Keep it Simple

This is a great article on the (sadistically amusing) foibles of pc's and other techno-gadgets. It really underscores the frustration people feel dealing with technology that simply doesn't live up to it's promises (much less the hype).

This article underscores some of the reasons why I am so ruthless about keeping things simple in my hospitals. Technology is useless if it's not reliable.

Health Portal

The July 23 edition of For the Record has a blurb stating that:

49.6% of survey respondents [healthcare organizations] said consumer decision support tools are one of their organizations top five priorities.

Considering the complexity of integrating consumer decision support tools with standard hospital and practice management operations, that's a pretty impressive figure. The top three reasons for doing so:

• improve health
• reduce overall healthcare cost
• increase interest in healthcare

None of this is groundbreaking news but I finally got around to really thinking about the third one and I find it to be particularly compelling. Imagine a portal that provides the ability to understand healthcare issues including my own (family's) medical history and diagnostics integrated into the already available body of generic medical and pharmaceutical information on the web.

For most of us, healthcare is very compartmentalized. We see our physicians once per year and perhaps hit the ED occasionally. Healthcare seems tucked away as a necessary evil on our schedules. The ability to integrate healthcare and healthful lifestyle choices into daily living via a secure and informative web portal is compelling indeed.