What a wonderful world

[George K]

I had an interesting experience with technologies this morning, and it caused me to reflect.

Mrs. George, in the last week or so, has had uncomfortably high blood pressures. She's checking her pressure at home. Though treated with a beta-blocker for years, and under good control, the last week it's been disturbingly higher.

For years, she's been under the care of Bob (also my internist) who retired at the beginning of December.

We decided to transfer care to the university where I used to work, and she (and I saw) our new doc there a couple of weeks ago. Somehow, both of us and he just didn't "click." He didn't strike me as necessarily "bad," but just seemed to be, well, uninterested. Mrs. George's opinion was the same.

Anyhow, with this sudden rise in BPs, she sent a message to this guy's office yesterday AM. At 3PM, she got a call from the nurse saying that she should come in and be seen by one of their other docs. She asked if 8:30 AM would be OK - of course, it was. We walked in with her BP history for the last year, which I had downloaded from the BP machine to my iPhone, and printed out for the new doc.

So, when she saw the new doc this AM, the new doc had access to all of the other docs information from a couple of weeks ago, as well as all the information from Bob, as well as from Mrs. George's endocrinologist, who's at another hospital.

Visit went well (and we both liked this new young doc), and she has a plan.

On the way home, D3 texted (and I answered with the phone on CarPlay) about something unrelated.

I commented to Mrs. George how remarkable this all is. This is all stuff that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago:

1. Sending a message to your doc via email
2. Getting a response in hours, and scheduling an appointment for the next day
3. Checking blood pressure at home with an automatic device, and downloading it to a computer in your pocket. Then you print it out for the doc.
4. Doc having access, immediately, to records from two other institutions
5. Driving home, using cruise control that keeps a safe distance between me and the car in front of me
6. While driving, getting a message from my daughter, which the phone reads to me, using my car's stereo
7. Responding to that message, using my voice and not typing anything
8. I'm watching the news on my computer, in high-definition video
9. The lights in my living room just dimmed because it's 6:30 PM, as scheduled. Of course, if I want to change that, I can do so by telling my phone to "turn up the lights."

10 years ago, pretty much everything I mentioned would have been unthinkable. I got on the internet in 1994, buying some cheapo software at a computer show. The guy at the desk said to me, "Your life is about to change - a lot."

There's so much more that I have omitted because it's become such a part of our lives, but, reflecting on it, it's truly remarkable.

Oh, brave new world, that has such devices in it.

[jon-nyc]

I’ve just noticed inter-hospital data integration in the last 24 months or so.

Finally one of the promises of EMR coming true.

Truly Epic.

[89th]

Cheers to that @George-K !

[bachophile]

I can access most external medical records from my hospital system. The days where I ask a patient to show me previous stuff done outside the hospital are long gone.

[Klaus]

@jon-nyc said in What a wonderful world:

I’ve just noticed inter-hospital data integration in the last 24 months or so.

Finally one of the promises of EMR coming true.

Truly Epic.

Over here we are so super concerned about privacy issues that we won't have that for decades

Over here, hospitals still use FAX to send reports to other doctors. It's insane.

[jon-nyc]

Actually the part about faxes is still common here too.

Doctors office: “Can we fax it to you?”
Me: “I’m sorry, there are no faxes where I am.”
Doctor’s office: “Where’s that?”
Me: “The 21st century.”

Though one thing the EMRs allow is “secure” mailboxes for patients so that makes the fax requests less frequent. But your average small MD office will still only fax or mail something.

[Aqua Letifer]

[Jolly]

Try to access that data from a different hospital system and see what happens...

[George K]

@jolly said in What a wonderful world:

Try to access that data from a different hospital system and see what happens...

Indeed. Mrs. George has providers that are in 4 locations.

Three of them use Epic, and all the systems talk to each other. It's great.

The fourth, well, nope. He can't access the Epic charts and the other three places can't access his. It's all word-of-mouth for him.

I had a lot of lab work done at my old place of employment that used Cerner. Again, not compatible with the other places. I actually printed out my lab work from the old place and gave it to my Epic doc. He said he'd scan it into my record, but searching was practically impossible.

[Jolly]

@george-k IIRC, once it's scanned into EPIC, it's searchable.

I think.