I recently
read a Wall
Street Journal article
discussing the transformation of the healthcare system with technology.
You may
have heard me use the expression that it is my hope that the transformation
comes from us, inside the healthcare system. The likelihood that the
transformation will come from outside the system is great because we often get
caught in the trap of knowing how the process works and find it difficult to
imagine how it could be different or better.
I know I
have given you this challenge before, but if the sky was the limit, how would you use technology to change
healthcare?
For me, my
healthcare technology fantasy is related to time.
There are
many times that I know something is wrong, but I don’t feel it is “wrong”
enough for me to take off from work and make a doctor’s appointment. My doctor
is not close by and in order for me to see him, it requires at least a 3-hour
block of time between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. during the week. So, unless I am
hacking up a lung, I am not taking the time to see him.
I haven’t
crossed over yet to the minute clinics, but I am starting I might give it a try.
I wish I could e-mail my doctor and tell him my symptoms, or send him a photo
of a rash and see if he can diagnose it just by looking at the picture. Then he
could help me work through it without having to come in.
It might
sound bogus to you now, but over time it’s definitely something that could
happen in health care! After all, we use the VGo robots now with some of our
patients so our doctors can check on them remotely.
So what is
your technology wish?
