Darren Jones is the Executive Vice President for Asia Pacific at Orion Health. With over 28 years of experience in the Global Health IT industry, Darren is focused on producing superior customer and employee satisfaction. Having previously worked for InterSystems for 14 years, Darren has a proven ability to win large engagements and manage multiple projects and large teams of staff across national, regional and international landscapes. Darren is an experienced business leader who is helping to drive and solidify Orion Health business across Asia Pacific.
Sachi Mulmi (SM), researcher Frost & Sullivan, had an opportunity to conduct a Movers & Shakers interview with Darren Jones (DJ), Executive Vice President of Orion Health for APAC.
SM: Please describe your technology solution for our readers?
DJ: Orion Health specializes in open technology systems that seamlessly integrate all forms of health and personal data across the entire health community. With solutions that connect healthcare across boundaries, we deliver a comprehensive package of software, services and support for healthcare organisations and the broader health community. We are solely focused on transforming the healthcare industry, with the overarching goal of improving efficiency, quality, and patient outcomes.
SM: What is Orion Health’s greatest challenge and what strategy is in place to overcome it?
DJ: There is not one single challenge that appropriately highlights what is require to overcome achieving transformation in healthcare as it relates to Health Information Exchanges. In addition, there is significant regional variation when considering the maturity of IT adoption across APAC. The challenge in countries like Australia and New Zealand is vastly different from developing countries throughout Southeast Asia and this in itself represents a challenge. If really pushed to articulate the greatest inhibitors to the introduction of Health Information Exchanges I would highlight the availability of relevant and accurate data, the adoption of interoperability platforms and appropriate patient identification as most significant hurdles to overcome.
In overcoming these challenges again there is no single strategy that will enable the market/s to overcome and benefit from the introduction of Health Information Exchanges. Orion’s strategy involves being able to offer a variety of means to address these challenges including different deployment models, flexible commercial models and different entry points in enabling the establishment of a Health Information Exchange to be a journey rather than an event.
SM: What would help maintain a sustainable business in APAC health information exchange at present?
DJ: I am not certain of the meaning of this question or the context of the response required but I believe a regional commitment to interoperability and standards is critical to enable a sustainable business to be maintained along with consistent funding to support the establishment of the infrastructure to support Health Information Exchanges in general. Whilst we are seeing progress in countries like Australia, New Zealand and Singapore the rest of the APAC market lags significantly in this regard.
SM: Are the products/services offered today meeting customer needs or is additional development needed?
DJ: Orion has established HIE’s worldwide managing over 110 million patient records. We believe we have a comprehensive Health Information Exchange/Population Health solution that meets our customers’ needs that is available as an “off the shelf” today. This solution, based on Amadeus, is a highly scalable platform built on modern technology that can aggregate all types of health data, from both traditional and non-traditional sources. The open platform scales to accommodate the vast amount of data generated by new models of care, to support the journey to population health management and beyond.
SM: What do you see as future trends of this industry related to technology, legislation and customer demands?
DJ: Health is becoming a data science where the complete picture of an individual’s genetic makeup and clinical history, combined with environmental and social factors, will allow clinicians to truly tailor care. The vast volumes and velocity of data generated from traditional and non-traditional sources will mean there is a need to integrate this data in a systematic way, and in a format that can be readily used for treatment and therapeutic practice by clinicians.
The application of machine learning, analytics, care coordination and patient engagement applications are required to take organizations on the journey from interoperability through to population health management and eventually precision medicine.
Additionally, changing consumer attitudes and behaviors mean that patients today want to be more engaged in their own ‘healthcare story’. They want access to their health record, and they want to contribute the data that they are gathering themselves, even if passively, such as through wearable and activity trackers, to get the complete picture of their health.
Access to this health information is required not only for the patient, but for their family and other members of their circle of care. This access needs to be secure, private, and as frictionless as possible to support engagement and adoption.
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