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Steve Jobs, Social Media and iPad enabled voting: Welcome to 2.0 Tuesday! A look at what’s next in technology and healthcare.

Posted by on November 8, 2011

At Manage My Practice, we have always been fascinated by the opportunities created when innovation and technical advancements are applied to the Healthcare system. The intersection of technology and medical practice has always been one of the most exciting spaces in research and development because the challenges of the Human Body are some of the most daunting and emotionally charged of our endeavors. Curing diseases, diagnosing symptoms and improving and saving lives are among our most noble callings, so naturally they inspire some of our brightest thinkers and industry leaders.

As managers, providers and employees, we always have to be looking ahead at how the technology on our horizon will affect how our organizations administer health care. In the spirit of looking forward to the future, we present “2.0 Tuesday”, a weekly feature on Manage My Practice about how technology is impacting our practices, and our patient and group outcomes.

We hope you enjoy looking ahead with us, and share your ideas, reactions and comments below!

  • Steve Jobs thought iCloud had the potential to store Medical Data

Apple’s recently announced iCloud service let’s you store pictures, movies, music, and documents in Apple’s “cloud”, or Internet storage system, and retrieve them with your iPhones, iPods, iPads, and Mac computers. Dr. Iltifat Husain, writing for the IMedicalApps blog notes that in the new biography of the Apple founder, Jobs mentioned that he thought even personal medical data would one day be stored in Apple’s iCloud. Cloud storage is all the rage right now in a lot of different areas of technology, but Jobs saying that medical data would be stored on the consumer end next to vacation photos and favorite songs represents a very bold vision of the future of patient data.

  • Researchers using Social Media to study attitudes about Public Health

A team led by Marcel Salathé, PhD at Pennsylvania State University published a study last month in PLoS Computational Biology that used “tweets” gathered from the social network Twitter to analyze how the public felt about the H1N1 influenza vaccine in 2009. Although Social Media research has limitations, Christine S. Moyer, writing for the American Medical Association’s Amednews.com notes that the results were similar to traditional phone surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, and provides some other examples of how Social Media has been used to understand public health trends.

  • Interesting EHR/EMR data from the Soliant Health Blog

Medical staffing specialist Soliant Health had very eye-opening list of statistics about EHR/EMR implementations on their blog last week. My personal favorite: Hospitals using EHR/EMR systems have a 3 to 4% lower mortality rate than those that don’t. Very interesting numbers.

  • HealthWorks Collective predicts changes in healthcare communications after ACA

Healthworks Collective‘s Susan Gosselin makes some predictions about how the communications between and among providers and patients are going to be changed by the Affordable Care Act (or Healthcare Reform)- and what both groups will demand from a changing system. Great stuff!

  • Oregon to help disabled voters cast ballots using iPads

In today’s local and congressional elections, five counties in the state of Oregon are going to be equipping local officials with iPads preloaded with special touch-interface software to accompany people with physical or visual impairments, or who would otherwise have a hard time making it to the polls. The 9 to 5 Mac blog is reporting that the pilot program features hardware donated by Apple, and could soon spread statewide by the next election.

Be sure to check back next week for another 2.0 Tuesday!

 

 

 

 

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Posted in: 2.0 Tuesday, Electronic Medical Records, Innovation, Social Media

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Do You Use a Mac? Safeguard It Against “MacDefender” Malware by Understanding the Scam and Getting the Fix!

Posted by on May 25, 2011

Apple announced last night that it would be sending an update to its OS X operating system that would protect users from and remove a program called “MacDefender” (alias “MacProtector” or “MacSecurity”) that had been finding its way onto some consumer’s machines. The program is a piece of malicious software (or “Malware“), that is ultimately designed to get you to send your credit card number to a company to sell you a program to “fix” the problem.

