For all you new parents out there. I made a handy dandy flowchart based on asking a bunch of questions over P’s first 3 doctor visits. I’ll let the chart speak for itself. Note: the below assumes you did not have any special or extenuating
Tag: healthcare
Also known as why gadgets make geeks do things. You want to get a geek running? Get him some schwag like a GPS HR Monitor or one of those Nike+ Ipod thingys. Most of us inherently like numbers and tracking stuff. It’s even better when it’s tracked for us and we can just look at it. Even if I have no idea what I’m going to do with the data, knowing that I’ve got x years worth of y meticulously charted for something gives me some warm fuzzies.
As part of my 2011 Goals I was to get a physical, which I did (yay me!). It helps when I can walk from work to the hospital in 5 mins flat haha. Now apparently my medical group also has this online system which I just signed up for yesterday and it’s awesome. A system has to be awesome if it can get me excited about going back so they can stick a needle in me, take my blood, and run a bunch of tests. The online system not only lets me view all the data from my bloodwork, it also lets me make appointments, ask for refills, look at immunization records, etc. The best part is the data is shared across all their affiliate hospitals. The last time I was at the doc’s was 4 years ago to get a refill and it wasn’t even at the same location, but it showed up in my record with all the basic stats from that visit (HR, BP, Weight, etc). The online system also lets you chart stats over time so keeping up with physicals allows me to view numbers I may be interested over time (like cholesterol or fasting glucose).
It’s innovations like this that should be happening. I’m not even sure it can be considered an innovation as it’s really just digitizing medical data, but for healthcare industries I see this as a major step in the right direction. I can finally see my results for my tests and it’s not hidden away in some filing cabinet that only docs can get access to. I understand there’s always the issue of privacy, but the issue pops up every time we move something onto the intertubes. For me, the convenience and transparency that these systems allow outweigh the dangers. Apply all the same tips as you would for your online financials, be smart about your passwords, don’t share passwords, etc, etc. Besides who likes to call and and sit on hold to make a Dr.’s appt…not me. If we can get those systems online I say huzzah! I really hope that other institutions move in this direction as well. Once this becomes the norm we can think about how the data can be securely shared on an institutional level (kaiser to sutter) so that we don’t lose our historical data when changing medical groups.