During its revered white coat ceremony last week The University of California Irvine School of Medicine gave Butterfly iQ pocket ultrasound devices to its medical students. The future, it seems, belongs to POCUS (point of care ultrasound). Twitter lit up. Social sentiment pinned the Butterfly iQ as the new stethoscope. Every armchair futurist was over the ... Continue Reading about Butterfly iQ Moments – Should Med Students Have a POCUS?
The Health System Transformation Space
The world is changing faster than hospitals and health systems can keep up. Progress has outpaced the capacity of 20th century operations. But the problem is that there’s no one dedicated to helping hospital systems respond to change. The academics are preoccupied with writing articles. Clinicians are busy with service delivery. Administrators are trying to ... Continue Reading about The Health System Transformation Space
5 Reasons Medical Technology Appears to Fail
In medicine there’s an endemic mindset that if medical technology doesn’t work it will never work. If patients don’t use the patient portal, then portals don’t work and patients aren’t interested in connecting with their own information. The EHR, of course, is the poster child for technology’s failure in health care. But is the idea of a digital space for a ... Continue Reading about 5 Reasons Medical Technology Appears to Fail
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
Quantified Self: Dead or Just Part of the Background?
I hear less about quantified self these days. 6-8 years ago at tech/digital meetings it was the stuff of panels. Not so much any more. Talking about quantified self as a thing is odd because many of us are measuring things about ourselves. Enough to make it less of a novelty than it once was. When cell phones were new we measured how many people had them. When ... Continue Reading about Quantified Self: Dead or Just Part of the Background?
There is No Bad Technology, Only Bad Technology Habits
In clinical nutrition some of us like to say there are no bad foods, only bad diets. When it comes to our tools and technology, a similar analogy can be used. Because technology isn’t the problem. There is no bad technology, only bad technology habits. Of course there are bad foods. And they taste really good. But no one forces you to eat them. Similarly, ... Continue Reading about There is No Bad Technology, Only Bad Technology Habits