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patient care in the digital age

During the Olympics GE has been airing a commercial boasting technology that would allow any doctor to see your full medical history. The commercial seems to be aimed at the patient, and I must say, the ability for any doctor I see, anywhere, to know exactly what has happened to me in the past, what tests have come back negative, that I broke both my wrists first time on a snowboard, etc. I was blown away by the commercial and thought “way to go again GE!”.

Then today I watched a presentation by Bridget Duffy, former Chief Experience Office at the Cleveland Clinic. It skewed my view a bit. Instant access to medical records was great. What could make that even better? Perhaps to store more emotional information, in addition to the medical information. I thought about our visit to OHSU when our daughter was born. Our first night was a disaster, us new parents awake all night fussing over every sound our new bean made. We were not bothered all night. Possibly if in our records it was noted that she was our first, a nurse would have thought we might be anxious about her and would have checked in on us once or twice.

And I think about my grandmother who is battling dementia, in addition to other ailments. It must be frustrating for her to be forgetting things, to have her ability to function on her own taken away, poked and prodded by doctor after doctor, all asking the same questions. What if it noted in her record that talking about her great-grandchildren made her relax or that she didn’t like to feel like she was being bossed around. Maybe then the doctor of the day would know how to ease her mind a bit more.

I think all the advancement in technology is giving us a great opportunity, an opportunity to bring a more human side to patient care.