Empowered Patient Podcast

Dr. Shafiq Rab is the Chief Digital Officer and System Chief Information Officer at Tufts Medicine and an advocate for cloud-based health ecosystems. Healthcare is one of the last industries that has not moved into the cloud to integrate the entire ecosystem of patient data, clinical trial updates, provider information, and payer processes and allow for research and advanced analytics. The cloud provides the flexibility to scale operations and reduce costs related to physical space and administration. While it is hard to get the variety of electronic health record databases and applications to work together, it is even harder to get the humans involved to adjust to new technologies in the workplace. Shafiq explains, "So in the world that we live in, where everybody wants an Amazon-like experience, healthcare has to go a little forward. On paper, things are still a little less efficient. To make that happen, there are three stages that everybody has to go through. One is digitizing everything, then digitalizat