Dr. Phil’s “Blogajawea”

Well, it’s time for another blog entry.  The Oregon Crusaders continue to make great progress (although sometimes housing is a stress… luckily I’ve got Ron Barnett helping me to manage that).  And our DCI directors meeting went well over the weekend - it was so good to hang out with friends like the Northwest directors, Rob Lowery, Rob Ripley, Jeff Pearson, Marc and Stefanie Hebert and so many others so committed to drum corps.  But instead of talking about drum corps I wanted to spend a little bit of time expanding on an issue that I brought up in my last health care blog.  (OK, so if you were looking for a drum corps post, like electronic guitars and how they aren’t approved for use in DCI shows, then I’m sorry to disappoint).  (Oh, second parenthetical point, if you’re looking for a blog every few days, you’ve got the wrong guy!). 

Now for the blog.  I had the great pleasure today of leading a discussion of health care connectivity in Washington DC at the World Health Care Congress with former US Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders and Dr. Paul Grundy of IBM.   Dr. Elders is as sweet at she could be, and still as eloquent as ever advocating for greater health care literacy among consumers.  Dr. Grundy has been on the “front lines” of providing personal health records to employees and advocating for a stronger relationship between patient and primary care provider.  Connectivity of all types is something that is getting a lot of play in health care.  Friends and colleagues Jamie and Ben Heywood at Patients Like Me, Adam Bosworth of Keas, WebMD with their drug insights and message boards and so many others are tapping into the power of technology to enable people to help other people to make better decisions and improve their care.  I hold to the belief that patients connected to each other, to physicians, and to the research community are what have the chance to transform our disconnected (and yet somehow overly techno-centric) health care system.  When it comes to patient-physician connectivity, we touched on something today that I believe is critically important.  We talked about the importance of the connection between patients and their doctors, but as part of a growing and meaningful relationship.  Not as part of the transient or distant relationship that most patients now have with their doctors.  It’s one of convenience, efficiency and significance.  It’s one that supports a continuity of care, a familiarity, between a doctor and his patients.  But it is one that meets the needs of doctors and patients.  Doctors choosing the health record and workflow systems that meet their needs, while patients choose the system that best meets their needs.  Connected, not tethered, but connected with all the doctors that provide him care.  We have held out hope that regional health information organizations and a national health information network might provide the connectivity we seek.  But two things have threatened these efforts: 1) There is no clear business model, and 2) The consumer is oftentimes nowhere to be found in these efforts. 
Why is it that the consumer cannot be the bridge across our health care system?  I believe, as we are beginning to show through WebMD, that patients can help to bridge our fragmented system.  They can use technology to support the doctor-patient relationship, supportive of their need for privacy and control, and supportive of the consumer-centric health care system for which we have all worked.  Imagine: A patient walks into their doctor’s office.  They provide unique information that is input into the doctor’s office system that automatically links the doctor’s system to the patient’s portal.  Secure messages, lab results, a full health history, monitoring and tracking, health improvement, clouds parting, angels singing.  You get the picture.  And doctors able to have a good quality of life managing urgent issues in-person while managing non-urgent issues more efficiently.  It’s not a future that has to be that far away.  In the words of one of the meeting’s attendees today: 2008 is the year.

Enjoy the pictures of me with the WebMD team and with Dr. Elders and Dr. Grundy.