by Christopher Cornue

The overarching theme of this year’s annual International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) meeting, being held in Boston last week, is how information technology is shaping and advancing healthcare on an international level. Many of the speakers touched upon how technology is being used effectively to improve healthcare – one example, Denmark is approximately 98% electronic medical record compliant (this is for the whole country, not just one hospital!). More about Denmark later, but first, you need to meet a remarkable person, Karen Davis, Ph.D.

I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with Karen Davis, and she’s one of the nicest and most down to earth people I’ve met. She wields a great deal of power in Washington, D.C. and across the globe & she’s absolutely brilliant. Dr. Davis, recently named one of the 100 Most Powerful individuals in Healthcare and one of the top Women Leaders in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare, is President of the New York City-based Commonwealth Fund.

All healthcare leaders should become familiar with The Commonwealth Fund, an organization engaged in independent research on health and social issues, and a leader in the discussion of international healthcare issues. Just peruse their website and you’ll get a flavor of their work and pay special attention to two recent reports:
- Why Not the Best? Results from a National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance
- Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care

More on Dr. Davis's plenary talk in my next post.