I live in a world looking for digital solutions to some of health’s biggest problems. I love watching this all play out. So yesterday Seth Godin tells the world that a piece of paper could save your life. He’s advocating that everyone write down their history and carry it around with them. Yes, your personal health record on a piece of 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper. ... Continue Reading about A Piece of Paper as a Personal Health Record
Why IBM Watson is Important
First he won at Jeopardy. Now IBM Watson is helping to treat cancer. IBM, WellPoint, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center today unveiled the first commercially developed Watson-based cognitive computing breakthroughs. This is transformative stuff. IBM Watson is using evidence-based treatment models to individualize care and improve the speed and quality of ... Continue Reading about Why IBM Watson is Important
Doctors, Patients, Old and New
There’s this tension that I pick up on when I talk with patients. It’s the fantasy of the new and the old. It’s the fantasy of the physician encounter where a doctor will look at us and never to a screen. We insist on all of the affordances of the digital age with the human connection of a time gone by. We want an intensely human connection but we want ... Continue Reading about Doctors, Patients, Old and New
Book Notes: Meaningful Use and Beyond
I don’t know much about health IT and I know less about meaningful use. So when Meaningful Use and Beyond - A Guide for IT Staff in Health Care (O'Reilly Media) by Fred Trotter and David Uhlman was released last month I bit the bullet and dove in. I looked at this book as my personal crash course in a subject area I had been avoiding over the past months. This was ... Continue Reading about Book Notes: Meaningful Use and Beyond
Typing as a Critical Physician Skill
I always loved to type. It started in high school with typing class. We were told that typing was critical for college term papers. I liked it so much that I took advanced typing. It was myself and 12 girls with Farrah Fawcett hair. Heaven. Fast forward to 2011. My interface with the medical record is my fingers. Most of my communication flows through my ... Continue Reading about Typing as a Critical Physician Skill
Cut and Paste Medicine
I saw it begin to happen in the '90's. Residents came to rounds with their daily notes produced on a word processor. The notes were impressive. Legible, lengthy and meticulously detailed at first glance. Then I started to notice a pattern. The impressive notes began to look very much alike. The thorough exam varied little from patient to patient. And ... Continue Reading about Cut and Paste Medicine