Intelligent Healthcare Information Integration 2/26/10

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off to HIMSS We Go

The setting: Outside of a small, storybook cottage in fairy-tale woods.

Camera zooms in, from a group of frolicking woodland creatures, through a too-cute cottage window to the hand-carved, kitchen table where four elfin men sit sipping steaming mugs of morning blend.

Sleepy: (yawning) I just can’t seem to get excited about this whole HIMSS thing.

Happy: What!?! How can you say that? This will for sure be one of the best events ever!

Doc: I concur. Not only is the whole country abuzz with HITECH fever, but the world is watching to see if the U.S. can actually mend its fractured and dysfunctional healthcare system, especially the informational component thereof.

Dopey: Hyuck, hyuck. I never quite know what you’re saying, Doc, but it shore sounds fancy!

Grumpy: (walking into the kitchen with a gruff and grumbly tone) You fellows never let a guy sleep in!

Happy: (with just a tad too much cheeriness) Good morning, Grumpy! Aren’t you excited about our trip to the big city in the land of peaches and Coca-Cola? Even you must be keyed up with all of the hubbub surrounding ARRA monies and HIT investment that’s brewing.

Grumpy: Harrumph! I most certainly am not. I don’t think those promised dollars will ever hit the hands of the physicians…sorry, Doc.

Doc: Oh, Grumpy, that’s not what this is all about. That money is designed merely to flow THROUGH the hands of the physicians into the hands of the vendors and developers to stimulate the growth of our digital healthcare information system.

Sneezy: (entering, with an ACHOO!) That’s not what everybody thinks, Doc. (sniff) I saw Dr. Doolittle on my way to the mine yesterday and he said he was heading down to Woodland Bank to arrange his new EMR system loan because (sniff) his vendor swore he’d make a bunch of money by adopting now.

Happy: (with his chronic big smile) Either way, don’t we all benefit if healthcare goes electronic? Isn’t the goal really about the benefits to us, the patients, and not who gets what piece of which pie?

Sleepy: (wiping sleep from his ever half-closed eyes) Pie? We’ve got pie?

Happy: (chuckling) No, you silly, sleepy little elf. We’re talking about the big EHR vendor ARRA/HITECH “pie.” I was thinking about what Snow always said, (in a girlish voice) “If your palm itches, you’re about to come into money.” (grinning ever bigger) I’ll bet there will be a lot of palm-scratching CEOs walking around the Georgia World Congress Center!

Doc: Well, I don’t begrudge them a nickel if they can actually create systems to make treating Bambi’s bunions easier and my days in AR dwindle.

Grumpy: Well, I think that is yet to be determined, Doc. Hey…how can a hooved creature have bunions?

Doc: Figure of speech, my dear dwarf.

Happy: Well, regardless, HIMSS will have lots of parties and lots of freebies and lots of happy people excited about the future. I hear even Eric Fishman will be there filming for EHRtv.com. Hope I get interviewed!

Sneezy: I just wish more HITECH money was going (ACHOO!) to big pharma. None of my nasal sprays help anymore. (sniff)

Doc: With all the great data we’ll soon be able to accumulate, aggregate, analyze, and share, Sneezy, I’m sure we’ll figure out better ways to circumvent your rhinitic condition.

Dopey: Hyuck. There you go talking all purdy again, Doc!

Bashful: (standing in the doorway, sheepishly twirling his big toe into the earthen floor) Aww…I’m just thinking about Monday night at the HIStalk reception. You think there’s any way I might meet Inga?

From the woodland trenches…

“From now on, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be known as Person of No Color and the Seven Vertically Challenged Individuals.” – Argus Hamilton

Dr. Gregg Alexander is a grunt-in-the-trenches pediatrician and geek. His personal manifesto home page…er..blog…yeh, that’s it, his blog – and he – can be reached through http://madisonpediatric.com or doc@madisonpediatric.com.