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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.
If you read my recent blog post, you’re aware of Mike Monteiro. He’s a designer in the tech space, and he’s pretty outspoken. He runs his own design firm, so . . . he’s allowed to say what he thinks. In an interview this summer, he said something that stopped me in my tracks: “The two most important words in design are why and no.”
I’m a smart aleck. Maybe you’ve figured this out already. Maybe you have another descriptive name for me. Whatever. Back in the day when I was practicing primary care pediatrics 24/7/365, I got to know a lot of my patients’ parents (who am I kidding? – moms) very well. This happens when you practice with only one other physician for many years. It’s a good thing. Often a mom would describe a child with upper respiratory infection (URI) symptoms, and after I heard the history, I’d snidely comment: “Listen, I’m such a good doctor that I’ve already narrowed this down to only two things. It’s either something, or it’s nothing.”
I was listening to a podcast recently, and heard Mike Monteiro being interviewed. Mike is a designer, author, speaker, and apparently a malcontent. In other words, he’s my kinda guy. He’s written a new book, and that’s why he was making the podcast rounds.
“Never waste a good crisis.” This quote has been ascribed to various sources, but whoever said it was wise. Often, one can make significant progress in a short amount of time when the environment is unstable. Normal rules go out the door. Maybe this is because there’s an existential crisis and something had to be done to save the organization from doom. Perhaps a leader has exited and before the management vacuum is filled, a long dormant project is resurrected and quickly implemented under the radar. Whatever circumstances led to the crisis, enterprising folks often take advantage to get stuff done.
Epic’s annual User Group Meeting (UGM) is coming up next week, August 26-29, 2019. Whether you’re one of the 9,000 healthcare luminaries with an all-access pass to the great content available at Epic UGM 2019 or you are spending time combing the interwebs for the latest news and happenings in Verona, we wanted to take a moment to appreciate Epic Founder and CEO Judy Faulkner’s innovation and creativity in costume choices for past keynote addresses. Anyone familiar with the Epic story knows Judy is known for her groundbreaking data goals as well as her all-in commitment to UGM conference themes.
I was recently reading an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “Everyone hates customer service; this Is why.” It’s an amazing piece detailing how customer service is getting worse while businesses leverage technology to understand how poorly they can treat their customers before they lose sales. Yeah, I just wrote that. Some businesses have learned that they can mistreat their paying customers without deleterious effect, and have taken advantage of these findings to do just that (hello cable and phone companies.) Other more “respectable” groups are using technology to do more with less, and I want to focus on them.
I recently read an article in the New York Times titled “Undercover in a Hospital Bed.” It describes how hospitals and medical centers are contracting with “secret shopper” consultants. Being a secret shopper at a fast-food restaurant or a retail clothing store is fairly straightforward: walk in, pretend you’re a customer, observe how you’re treated and if employees are complying with company standards, make a purchase, and walk out. When it comes to being a secret shopper in a hospital or emergency department (ED), the stakes are a bit higher.
There is a well-known concept in computer science called Garbage In, Garbage Out (or GIGO for short). You need not be a brain surgeon to figure out what it means. If you enter bad data into a program or an algorithm, you’ll get bad data as output. No duh. Seems self-evident to me. That said, I’m not sure everyone has adopted the GIGO way of life, and it’s making me sad.
Healthcare IT is such a foreign language to people who don’t think about the intersection of health and technology every day. Before I entered the field, similar to other healthcare newcomers, I thought nothing of the nurses’ or doctors’ notes, aside from whether the blood pressure number they told me was normal. We are not too far removed from the days of paper everything, but I now find it interesting to see the magic behind the technology curtain.