I enjoy participating in the Innovation Learning Network because it brings parts of health care and other industries interested in the improvement of the art, science, and technology we use in health care rather than in those things themselves.

Plus the people are great; and I don’t mean “great to spend time with,” I mean challenging to me in ways that gently reboot the kernel here and there. One of my favorite quotes is from Marilyn Chow, RN, DNSc, FAANVice President of Patient Care Services.

Care Anywhere, my second look

Unlike the last meeting which was held at the Steelcase Learning University, this one was more inwardly focused, on ourselves. And, away from the glow of Steelcase Nurture, I got a second glimpse of CareAnywhere, which is a cross-organizational concept this group has been developing over the past two years.

A nice definition has been created:

Care Anywhere exists to help me live to my fullest, on my terms by providing ubiquitous access to my health information and providers in order to maintain my health where I live, work and play.

Around the concept, a tapestry has been created, which has been filled with the innovations of several member organizations.

And guess what, a lot of them aren’t Kaiser Permanente projects.

I like this a lot. It helps with the “only Kaiser Permanente can do that (deliver care where patients want it)” conversation (see my quote from Jack Cochran, MD, CEO of The Permanente Federation about that). It also creates a realistic framework for any organization to pull from in re-imagining that care doesn’t happen in a hospital, or even in a person’s home – “live, work, and play.”

I don’t have access to the URL’s of all of the projects I saw (yet), but here’s one – Hospital at Home, which originates from Johns Hopkins University.

UnConference within an UnConference – a conversation about professionalism

The Innovation Learning Network in person meetings are tied to the concepts of UnConferences or at least not-your-standard-conference, which are provocative, stimulating, attention-holding.

A few of us, however, unintentionally had an UnConference within the UnConference, where our continuous-partial-attention was not very continuous, not very partial, to the content at the front of the room. However, not less relevant to our passion to improving health care for patients.

We had an interesting conversation about what a physician is and what it means for them to be in a room of their “professional” peers. “Professional” is in quotes because there was some discussion about the expectations of physicians versus others. In a world where “professional peer” doesn’t equal “having an MD” any more, does this change?

I don’t know the answer to this question; it was good to hear the issue raised, though. Perhaps our friends at American Board of Medicine Foundation might have thoughts on this. Or not. I think of ABIM Foundation because I know they are developing a significant competency in the area of professionalism in medicine.

After the Innovation Learning Network meeting, we went into the CIMIT Innovation Congress, which kicked off in an auditorium. Now, one thing I learned at the HealthCamp SF Bay UnConference was, “don’t have attendees attend a regular conference the day after an UnConference. They won’t sit still.” And…it’s true.

Speaking of great people

I watch some of the most interesting people I know connect at this meeting, plus at least a few new Tweeters were born. Please welcome, and/of follow Paulanne Balch, MD, Lyle Berkowitz, MD, Jan Ground, Jeff Hall, Keith McCandless, and Danny Sands, MD, and, do a Twitter/Google search for the hashtag “#iln09″ to find more. The conversation doesn’t end when the conversation ends.