A lot of the healthcare trade journals have been printing stories
about innovation. You have probably heard me say that I am truly concerned that
disruptive innovation – something that will change how we use the healthcare
system – will come from outside of the healthcare market place.
Just an example, the iPhone we know today evolved from the work of 3 guys in their
garage – not
at IBM or Hewlett Packard. Those companies will never hold the place they did
in the marketplace before the disruption simply because they were not ahead of
the curve – they will always be playing catch up.
That is my worry for our hospital and for hospitals in
general. We are a trusted place for families – a facility they come to filled
with people they rely on. If technology evolves to a point where it can
provide the same care they came to us for, how can we ensure that we can
continue to be of value to our families?
I noticed something at the bank when I went to the ATM. I
now have the option to “save” my most common transaction on the main screen when
I log into the system so I don’t have to re-enter it every time. In addition, they
give me my card back before they give my money because people were
leaving their cards in the ATMs and causing a lot of risk, rework, and havoc.
These two small steps save me and the bank’s employees’ time
and energy, and honestly I greatly appreciate the change!
Now does it make me stay with this bank versus another? Probably
not, but I do appreciate the fact that I can see they are thinking about how to
improve the customer experience.
The Tablet Registration, the Patient Portal, and taking steps to
allow families to schedule their appointments online are all examples
of how we are doing this for our families. They are all ways to ease how patients and families interact with
us and ensure that if we aren't the place that develops this disruptive technology, we are actively working with our them to improve their experience as
well as provide great care for their children.
I still believe the best place for the disruption to come
from is from you. You on the front lines see and hear everything. Throw those
ideas out there and you never know what may happen!
6 comments:
Amy, I couldn't agree more! If we don't do it, someone else will! The timing of your blog is perfect. I just emailed Keith Pidane an idea that I had to help with efficiency and effectiveness on the hospital side, while simultaneously increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of our grants program in the Foundation. Our grants program raises over $1 million dollars annually to support the hospital. This idea could potentially increase dollars raised and help with work flow and work load in the hospital.
Amy when I read this blog I thought of all the doc visits I've had with my son and how the first visit is always makes me a bit nervous - the doc trying to get to know Kenny and me and Kenny and I each in our own way trying to get to know our new doc. I try to choose my words carefully while sharing my concerns not to upset Kenny and I know all this initial getting to know one another takes extra time. I think it would be great if the parents only could have a pre evaluation visit with the doc by computer using face time, skype, our patient portal or something like that. During that visit the doc could focus on the parents concerns and know more about what the families expectation is. At the evaluation itself the doc could focus on the child already knowing the families expectation and having already established a relationship with the family.
Hello Amy,
With all due respect, your examples of patient portal and tablet registration are not really innovative. In fact, we're very behind the times in only launching these services now. Yes, it's innovative for us, but not for the rest of the world. Frankly, our IT and technology is not innovative at all and doesn't appear to be poised for innovation in the future. This scares me with the onset of "telehealth" and all of the examples that you provide. My son works in IT for a company that puts their money where their mouth is. His knowledge of technology amazes me and I don't get that feeling from anyone in our SI or IT departments. When he hears about our systems, he actually laughs and shakes his head. When will we stop talking about these things and actually put people with the right experience in place to make them happen?
I don't feel comfortable using my name here. I'm sorry to be negative. I really do value working at Children's.
Anything that starts with all due respect isnt usually respectful and does not live within our values of speaking to someone in a kind tone. Let me provide another view for you to consider.
If we were a software company or IT company then I might understand your criticism, although the words you chose to use were hurtful.
We care for chidlren with special healthcare needs. Our effort is to create innovation and disruption around serving our children. The investment we make in technology are balanced against money for new outpatient centers and creating new programs for children. The technology is not the end but the means to help better serve our children and families.
I will take you at your word that you value working at Children's. Then what is needed is constructive suggestions and ideas on how we can continue to strive an improve what we are doing in the context of our mission of a children's hospital.
I am so glad that we are on this road toward improving effectiveness of technology use to increase the ease of receiving services for our families. I think that telehealth has so many wonderful potential uses in the therapy world. It can give us a true glimpse into what is happening in the home and provide suggestions and recommendations that are more appropriate with the additional information that we would have based on speicific home features and family dynamics that are only apparent in the child's natural setting. Is there a way that these services could be bill-able? How can we cross that bridge?
I also think that Meditech has wonderful features that enable to be efficient with technology use until a point. However, there are often suggestions that staff come up with that cannot be fit into the way that Meditech is built. This is completely understandable and the reality of the current program that we are using. I think it would be helpful if when recommendations are provided, we could try to come up with alternate ways of going around the issues that are brought up and alternate wasys of putting recommendations into place, even when they cannot be directly enabled because of the Meditech system. If we stop blaming Meditech for us not being able to make changes, and find alternate ways to put them into the system, it will enable employees to be more efficient and have a more global picture of the child and family for their benefit.
I feel like our students are some of our best teachers in this regard. They are fresh out of school, have used technology their whole lives and have completed multiple clinicals in varied locations. They are therfore in a perfect posiiontell us what they have used, what they have seen and what might work in our setting. I feel like we could really gain some great insights if we offered them avoice.
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