This quote from Jeff Howe and Joi Ito in Whiplash is worth a look. It references the birth of film as a technology and reminds us that technology is useless until fueled by human ideas: Ponder this for a moment. It took eight years, hundreds of filmmakers, and thousands of films before someone conceived of the new technology as anything other than a play in ... Continue Reading about Technology is Useless Until Fueled by Human Ideas
The Health Technology Outcomes Gap
This analysis in Health Affairs shows that EHR adoption initially results in higher patient mortality but in the long run lowers mortality. Having gone through the transition from paper to digital, it’s easy to imagine. Initially you think, ‘how do I do this?’ Then you say, ‘how did we do it with paper?’ There’s a period of adaptation that happens with new ... Continue Reading about The Health Technology Outcomes Gap
Too Many Chief Medical Innovators?
Jack West is on to something here on Medscape. He discovered that meetings like the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference are flush with Chief Medical Innovators and doctors disconnected from the day-to-day operations of caring for patients. In all of these meetings that purport to disrupt healthcare, where I met hundreds of participants, not a single one sees patients ... Continue Reading about Too Many Chief Medical Innovators?
The Way We’ve Always Done It
The most dangerous phrase in medicine is this is the way we’ve always done it. This is one of those internet memes that resonates with our disruptive side. Virally passed on Twitter, it suggests that they’ve just had it wrong all these years and we know what’s right. In some cases they have and we do. Sometimes not. There are many things in medicine that work ... Continue Reading about The Way We’ve Always Done It
Innovation Extinction
Each morning I scroll through Feedly looking at what’s new. I scan titles and ledes, deleting by the second until I find something transformative. It's information wackamole. And it results in innovation extinction. Increasingly, I'm underwhelmed by what I see. Nanosensors are a dime a dozen. Tattoos that miraculously detect blood glucose are almost yesterday's ... Continue Reading about Innovation Extinction
Cyberutopian Exhibitionism
Cardiac defibrillators the size of a grain of salt. Robotic, flying bedpans. The extinction of the doctor. Spend some time on Twitter and you may see the future. Because there's an arms race to 'break' the next seemingly implausible health innovation. And it all seems bigger since the social web draws the technologically savvy who are prone toward technological ... Continue Reading about Cyberutopian Exhibitionism