Several predictions are made about the future of healthcare IT (HCIT) in 2012: 1) New entrants will better serve customers than incumbent HCIT companies and earn revenues over 5 times higher. 2) A consumer-focused design approach will prove that payors and employers are willing to pay for solutions users truly enjoy. 3) Both great successes and overfunding in the HCIT sector will occur, similar to the dot-com bubble of 1999. 4) Connectivity of data will improve but not necessarily collaboration or decision making in healthcare.

1. PREDICTION
“ HCIT incumbents will continue to over
promise and under-deliver, allowing new
entrants to better serve their customers and
be appropriately rewarded at >5X revenues”
Bob Zollars
Vocera

2. PREDICTION
“ After the election, the $20B of federal
government subsidies for EMR usage is
revealed as a horrible debacle. Backwards
looking and ill-conceived. Doctors in revolt,
patient-care not improved”
Anonymous

3. PREDICTION
“ Someone will finally bring consumer-
focused product design to the enterprise
space and prove that payors and employers
will pay for solutions consumers truly enjoy
using”
Sutha Kamal
Massive Health

4. PREDICTION
“ 2012 will be a stunning and scary year for
HCIT - some great business building and
exits as well as over-funding in the sector
not seen since 1999”
Bryan Roberts
Venrock

5. PREDICTION
“ Pushed by government initiatives, better
implementations of traditional healthcare
IT will improve connectivity and flow of
data, however connectivity does not mean
better collaboration and decision making”
Anne DeGheest
HealthTech Capital

6. PREDICTION
“ It will become a national education
priority to equip every high school
graduate with a personal health record
and understanding of the importance of
maintaining it throughout their life”
John Grotting
Frazier Healthcare

7. PREDICTION
“ 2012 will be the year the industry discovers that
HIEs, as currently planned, accomplish little. We
will see the beginning of a shift in focus to local
networks sharing clinical and administrative data,
while billions continue to flow into regional and
national HIEs that don't meet either need”
Tom Kelly
Aetna

8. PREDICTION
“ Collaborative networks between and among
companies, and academic institutions, will create
more new compounds to fill the baron pipelines of
the Pharma industry, than the output of the big two
big Pharma mega mergers!”
Ron Burns
ProtonMedia

9. PREDICTION
“ We will see the first big stupid string of
lawsuits from patient's lawyers suing some
EMR vendor for a medical error that was
supposedly caused by the "forced"
installation of EMR systems”
Lisa Suennen
Psilos Group

10. PREDICTION
“ Google will quietly get back into
healthcare but on the Enterprise
Analytics side through an
acquisition”
Bijan Salehizadeh
Highland Capital Partners

11. PREDICTION
“ With the aging of our populations, the
need to engage physicians and families in
the day-to-day activities and care will
accelerate IT and mobile enabled services
for the surveillance and care of the elderly”
Isaac Ciechanover
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers

12. PREDICTION
“ WalMart threatens to shake things
up in healthcare, but does nothing in
the end because they don't have the
guts nor the vision to do something
significant”
Anonymous

13. PREDICTION
“ Price transparency will become increasingly
prominent with adverse side effects overall. The cost
of healthcare will rise 2-3% above normal trend for
fully insured businesses over the next 3-4 years until
comparison shopping results in tangible benefits”
Chris DeNoia
Simplee

14. PREDICTION
“ A remote monitoring product will emerge that
marries medical-grade robustness with consumer-
grade design and ease of use...The iPod of health
monitoring”
Brian Ascher
Venrock

15. PREDICTION
“ HCIT will dissect the healthcare
Freakosystem, niche by niche, and begin
to lay the foundation for a true
ecosystem”
Jordan Shlain
Private Medical Services

16. PREDICTION
“ SoLoMo apps find big traction
in patient compliance,
monitoring, diagnosis,
adherence, et al.”
Brook Byers
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers

17. PREDICTION
“ 50% of doctors offering virtual
visits or email visits”
Bob Kocher
Venrock

18. PREDICTION
“ Health insurers will keep buying their way
into HCIT, bidding up many companies.
Two venture backed HCIT cos will be
acquired for $500+m each by insurers”
Bijan Salehizadeh
Highland Capital Partners

19. PREDICTION
“ The opportunities for building new businesses will really
emerge in the new HealthTech area, including integrated
delivery solutions to improve team care delivery for
specific pain points and the bubble of direct to consumer
applications will continue to be driven by tech venture
investors, hoping for a B2C business model like Facebook
or Groupon”
Anne DeGheest
HealthTech Capital

20. PREDICTION
“ 2012 will see the advent of online
weight loss programs becoming
mainstream AND insurance
reimbursable on a large scale”
Nick Desai
FitOrbit

21. PREDICTION
“ People will not pay attention to the
fact that Google and Microsoft failed
and we will have many more failures,
good ideas”
Jordan Shlain
Private Medical Services

22. PREDICTION
“ Medicaid managed care emerges as
the hottest healthcare IT segment,
EMRs begin to fade and Supremes
nix ObamaCare”
Chris Kryder

23. PREDICTION
“ The emergence of aps and marketplaces
specifically tailored to servicing the needs of drug
developers and academic institutions. Examples
including eBay for academics and productivity
aps for managing CROs and multi-site work
teams”
Isaac Ciechanover
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers

24. PREDICTION
“ The press starts to talk about how
mobile health apps aren't really being
used, nor are they used to drive down
costs because they're not integrated with
the regular flow of care”
Anonymous

25. PREDICTION
“ 100% of health plans will be
sharing price and quality data with
their customers”
Bob Kocher
Venrock

26. PREDICTION
“ 40% of docs using EMRs are
accessing them via tablet”
Matthew Holt
Health 2.0

27. PREDICTION
“ HHS will announce its
first ACO bail-out”
Graham Gardner
Kyru.us

28. PREDICTION
“ I predict that HCIT will enable
the forest to meet the tree and
the tree to meet the forest”
Jordan Shlain
Private Medical Services

29. PREDICTION
“ Telemedicine based services
companies become mainstream as an
established provider of primary care”
Isaac Ciechanover
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers

30. PREDICTION
“ There will be several
successful HCIT IPOs!”
Brian Ascher
Venrock

31. PREDICTION
“ Breakout analytics for insurance
and post-sequencing "big data"
problems”
Brook Byers
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers

32. PREDICTION
“ Gamification!”
Annie Lamont
Oak Investment Partners

33. PREDICTION
“ 80% of doctors owning a tablet
or smart phone”
Bob Kocher
Venrock

34. PREDICTION
“ One independent company emerges
with the credible threat to become the
Facebook of health”
Anonymous

35. PREDICTION
“ Athena will make a significant
acquisition that will put them
directly in the hospital IT space”
Rick Adam
Recondotech

36. PREDICTION
“ A SaaS upstart will begin to make inroads
against the major incumbent health
information systems, a la Salesforce vs
Siebel”
Brian Ascher
Venrock