Imagine what this is like in a fully digital environment instead. Of course, they'd know everything about your medical history and payment ability from a quick ID scan at the entrance. And you'd know the doctor's availability before you even walked in, and you would have been shuttled to the urgent care center down the street if there was an uneven load this early in the morning. No questions to guess at the answer (last tetanus shot? Allergies to medications?) because the answers would be known. The drive to the pharmacy might be eliminated, or perhaps the waiting time would be shortened. If this accident or illness is trending, effecting more of the population, we'd know that right away and be able to prevent more of it... Triage would be more efficient as well. The entire process might take ten minutes, with a far better outcome.
This blog post has been rolling around in my head for weeks now, because it's so ridiculously true. It's embarassing, almost. There's seriously no reason for paper recordkeeping anymore.
Tablets are the new clipboard.
The Onion called this out in their own way: Quick-Lube Shop Masters Electronic Record Keeping Six Years Before Medical Industry. So sad, how much needs to get shuffled around.
I'm also noticing it while on jury duty (two weeks so far, and counting). The amount of paper that's being shuffled around is insane. Boxes upon boxes upon boxes. And we're hearing things like, "we'll get you all a copy of that 55-page exhibit tomorrow". Why can't you just zap it to an iPad? Instead of spending 5 minutes looking through depositions to find the right page and the right line number, why not just use something where you can cross-link questions to reference material?
I wonder, almost, how much this would destabilize what we know of our society. Imagine the efficiencies if a court, or a doctor's office, or even girl scout cookie sales, ... if any of those went digital. I wonder what we'd discover. I wonder what jobs would stop being so stressful if recordkeeping wasn't a problem. If appointment scheduling was self-serve. If...
And that's why I sorta hate a lot of the Silicon Valley wank. Yes it's great that we're enabling people to talk to each other, but there's so many other industries that are in need of just a thorough beatdown. Not to revolutionize what they do, just to change how they do it. If we took all our talent and put it towards making cab dispatch, taxes, insurance claims all easier, we could change the world.
How about you and I start with Health Savings Accounts? I want to kill Optum dead! Think of the profound impact better HSA processes could have on health care in general... actually it's kind of a great place to start with a health-focused reform effort... It's where there's money. Incentives are aligned. It could wedge into other health-related software.
Posted by: jeff reine | Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:56 PM
Yes. This.
If we focused on reducing the time it takes to connect a person and the information they need (for topics that matter, not just nearby trending cat photos) things could be so much more efficient.
Posted by: Alex Bain | Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 02:20 PM