October 2000 • Post-Assembly Edition • Dallas
Your future is well connected
BY TODD SIMCHUK
Good cop/bad cop. That role-playing was working Sept. 20 in "Trends in Medical Technology," a computer lecture during the AAFP Scientific Assembly Sept. 20-24 in Dallas.
The session's instructors were Glen Christopher and David Voran, M.D. Voran followed Christopher's leadoff talk with an honest "he scared the hell out of you, right?"
Probably so. Christopher, a pro speaker/consultant/tech trainer out of Raleigh, N.C., played a techno-literate patient with no patience for techno-blind FPs.
"I am embracing change," he said. "And I am rejecting the status quo."
How so? Christopher is tired of writing his Social Security number every time he visits your office. He'd rather produce his Web-enabled telephone, point it at a similar device at your reception desk and wirelessly transmit all relevant data through the magic of newly emerging wireless data transmission technology.
Are you ready?
"I'm demanding that kind of technology," Christopher concluded. "And if I don't get it, I'll go to someone who can give it to me."
Depending on your techno-slant, Voran's follow-up was a little less ominous. But Voran, chief medical information officer at the Health Midwest hospital group in Kansas City, Mo., still told of perfectly networked futures, and washing machines that order their own soap, front doors that tell you about your dog, and a small ear clip that will allow your patients to wirelessly transmit health data from themselves -- no matter where they are -- straight into your system.
If you have one that can handle it.
"Too many FPs seem to have an impenetrable barrier around their practices," Voran said, noting the widespread adoption of home-based computers and e-mail usage in American homes. "We are not allowing ourselves to act in our practices like we do at home."
If FPs were, Voran said, they'd have Web sites in place -- and have them linked to patient record systems.
"If patients enter their own data, your costs go down and accuracy goes up," he said.
Also on your Web site, Voran said, you'd have a "portal"-type feature that would compile medical information from other sites and make it available to your patients in one trusted place. You'd start building a vast database of patient information that might help you or your patients recognize health troubles before they become trouble.
"Why is it we wait until someone is symptomatic before we start to treat them?" Voran asked.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2000 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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