Introduction
This is the first issue of my HIT blog. I have personal opinions, points of view, and experiences that may be of interest to others. Up front, I want to make it clear that what I write here only represents my personal opinions. My aim is not to serve as an official spokesperson for any of the organizations with which I participate.
Background
I practiced orthopedic surgery for over 26 years in a wide variety of practice settings, including: private practice, community hospitals, community-based academic medical centers, university level academic training programs, the VA, Kaiser Permanente, and the Indian Health Service. My training for medical school and residency was at the University of California, San Francisco. Years after finishing residency, I took a fellowship in foot and ankle surgery.
My last practice setting was solo practice in a remote urban area, Yuma, Arizona. All the orthopedists in Yuma practiced independently. I became exhausted by the required ED call, not so much because of its frequency, but because of the intensity and severity of the level of trauma I was required to cover. I rarely got any sleep when on call and usually worked all the following day. Uncompensated care, under-compensated care, escalating malpractice premiums and risk, difficulty arranging transfers of care and back-up coverage, decreased physical endurance (I was 57 when I closed my practice) chronic fatigue and the associated lousy life-style were also issues for me. I realize this particular combination of issues commonly confront orthopedists in other communities.
I have had a long interest in technology. I bought one of the early Macs the year they first came on the market. I received telemedicine training through the Arizona Telemedicine Program 12 years ago. I have been looking into using electronic medical records for about 10 years. I bought a LCD projector to use for presenting basic orthopedic lectures with PowerPoint when they were considerably more expensive than they are now. I developed a basic, media-based, orthopedic resident training curriculum for the major subspecialties areas in orthopedics that incorporated concepts of faculty-resident collaboration, up-to-date educational materials created by national/international subject matter experts and an easy-to-administer weekly objective testing program. I adopted a web-based practice management application in my last practice.
My interest in health information technology (HIT) bloomed with my involvement in the vendor selection process we went through at the local hospital in choosing an enterprise electronic medical record system. I was one of the physician champions and had the opportunity to represent the clinician viewpoint at many of the stages of the project. I had a “Eureka” moment and decided to pursue a second career in HIT. I thought it would be a good idea to compensate for my lack of practical knowledge in the field by obtaining an academic credential and training. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, I applied to and was accepted in the distance learning program at Northwestern University. I will describe my experiences as an adult student sometime soon. Suffice to say it was an intense, 20 month, odyssey that I just completed last month.
My special interests in HIT are: HIT policy, interoperability, health information exchange, and privacy/security/infrastructure. My goal is to be involved at the local, state and national level. I am on an IT committee at the local hospital. My state level involvement to date includes committee work with a non-profit organization, Arizona Health-e Connection, and I have worked on vendor selection for an ambulatory EMR in a project sponsored by our state Medicaid agency. National involvement has been with several organizations: IHE, HITSP, HIMSS, and recently, CCHIT. You’ve got to love all the acronyms.
Goal
I hope to communicate to others my passion for HIT. I expect to contribute several posts a week. I want to inform others about some of the innovative developments in health IT that are occurring around us and spur others to contribute in this important effort.
This is the first issue of my HIT blog. I have personal opinions, points of view, and experiences that may be of interest to others. Up front, I want to make it clear that what I write here only represents my personal opinions. My aim is not to serve as an official spokesperson for any of the organizations with which I participate.
Background
I practiced orthopedic surgery for over 26 years in a wide variety of practice settings, including: private practice, community hospitals, community-based academic medical centers, university level academic training programs, the VA, Kaiser Permanente, and the Indian Health Service. My training for medical school and residency was at the University of California, San Francisco. Years after finishing residency, I took a fellowship in foot and ankle surgery.
My last practice setting was solo practice in a remote urban area, Yuma, Arizona. All the orthopedists in Yuma practiced independently. I became exhausted by the required ED call, not so much because of its frequency, but because of the intensity and severity of the level of trauma I was required to cover. I rarely got any sleep when on call and usually worked all the following day. Uncompensated care, under-compensated care, escalating malpractice premiums and risk, difficulty arranging transfers of care and back-up coverage, decreased physical endurance (I was 57 when I closed my practice) chronic fatigue and the associated lousy life-style were also issues for me. I realize this particular combination of issues commonly confront orthopedists in other communities.
I have had a long interest in technology. I bought one of the early Macs the year they first came on the market. I received telemedicine training through the Arizona Telemedicine Program 12 years ago. I have been looking into using electronic medical records for about 10 years. I bought a LCD projector to use for presenting basic orthopedic lectures with PowerPoint when they were considerably more expensive than they are now. I developed a basic, media-based, orthopedic resident training curriculum for the major subspecialties areas in orthopedics that incorporated concepts of faculty-resident collaboration, up-to-date educational materials created by national/international subject matter experts and an easy-to-administer weekly objective testing program. I adopted a web-based practice management application in my last practice.
My interest in health information technology (HIT) bloomed with my involvement in the vendor selection process we went through at the local hospital in choosing an enterprise electronic medical record system. I was one of the physician champions and had the opportunity to represent the clinician viewpoint at many of the stages of the project. I had a “Eureka” moment and decided to pursue a second career in HIT. I thought it would be a good idea to compensate for my lack of practical knowledge in the field by obtaining an academic credential and training. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, I applied to and was accepted in the distance learning program at Northwestern University. I will describe my experiences as an adult student sometime soon. Suffice to say it was an intense, 20 month, odyssey that I just completed last month.
My special interests in HIT are: HIT policy, interoperability, health information exchange, and privacy/security/infrastructure. My goal is to be involved at the local, state and national level. I am on an IT committee at the local hospital. My state level involvement to date includes committee work with a non-profit organization, Arizona Health-e Connection, and I have worked on vendor selection for an ambulatory EMR in a project sponsored by our state Medicaid agency. National involvement has been with several organizations: IHE, HITSP, HIMSS, and recently, CCHIT. You’ve got to love all the acronyms.
Goal
I hope to communicate to others my passion for HIT. I expect to contribute several posts a week. I want to inform others about some of the innovative developments in health IT that are occurring around us and spur others to contribute in this important effort.
Posts
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