In this special Speaker Series, Becker's Healthcare caught up with Rebecca Wiedmeyer, project manager of health IT initiatives at the Chicago-based Erie Family Health Center.
Ms. Wiedmeyer will speak during the Becker's Hospital Review 4th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference on " Practical Uses of Telemedicine and Improvement," at 1:00 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19. Learn more about the event and register to attend in Chicago.
Question: What is the one thing about your patient population that has really surprised you?
Rebecca Wiedmeyer: Working for an urban Federally Qualified Health Center, I anticipated that our patient population would be far less savvy with technology than they are. We serve the under- and uninsured patient population of Chicago, and we've adopted technologies in recent years to assist in improving the dialog between caregivers and patients. Examples of these include secure texting between clinician and patient, text-based patient reminders and electronic patient surveys. Because of the prevalence of smartphones being used in our waiting rooms, we are always seeking out better ways to leverage the preferred technologies of our patients to continue to engage them in their own health.
Q: What's the best thing you've read lately?
RW: I recently read Slow Medicine by Victoria Sweet, MD. Dr. Sweet discusses how extensive charting and extremely limited time with the patient impacts the quality of care we provide, often leading to negative outcomes. She discusses how "slow medicine," or the comprehensive consideration of the patient as a person rather than the culmination of data points, should be integrated into our often overly-rapid delivery of care to improve quality of care and outcomes.
Q: What's the biggest misconception about health IT?
RW: From the perspectives of other industries, health IT may appear, at first blush, behind the curve in technology. However, while many healthcare organizations are trepidatious to adopt the "cutting edge" technologies on the market, others arguably have been driving vendors further, pushing the limits to see how things like [artificial intelligence] and machine learning can improve the healthcare experience for the patient and the provider. Our industry, arguably, has grown the fastest in recent years in terms of consumer engagement. Though providers may not always appreciate it, patients are on the internet searching symptoms and potential diagnoses in advance of their visit. This is a tremendous leap ahead, in my opinion, from the days where patients were passive health consumers and took their provider's word to be the only answer. Obviously, there needs to be a balance here, but the fact that there is now a dialog is a tremendous leap forward.