STORIES & SOLUTIONS FOR THE MODERN BUSINESS USER

Last week, I did something crazy: I called my cable company. Now, now, people, calm down. I predict that everyone who just read what I wrote will agree with me that my action was unhinged. If you’re my age, you think it’s insane to call the cable company because they have a reputation for hating their customers and one would only call them if one is filled with self-loathing. If you’re a youngster, you think it’s insane to call the cable company because you don’t know what that means (“Call? Like talk on the phone to another human?” “What is this thing, this ‘cable company’ to which you refer?”) Anyway, I threw caution to the wind and called them.

My high-school-aged son is taking a personal finance class, and he recently asked some good questions about my retirement plans and investments. Since I’m a super-smart adult and knowledgeable about all things, I confidently answered his initial questions. Then he started asking more involved questions, and I was forced to fall back on my go-to answer: “I don’t know, actually, but I’ve got a guy for that.” (Since my retirement advisor is male, I’m ok with the guy terminology, but from now on, I’m sticking with person.)

For healthcare organizations that are seeking to improve productivity, increase efficiency, and reduce costs while improving care quality, a cloud-based ERP system is the perfect move to kick off your digital transformation strategy. Organizations that haven’t made the move to cloud yet are likely to be running a newly implemented EHR that is only partially, if at all, connected with your legacy ERP.

Hospital and medical dramas are ubiquitous on TV (For some of my younger readers, I’ll point out that TVs are things that we used to use to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime shows back before we had Netflix and Amazon Prime shows. See my OK Boomer! post for more details.) A staple of the hospital drama is the attending physician wearing scrubs and a white coat running into a patient’s room during a Code Blue. Most of us know that Code Blue (or for the cool and hip among us, simply a “code”) is an alert that goes out throughout the hospital notifying clinicians that a patient’s heart has stopped beating. When a code is called via the overhead speakers, assorted clinical folks rush into the room to start CPR, insert a breathing tube, and give medications to try to revive the patient. It’s quite intense.

I’ll admit it. I’m just gonna put it out there: I’m an Apple fan boy. Ok? It’s out there. I love everything about Apple: their no-nonsense aesthetic; their hardware and software connections; even their headquarters building in Cupertino, California. I think Apple is cool. Does my fascination with all things Apple mean that I overlook their warts and sub-optimal output from time to time? Yeah, to some extent, that’s exactly what it means!

Back when I was in medical school – a million years ago – students spent hardly any time in the hospital or working with patients until their third year. My third year began on July 1, and on that date, I found myself rounding on the colorectal surgery service of a huge hospital. Jokes aside, beginning my real medical training with surgery was quite the plunge into healthcare. While I had a ton to learn about surgically related diseases and treatment, understanding what I could and could not touch in the operating room was among the most important lessons to master. After surviving a few days in the OR, I moved onto more essential preparation for a clinical career.

I’m no project manager (PM), I promise you that. I don’t like deadlines; I sometimes skip over details that I find boring or monotonous; for the love of all things holy, I do not live for spreadsheets. I believe all of these character flaws rule me out of any project management position. That said, I acknowledge that without project managers, nothing would get done. I’m glad PMs exist and that they’re good at what they do. While I don’t have the skillset or mentality of a project manager, I wholeheartedly agree with a key PM credo: the need for a guiding principles statement for information technology (IT) projects big and small.

I recently read a fascinating article in JAMIA about using Agile development techniques and stories to prioritize, create, and test clinical decision support (CDS) tools in healthcare information technology (IT). I wanted to share it because I think Agile in general, and stories specifically, can be leveraged in many different ways that benefit clinicians and patients.

The global Electronic Health Record (EHR) market is currently valued at $31.5 Billion and growing at 6% per year.  According to KLAS research, Epic and Cerner dominate the market with a combined 85% market share among large, 500-bed U.S. hospitals.

I’ve always been fascinated by minimalism. Be it philosophy, architecture, or design. The ethos of “less is more” seems contradictory at first, but it proves accurate and predictive in many aspects of life, or at least in my life. Much as the Fibonacci sequence shows up in random places all throughout nature, I find the concept of minimalism popping up in my clinical world and professional world.