Presentation PDF, Ted Eytan, MD
I was honored to travel with Josh and new member of his team, Anthony, to the Johns Hopkins Division of Health Sciences Informatics to give the attached presentation, which is also in a webcast archive on the DHSI Web site.
This is the first time I have debuted the PCHIT Personas work that Josh and I have been compiling, at the end of the slide deck. I am now building on the years of experience I have in integrated systems with the experience of the rest of (97% or so) of health care. I thought the themes discussed were well received. In addition the audience in general was enthusiastic of providing this type of care using technology, for our patients and for our society. This add further to the body of experience I have obtained over the last 4 months that physicians in a system like mine are more similar than non-dissimilar to physicians everywhere.
Following the presentation, we engaged in an interesting discussion at lunch about the role and actions of a highly well regarded academic medical center in this space. I learned that Johns Hopkins (at the current time) does not have an operational personal health record or from what I heard, a comprehensive electronic health record system (at least as described in the literature). Should an academic medical center make this investment, and what would it take?
In my talk, as you’ll see, I mentioned that there really isn’t a good reason not to do this. Given that idea, the question I was asking to myself was not whether they should do this, but “what would the benefit be of a premier institution like Johns Hopkins engaging in supporting patient centered health information technology?” It would be significant, especially given the amount of high quality research and teaching that goes toward international health and disparities in this organization. In terms of “What would it take?” I immediately reflected on my conversation with Don Detmer, MD, just 2 days earlier.
We cannot forsee which individual in an organization will be the visionary leader that creates lasting change, but we can know that these individuals exist in every organization, and that when discovered and nurtured, will make significant impact. Was that visionary leader in the audience yesterday? I talked about this previously in the context of LEAN (see “Is Art in the Room?” from the DailyKaizen blog). I think they were – what is left to find out is which audience member (she/he) it is.
Thanks again to the Division of Health Sciences Informatics for their interest in this topic and for nurturing leaders that will make a difference in their community and society.