AliveCor today introduced the Kardia Band wearable, an Apple Watch band capable of a medical-grade EKG. This is the first FDA-approved technology for instant EKG analysis. Driven by a nickel-sized sensor that snaps into the watch band, patients can speak their symptoms into the app. This ultimately becomes part of a report transmitted to the cardiologist. While ... Continue Reading about Kardia Band as a New Class of Wearable
When Data Meets Doctors
This week while serving on the GI consult service at Texas Children's Hospital I was asked to evaluate a child in the Pediatric Heart Failure ICU. When I walked into the patient's room, I found this: A massive wall-mounted touch screen at the foot of the bed with all of the patient's critical data beautifully displayed. As the cardiac intensivists round, all of the ... Continue Reading about When Data Meets Doctors
Impact Pediatric Health: A Game Changer for Kids
As someone who cares for chronically ill children and watches technology, I’m thrilled to be participating in and advising Impact Pediatric Health at SXSW this March. Check it out. Supported by some of the top-ranked children’s hospitals in the United States (my own Texas Children’s Hospital as a core catalyst of IPH), this one-of-a kind competition is a chance for ... Continue Reading about Impact Pediatric Health: A Game Changer for Kids
Doctors as Victims of Screen Positioning
I had dinner recently with a pediatrician friend who was dinged on a patient experience survey for not having eye contact. Her response was that the computer was in the wrong place. Not her problem, she argued, but rather an issue of clinic space design. Hmm. When technology becomes perfect it will respond to us. Until then, we have to work with our technology and ... Continue Reading about Doctors as Victims of Screen Positioning
EPIC and Analog: A Tale of Two Offices
There are two doctors I work with: those using EPIC in my hospital network and those outside of EPIC. Increasingly, the experience with the two providers is very different. EPIC practice. I have full access to everything that’s ever been done to a child. After I see a patient my findings and impression are immediately available to the referring doctor. As labs ... Continue Reading about EPIC and Analog: A Tale of Two Offices
Negotiating IT in the Exam Room
When I start a visit I ask the patient if they’re okay with some occasional typing while we talk. This morning when I asked, my teen patient replied holding his phone, ‘That’s fine so long as I can type as we talk.' To his point, we assume information engagement in the clinical space is only for providers. At one time, in fact, we prohibited cell phone use in ... Continue Reading about Negotiating IT in the Exam Room