Tag Archives: healthcare

Own your health

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That’s exactly what I did the past 6 months. And this week I graduated. From physical therapy that is. I’ve been cut loose. The next few months is all about me maintaining a daily discipline of stretches and canstockphoto15299929 (1) healthstrengthening exercises.

I first shared this journey in the post “Is there an app for that?” back in June. I also talked then about the importance of patient engagement and personalization.

I’m now around a 2-3 on the pain scale and closer to 2 most of the time. My physical therapist said if in a few months, I’m slipping back or feeling more pain I should get another prescription for more PT sessions from my PCP.

The stretches are much easier to make time for every day. There is short term gain plus a tangible benefit – I actually feel less pain. The strengthening exercises are harder to fit in, especially when I get busy or am travelling. With strengthening, there is no short term gain or tangible benefit – it’s all about the long term. Like going to the gym and doing weights.

The recent Fall ritual of raking leaves, bagging them, then carrying them to the curb led to a lot of pain. When I took care of my 2 ½ year old grandson and his 4-year-old sister recently for almost three days, all the lifting involved set me back. And I know the inevitable snow shoveling that is coming this winter will do so as well. My lower back muscles hurt just from all the coughing I’ve done the past 3 weeks with a bad chest cold.

My physical therapist says be sure to engage my core muscles at all these times and it won’t be so bad. I’m sure she’s right. I will try.

I am well armed with knowledge. I know what I need to do and how to do it. Will I slip backwards or continue to own it? Having lived with this low back and hip pain for years until it got so bad that I finally decided to get help, I know how bad it can be.

It’s now up to me. I need to continue to own it. As with any habit or exercise program, time will tell. Maybe an exercise tracking app or just an old-fashioned paper log is what I need.

Related Post:

Is there an app for that?

Apps aren’t enough

If not now, when?

Innovation or disruption?

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“You only call it a disruption because you didn’t create it – stop being disrupted, innovate.” That was just one of the messages in the opening keynote from Terry Jones at the fifth Annual Thought Leaders on Access Symposium (ATLAS) in Boston this week. His talk was titled “Turning Disruption OFF and Turning canstockphoto30429373 (1) innovationInnovation ON”.

As an entrepreneur with an impressive history, Terry Jones knows what he’s talking about. He is best known for founding Travelocity.com and serving as founding Chairman of Kayak.com. As consumers, we’ve experienced the disruptive innovations in the travel industry. As healthcare leaders, we were challenged by Terry to consider the innovations and disruptions yet to come in our industry.

ATLAS is a patient access conference for hospital and health system leaders sponsored by Kyruus for their customers and invited guests. Kyruus is a software firm that offers provider search, scheduling, and data management solutions to help health systems match patients with the right providers and enhance patient access enterprise-wide. This year’s theme was “Systemness. Ignited.” with excellent speakers on innovation and digital transformation in healthcare. The focus of the conference was on patient and consumer engagement. Health systems such as Banner Health and Piedmont Healthcare, leaders in transforming the patient experience, shared their stories.

It was inspiring to see so many healthcare leaders passionate about improving the patient experience. I’ve been in health IT management for decades and I was humbled to hear leaders from marketing, patient access, and innovation teams talk about getting things done in spite of roadblocks they sometimes face from IT. Continue reading →

Advancing healthcare through technology

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Healthcare is personal. Each of us knows stories of friends and family dealing with difficult medical issues. We hear how hard it can be to navigate the health system. It seems that one fills out the same information over canstockphoto21508588 (1) advancingand over and wonders why the physicians and hospitals don’t have it already. We hear how people must research their own conditions to make tough decisions about treatment options. We know there are access and affordability issues for many people.

As National Health IT week comes to an end, we must renew our commitment to make a positive impact on health care through technology.

I am fortunate to have worked with many passionate, committed people in healthcare over the past 30+ years. And I’m grateful to have a team of advisors working with us at StarBridge Advisors. Each has made an amazing and lasting impact on healthcare.

In our most recent StarBridge Advisors blog, “NHIT Week: 6 Leaders on the Value of HIT”, we discussed the value of health IT with six of our advisors. Their perspectives provide a lens into how technology is transforming healthcare though there is much more to do.

I encourage you to check out the perspectives shared by these CIOs and clinical leaders here. And if you like what you see, read more of our “View from the Bridge” posts and subscribe to receive notifications of new posts from our team of industry leaders.

Together, we all make a difference!

Related Posts:

Interoperability – Make it so.

HIEs matter

Our collective interoperability journey

The other end of the highway

Merger mania – is it good for the patient?

Aspiring to Stage 7

HIMSS Stage 7: what does it take?

