Day: November 11, 2010

TECHNOLOGY: Make the patient records and charting available to the patients

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

An open letter to ClearPractice:

http://www.clearpractice.com/ehr/contact.cfm

To whom it may concern:

I think you are really on to something here. I’d like to share one idea. (It probably has occurred to you already, but perhaps not.)

Now I realize that you want to be “wholesale”; not “retail”. People, especially as patients can be so messy, and demanding. But, you’re software’s metaphor is the “practice”. You’re going to have to sell into against all sorts of competition. And, doctors are not IT guys (like me). They want to be “practicing” or playing golf. You need to incorporate “patient” and patient-driven demand into you model.

I’d suggest that you make the patient records and charting available to the patients. This would pressure the doctors to at least look at your solution.

Venially, looking at it from my own pov, my wife is very ill. I could use a charting system that would present to doctors the information I capture in an standard organized fashion. I’ve tried Google, Mcrosoft, Caremark, and several others. They all are unusable. Yours is the closest I’ve seen to a mature offering.

Since my wife has been sick, we have watched mystery diagnosis. There are a lot of “sick” people out there. Who are spending huge amounts of time and effort going from doctor to doctor seeking help. That certainly translates to a ton of administrivia and waste.

If you had patients “charting” their own conditions, you could drag the doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and regulators (kicking and screaming) into the Twenty First Century. Your window of opportunity is limited. Obamacare is going to FORCE change.

I’ll show your setup to any of the docs that will listen. (I give them all free technology consulting.) But, would it be better for me to show them my wife’s chart on my iPad?

If you want an alpha test case, I volunteer. (Despite what I was taught in the military!)

fjohn reinke

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VETERANS: “a grateful nation remembers”; I think not!

Published on by reinkefjLeave a comment

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“A grateful nation remembers”

You have to be kidding me. Remembers? No one even knows it’s Veteran’s Day or Armistice Day. Other than store “sales”, “We, The People” don’t remember. If we did, we wouldn’t permit young men and women to put their lives at risk for anything but the most well-thoughtout urgent national interest. And, when they come home broken or in a box, we’d give them the respect they deserve.

I’ll believe that “a grateful nation remembers” when:

• Military funerals are attended by the President or Vice-President, the Senators of that Vet’s State, their Congressman, the Governor, their state reps, their county reps, and their municipal reps. At least then, these “decision makers” would get the fullest sense of the cost of these escapades.

• When our troops are brought home from the 160+ countries. Why are we still in on the DMZ in South Korea and German? Didn’t those wars end long ago? Time for a new foreign policy and new Department of Defense.

• When our broken vets are fixed as best we can in a dignified humane fashion. “We, The People”, through the politicians we elected made this happen. We have to step up to our responsibility. We have failed. The politicians and bureaucrats are to blame. And we have to change the system.

• When we have a “war tax” to ensure that every American regardless of income level or station in life is overtly paying for these foreign excursions. Remember the Spanish American War Tax on every cell phone. Let’s bring it back! (I don’t advocate taxes.) But this will remind everyone every month that we have wars going on and they need an “exit strategy”!

Then, I’ll believe that “a grateful nation remembers”!

Donna Nobis Pacem!

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