It’s October, which means the leaves are probably starting to turn colors in northern states, lucky baseball fans whose teams qualified for the playoffs have likely bitten their fingernails off by now (go Rangers!) and those of us in the southern half of the country are finally able to comfortably wear long pants again. To top that off, Andy Rooney is no longer on 60 Minutes, REM has called it quits and Steve Jobs is gone.
Where am I going? Nowhere fast enough, probably, but all those listed signify some sort of change. Change in the weather, change in the seasons and change in the old ways of doing things. While not necessary change in the case of fans of teams in the MLB playoffs, they do possess the same white-knuckled hope for the future that I see among those working in and around health IT.
Change is a constant in the work lives of the healthcare professionals we interact with daily through this blog and through Twitter and Facebook. Every new healthcare IT article I read and every cool new health technology that is introduced, while often inspiring to most, equates to increased workloads for healthcare IT departments. But technology and dreaming of new ways of doing things are why most IT professionals do what they do – it’s science fiction that becomes reality, enhancing or changing the way people go about our lives.
That leads me to revisit an article published last month by Michelle McNickle in Healthcare IT News, “5 Technologies Every Hospital Should be Using.” In the article, McNickle interviews Shahid Shah, better known as The Healthcare IT Guy, about five tangible and achievable modernizations that health IT departments can implement today:
- Single Sign-On (SSO) and common identity management with CCOW integration.
- Programmable and app-driven content management and document management systems.
- Virtualization.
- HTML5 and JavaScript.
- Location-based asset tracking and app functionality.
I had pulled the initial topics for tomorrow’s Friday’s #HITsm Tweet Chat from the above list of five technologies, but in light of last night’s passing of Steve Jobs, I’d like to modify the topics:
Topic 1: iPad use in Hospitals. Have you seen them in use? Do you think location-based tracking is a security solution for HIPAA concerns?
Topic 2: Apps for patients. Do you see any exciting apps that engage people in their healthcare? Do you use any health apps?
Topic 3: HIEs. Should patients automatically be included in an #HIE until they opt out? Or, should they be required to opt in?
See you Friday!
