Opinion: IT can't fix complex healthcare problems

A lot has been written about the need for better care coordination to rein in healthcare costs and lower the high readmission rates in U.S. hospitals. Tech vendors and medical researchers have been trying to parse all the variables to figure out what tactics we need to fix the system. It looks like we're moving in the right direction, but there's a long road ahead. A closer look at the data makes that clear. In principle, more emphasis on care coordination and the IT tools designed to manage it makes sense. When each clinician across the continuum of care knows what everyone else in the system is doing, the quality of care should improve and the costs should drop.