Technology making a difference at scale

Predictions for 2018 – Our Future is Bright

A passion for healthcare

Everyday heroes among us

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In a week where we remember 9/11 and brace for a major hurricane expected to hit three east coast states, we are reminded of the many everyday heroes – emergency responders and healthcare workers.canstockphoto4424174 (1) families belong together

I’ve highlighted these heroes often over the years. I am grateful for all they do every day to keep us healthy and safe.

A year ago, I commented on the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico. We now understand a year later that nearly 2,975 people lost their lives due to Hurricane Maria. 2,977 people died in the terror attacks on 9/11 seventeen years ago.

Pediatricians were the first to call attention to immigrant families being separated at the border earlier this summer. Over 2,600 children were separated from their families. As of August 30th, nearly 500 children were still separated from their families.

We’ve all seen stories of firefighters and healthcare workers who lost their homes to forest fires out west this summer yet showed up to do their jobs and help others. Dignity Health has 48 hospitals and numerous ambulatory facilities throughout California, Nevada and Arizona.  Lloyd Dean, president and CEO at Dignity Health, shared an important piece this week – “Coping with the Health Consequences of Wildfires”.

On a bright note, a team of creative and committed technologists using medical drone technology are delivering blood supplies and vaccines where roads are inaccessible in two African countries.

And we all probably know a nurse we’d consider a personal hero. Continue reading →

7 HIT blog and podcast recommendations

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I started blogging in 2014. It was a way to share experiences from many years as a health IT leader and to teach others. When I see the number of subscribers to my blog and 100,000 views to date, I think it’scanstockphoto58340963 (1) subscribe fair to say my blogs are having an impact. As long as that’s the case, I will keep blogging.

I was honored to see my blog named for the second year in a row to HealthTech’s Must-Read Health IT Blogger List. Here are some of the ones on that list that I plan to start reading more regularly:

Susannah Fox – She is the former CTO of HHS and covers a range of topics to help people and organizations navigate at the intersection of health and technology.

Inside the Mind of a Healthcare CIO by David Chou, Vice President / Chief Information & Digital Officer for Children’s Mercy Kansas City – I knew David was prolific on social media. I regularly read and share his content. But I didn’t realize that he was also writing a regular blog on a range of topics from his CIO experiences.

Health IT Buzz from ONC – This is a great way to keep up with what is coming from The Office of the National Coordinator and their perspective.

Health Populi by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn – I have met Jane at a few conferences in recent years and always find her insight and analysis to be very enlightening. She covers broad trends in healthcare. Something every IT leader should be tracking.

AAMI Blog – I may be biased as an AAMI board member, but I think all IT leaders need to be keeping tabs on what the issues are in the health technology management (HTM) world. Continue reading →

What does a high value conference look like?

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Last week I had the opportunity to speak on two panels at a different kind of conference. HealthIMPACT East was held in Washington DC. The first day was solely focused on social determinants of health canstockphoto5296053 (1) conference(SDoH). The rest of the conference was on population health, interoperability, patient centered design, innovation, and blockchain.

The conference organizers and facilitators focus on what they call “purposeful events” with “no BS and no PowerPoints”. Instead of speakers talking “at people”, they facilitate lots of conversation in a room of full of smart people. The format was mostly panels with several excellent individual speakers who did use slides. The organizers want the conferences to be an idea exchange among a community of leaders and encourage dynamic debate.

The overall number of attendees was small. But it facilitated thought provoking discussion during each session and deeper networking connections at meals and breaks. I wasn’t tempted to pull out my iPhone to check my email as presenters talked through slide after slide. Instead, I was asking questions of the experts and engaged in the discussions.  The track facilitators did an excellent job getting attendees engaged.

When I walked in, I only knew two people – Megan Antonelli, CEO HealthIMPACT and CEO/founder of Purpose Events Group, who had invited me to speak, and Nick Bonvino, CEO at Greater Houston Healthconnect and a frequent speaker on interoperability. Continue reading →

Is there an app for that?

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Have you ever experienced chronic pain? Did you try to ignore it and push through it? Or did you see your doctor and hope for a resolution?canstockphoto12572942 (002) joints

We expect quick fixes when something goes wrong. Yet chronic pain may mean physical therapy and daily exercises to strengthen certain muscles and address the cause of the pain. Far from a quick fix!

That’s what I’m going through now and at times my patience and discipline are low.  I’m supposed to do a series of focused exercises twice a day. I am trying to take the long view. Just like my shoulder surgery for a torn rotator when I had to do physical therapy for 6 months.

If I think I don’t have time for the exercises or I just don’t want to do them, I tell myself this is what it will take to relieve the back and hip pain I have been living with. No one is just going to fix it for me. Yes, my physical therapist will assess my pain level each visit, ask me how the newest exercises are working out, and determine what to add to my routine. But it’s on me between visits.

