Baby Boomers, Healthcare and Unified CommunicationsBaby Boomers, Healthcare and Unified Communications
The healthcare industry is about to be bombarded by Baby Boomers. We're accustomed to using technology to facilitate communications. The system that exists has been supporting Depression-era technophobes. As a Baby Boomer, I find myself increasingly engaged with the healthcare system. Nothing in particular is wrong but like an aging automobile there are more things to check and service as the miles add up. As a communications industry professional, I find myself increasingly frustrated by the IT infrastructure of healthcare in this country. It sometimes seems the only technology that the industry has embraced is the IVR.
January 18, 2008
The healthcare industry is about to be bombarded by Baby Boomers. We're accustomed to using technology to facilitate communications. The system that exists has been supporting Depression-era technophobes. As a Baby Boomer, I find myself increasingly engaged with the healthcare system. Nothing in particular is wrong but like an aging automobile there are more things to check and service as the miles add up. As a communications industry professional, I find myself increasingly frustrated by the IT infrastructure of healthcare in this country. It sometimes seems the only technology that the industry has embraced is the IVR.
The healthcare industry is about to be bombarded by Baby Boomers. We're accustomed to using technology to facilitate communications. The system that exists has been supporting Depression-era technophobes.
As a Baby Boomer, I find myself increasingly engaged with the healthcare system. Nothing in particular is wrong but like an aging automobile there are more things to check and service as the miles add up. As a communications industry professional, I find myself increasingly frustrated by the IT infrastructure of healthcare in this country. It sometimes seems the only technology that the industry has embraced is the IVR.Every medical office, no matter how small, has a multi-level tree menu the goal of which is to get you to leave a message. Want to make an appointment? Leave a message. Want to get test results? Leave a message. Want to speak to a doctor? That's not even a choice. Keep in mind that the message you leave will only rarely be returned, so you'll find yourself engaged with the same IVR tree the next day.
Once you have made an appointment, the form filling begins. You arrive and are handed a sheath of papers to fill out. You find that most of the forms request the same profile information, over and over again. If you're sent to a specialist, more repetitious forms. What do they do with all this paper? Twenty years ago, we all had file drawers full of Pentaflex folders. Today we have 100 Gig hard drives that contain 10 times as much information. When will healthcare move to a more electronic file-keeping system? I'd love to just carry around a jump drive instead of spending twenty minutes filling out forms at every stop.
Once you've had some tests, the cycle starts again, trying to get the results. Would it be so hard for someone to email the results? I'm not asking for real time or anything, just within a couple of days or so. And trying to get a doctor to call you is near impossible - couldn't they spend a little time each day answering emails?
Some vendors talk about sophisticated healthcare solutions using mega bandwidth TelePresence systems to allow experts to be anywhere. I'd rather we start small. Like assigning email addresses to primary care physicians.
