The products and services offered in nearly every industry, at their outset, are so complicated and expensive that only people with a lot of money can afford them, and only people with a lot of expertise can provide or use them … At some point, however, these industries were transformed, making their products and services so much more affordable and accessible that a much larger population of could purchase them, and people with less training could competently provide them and use them … To illustrate how these enablers of disruptive innovation (technology enabler, business model innovation, value network) can combine to transform a high-cost, expertise-intensive product into one that is much more affordable and simple, let’s briefly review how it transformed digital computing … By coupling the technological and business model enablers , IBM transformed the computing industry and much of the world with it, while DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) was swept away. [Dr. Jeff’s Note: read up on computers to see how this will happen with healthcare IT. We don’t have to accept the complex, expensive, unusable systems currently available. They will be replaced by better systems we can all use happily].

(The information above was taken from Clayton M. Christensen’s new book, The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care, Introduction pp. xix-xxi. )

I believe that this is happening with EMRs right now! We now have certain EMRs which are easy to use, simple to learn, affordable and effective. These EMRs will sweep away the complex, expensive clunkers put out by most EMR companies.

Your thoughts?