I’ve had four visits and try to schedule one once or twice a week. I know the time will come when the time between visits gets longer. And then she will tell me I’m on my own. It will be the true test of whether I own this or not. Will I make the time to do the exercises twice a day? Will I feel my slow progress and realize it’s working?

It’s like flossing your teeth, you need to own it. You can’t just do it for a few days before your teeth cleaning appointment – you have to make it a daily discipline.

I asked my physical therapist about studies on patients not doing their exercises at home. I told her about my experience of owning it after shoulder surgery. She asked me if I was owning this. I said I was getting there – trying to have the long view because I don’t want to live with pain. We need to own our own health. I can’t complain about the pain if I’m not willing to do my part.

We had a good chat. She described how her role is to help patients be successful. She has learned to not give too many exercises, or the patient won’t do them. If the patient hates the exercise, she knows they won’t do it. She has to find an acceptable alternative. And she emphasizes patient education. Continue reading →

Technology making a difference at scale

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Post HIMSS18, there have been many recaps from people who attended. I won’t try to do that but have listed several of them at the end of this post under “resources”.  Instead, I want to share with you a keynote on the final day of the conference. It represents what is possible when a team of dedicated engineers set out to solve a real problem in healthcare at scale. In fact, as I listened, it seemed like the ultimate in “health IT connect” – the name I gave this weekly blog back in 2014.

Keller Rinaudo, co-founder and CEO of Zipline, captivated those still around on Friday morning with his keynote full of stories and video clips describing the first autonomous logistics system delivering blood and medical supplies to people in Rwanda and Tanzania. Or as one of my colleagues called it this week when we were talking about it – the “blood bomber”.

As their website says, “Zipline operates the world’s only drone delivery system at national scale to send urgent medicines, such as blood and animal vaccines, to those in need – no matter where they live.” The problem they are addressing is that “more than two billion people lack adequate access to essential medical products, such as blood and vaccines, due to challenging terrain and gaps in infrastructure.”  In his opening at the keynote, Keller showed a truck stuck in the mud on an impassable road and asked, “Why depend on roads?”

Zipline developed a solution to improve access to supplies “by flying over impassable mountains and washed-out roads, delivering directly to remote clinics”. Continue reading →

Guide to HIMSS18 – onsite or remote

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If you work in health IT, you know that the annual HIMSS conference is the biggest annual industry event whether you are headed to Las Vegas next week or not. The number of emails, blog posts, social media HIMSS Blog Imageposts, and articles providing guidance and recommendations on HIMSS18 continues to grow with just a few more days before it all begins.

With so much info out there, I decided to pull together a few more resources that might help in your final preparation:

Here’s the good news! You don’t have to attend to benefit from all that’s happening there. HIMSS TV will be launched for the first time ever. There will be live coverage from the conference. You can also follow on Twitter using #HIMSS18 or specific hashtags for your area of interest.

Whether you are attending in person or following the happenings from a distance, the “Official HIMSS18 hashtag guide” will help you focus in on your areas of interest. And of course you’ll want to follow all the social media ambassadors.

Check out “HIMSS – are you ready?” from StarBridge Advisors to see our principals’ top picks for this year – mine are #WomenInHIT, #HITventure and #Connect2Health.

If you are still trying to pick your education sessions, the topical guides provided by HealthITNews as “Don’t Miss Education Sessions” may be helpful to review.

HealthSystemCIO.com has a special HIMSS18 Preview aimed at CIOs and health IT leaders you’ll want to check out.

Are you an introvert? Continue reading →

Tune in: recommendations for IT podcasts

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How do you keep up with industry news? Do you have a favorite online publication? Are you a reader or a listener? I find myself struggling to keep up with everything I want to read. But I’m doing better, now, with canstockphoto33796857 podcastat least tracking on the headlines and top industry news stories.

For all you busy multi-taskers who may be looking for an alternate way to educate yourself and stay current, 20-30 minute podcasts are a great option. Whether you’ve got a long daily commute, need something to listen to while working out at the gym or while walking the dog, consider listening to podcasts.

Here are some podcast series worth checking out:

This Week in Health IT – This is a new program launched by Bill Russell, CEO at Health Lyrics, focusing on news of the week and a topic of interest. He publishes online every Friday afternoon. I was honored to be on the program last week. We covered the Amazon, JP Morgan, Berkshire Hathaway announcement and the Apple health records app story. Both are examples of the disruptive forces we are seeing in healthcare. Bill and I also talked about the evolving role of the CIO and shared our favorite social media posts of the week.

HealthSystemCIO.com – Anthony Guerra and Kate Gamble have been conducting extensive one-on-one interviews with CIOs for several years. They publish them online as multi-chapter series. These interviews provide insight and experiences for everyone in health IT.  And if you’d rather read the interviews, they are also available as full transcripts. Continue reading →