I’ve come to recognize through my 28-year clinical career, some at the bedside as a clinician, some in quality and risk management, and the over the past few years in technology, that very few health care organizations can truly say that they place the patient in the center of their own health care. Much of what we do as clinicians is use data to make decisions about care and treatment and much of what we do in quality and risk management is design processes to prevent errors. But is the patient truly the reason, the actual center of our focus?
I would challenge you to evaluate how your information systems are used in your organization-whether they are used solely for the purpose of documentation, rather than for the purpose of ensuring collaboration not only between health care providers but with the patients themselves. Patients should be included in the information-management process not only from the perspective of obtaining accurate demographic and medical history, but for ensuring that the patient actually is provided the appropriate tools for education, clinical updates, monitoring, and optimization of treatment outcomes. There are very few health information technology products that have taken on this perspective. Please share in this discussion.