healthcare runs on handwritten notes), you can’t improve it.

Healthspottr – Leading Minds. Leading Change. Leading Healthcare.