Here’s how MacDefender works:

  • You are browsing Google Images and when you click on an image, you are redirected to a fake “security alert” webpage.
  • The security alert webpage informs you that you have been infected with a virus, and recommends you download a free program – MacDefender – to solve the issue.
  • MacDefender pops up on your computer as an offering. If you click OK, you’ve just invited the malware onto your system.
  • Here’s where it gets malicious. The installed malware begins to make your system appear as if it has become infected with a virus.
  • The program regularly opens up new browser windows to pornographic websites. Needless to say, this is very embarrassing, as well as making computer very hard to use.
  • At this point you are probably thinking “well, I just installed a new anti-virus program”, and you try to run the MacDefender program. Now it gets really nasty.

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Posted in: Learn This: Technology Answers

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Spotted! Amazing Customer Service at the Apple Store

Posted by on November 24, 2008

I stepped inside an Apple Store last weekend for the very first time, and had an amazing customer service experience.  For one thing, the doors were wide open.  There may have been detectors at the front door to make sure I didn’t try to steal anything, but I didn’t see them if they were there.

Walking inside I was immediately greeted by an Apple employee.  Not an employee standing at a podium or sitting at a desk, but one wearing an orange shirt and a headset who greeted me and asked how she could help me.  I explained that I was thinking about a new laptop but didn’t know a lot about Macs.  She told me she was the concierge and her job is to match customer needs with Apple store staffers and service.  On the very busy saturday that I was there I saw three concierges (conciergi?)  Our concierge told us that she would send the next available specialist to us and she asked for our first names.  She invited us (Doubting Thomas husband accompanied me) to look at the computers while we were waiting.

At other stores I’ve visited for the purpose of buying electronics, there is one, or sometimes two of each model.  You may have to wait a bit to see the model you are interested in if the store is busy and it is not unusual to go through an extensive decision making process only to find the model you want is not in stock.  At the Apple store I rounded a large rectangular table twice before it dawned on me that I was looking at six of the same model of computer, and that the next large table had six of another model.

One thing that struck me quite forcefully about the Apple store was that it was so different from I had EXPECTED and had formerly ACCEPTED.  We expect and accept wasted time, poor service, poor attitude (the last time I was at a big store I asked the salesperson if he was having a tough day he looked so miserable) and out-of-stock items.

After about 15 minutes, David (in a light blue shirt) found us.  The things he discussed with us were:

  • moving from PC to Mac
  • the basics of moving around the desktop and what each of the icons were
  • getting the remains of my PC (which passed away after 5 days in the computer hospital) installed onto a Mac
  • discussion of what came with the Mac and what would be optional (Office for Mac, Service Plan, Training Package)
  • financing options for the purchase
  • a question Doubting Thomas had about iTunes
I made my decision after about 20 minutes of discussion and David left us to get my new computer.  He returned with my computer and a handheld credit card swiper and asked if I would like a paper receipt or an emailed receipt.  All this took place at the demo table about three feet from the concierge and about six feet from the front door of the store.

Recap of exceptional customer experience:

  1. Doors of store were wide open (which I took to mean “welcome.”)
  2. Greeted immediately by the concierge who was friendly and helpful.  She took our names, told us what would happen next, and gave us a great sense of being properly in line for service.
  3. There were lots of the same computer model to try out and play with – no waiting for a turn to touch the product.  All the computers were plugged in and worked.
  4. A salesperson who seemed to know all the answers waited on us, and brought things to me without me having to make my way to the back of the store to check-out.
What lessons will I take from this for the practice I manage?  First of all, I’m thinking about adding a concierge (should I think of a different name? maybe I’ll have a contest!) to greet patients.  This could potentially solve several problems that I have.  One is the logjam and lack of privacy at the front desk.  The concierge could greet patients very personally, and could get them established with paperwork, insurance cards, etc., as well as answering questions and making sure patients have what they need while they’re waiting.
Taking ideas from other companies and fields is one of my very favorite things in the whole world.  I have more ideas about changing things in the practice since my visit at Apple, but I’ll save that for another post.

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Posted in: Amazing Customer Service

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