My Favorite Health 2.0 Experience from McDonalds

Meet the Schwieterman’s

By Dr. David Edward Marcinko; MBA, CMP™biz-book

Back in 2005, we published the second edition of our popular textbook: the Business of Medical Practice. And, we are now working on the third edition. At the time however, I was fortunate to have a colleague from the Microsoft Corporation pen our Foreword, now reprinted below for your review.

Link: http://www.springerpub.com/prod.aspx?prod_id=23759

 

What a Family Tradition!

My favorite story came from Dr. Thomas Schwieterman, a fourth-generation physician working in the same medical office his great grandfather established in 1896 in the town of Mariastein, Ohio. From those same historic environs, Schwieterman has used Microsoft Access to create his own physician assistant application.

The Schwieterman Family Physicians practice kept him so busy that he was wondering how he could keep up with his patient caseload. Schwieterman wanted a faster way to handle prescriptions, provide medical information, and record data for his patient records. He walked into a McDonald’s restaurant one day and had an idea.

The Epiphany

“I ordered a cheeseburger and fries and watched the person at the counter touch the screen of the cash register a few times, and realized the order was getting transferred back to the food preparation area, and that by the time I paid, my order was ready,” he said. “I thought to myself: ‘That’s what I need!’” He searched for commercially available solutions, but when he couldn’t find an exact match for his needs, and when he found prices steep for a small private practice, he decided to create his own – using Access. He also called upon a friend with a Master’s Degree in electrical engineering to help on the coding. His creation boosted his income by 20 percent – “Which was important because we pay more than $60,000 a year for malpractice insurance even though our clinic has never been sued since it was founded 107 years ago.”

Assessment

What my friends at Microsoft especially like about this story is that when Dr. Schwieterman’s colleagues tried his program, liked it, and suggested he try to sell it, he put together a PowerPoint presentation – and landed a partnership agreement with a major healthcare supply and services corporation to market his ChartScribe solution.

Conclusion

So, the pressures facing physicians are great, but so are their resources. Information technology is one resource, this book is another, but the greatest of all is the innate curiosity and drive to discover and create that seems to be so much a part of those who are drawn to this noble profession.

Ahmad Hashem; MD, PhD

Global Healthcare Productivity Manager

Microsoft’s Healthcare Industry Solutions Group

Microsoft Corporation

Redmond, Washington 

Conclusion

And so, your thoughts and comments on this Medical Executive-Post are appreciated. Tell us what you think. Feel free to review our top-left column, and top-right sidebar materials, links, URLs and related websites, too. Then, be sure to subscribe to the ME-P. It is fast, free and secure.

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Speaker: If you need a moderator or speaker for an upcoming event, Dr. David E. Marcinko; MBA – Publisher-in-Chief of the Executive-Post – is available for seminar or speaking engagements. Contact: MarcinkoAdvisors@msn.com 

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Allscript’s Glenn Tullman is Video Interviewed

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Video Clip from the HIMSS Meeting

By Ann Miller; RN, MHA

[Executive-Director]

stk323168rknThere is a major controversy in the modern healthcare community over eMRs and how to pay for them; or even if they are effective in improving medical outcomes. Of course, by eMRs we mean interoperable medical records that span the pan-healthcare ecosystem; and not just the stand-alone digital records that many, if not most, physicians use in their daily practices to some degree or another.

Link: https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/on-the-hitech-act-of-2009/

Proponents

As readers of the ME-P are aware, one vocal camp supports certification and eMR industry mandates, standards, and governmental initiatives, etc. The recent $20 billion taxpayer input from the Obama Administration, courtesy of HITECH, further emboldens CCHIT and related wonks.

Opponents

One the other hand, one vocal ME-P opponent is dentist Darrell Pruitt. He and many others believe that current eMRs may be too expensive, unwieldy, and counter-productive. This camp advocates a mix of other data sources, technology processes and doctor/patient education to get us where we need to be in terms of improving medial outcomes; quicker and less expensively.

Assessment

Rather than read, research and write more on this controversy, which was apparently a red-hot topic at the recent HIMSS meeting, we have embedded a video link of Glen Tullman [CEO of Allscripts] and Mark Leavitt, [Chair of CCHIT], below.

Link: https://healthcarefinancials.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/cchit-is-prejudiced-and-lacks-diversity-%e2%80%93-an-indictment/

It even includes a clip of Jonathan Bush, CEO of AthenaHealth. And, although they don’t all agree; some common ground may be developing in this controversial issue.

Source: This link originally appeared on The Health Care Blog [THCB], by Matthew Holt.

Link: http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2009/04/cats-and-dogs-on-film–tullman-leavitt-bush.html#comments

Disclaimer:We are members of AHIMA, HIMSS, MS-HUG and SUNSHINE. We just released the Dictionary of Health Information Technology and Security, with Foreword by Chief Medical Information Officer Richard J. Mata; MD MS MS-CIS, of Johns Hopkins University; and the second edition of the Business of Medical Practice with Foreword by Ahmad Hashem; MD PhD, who was the Global Productivity Manager for the Microsoft Healthcare Solutions Group at the time.

Conclusion

Your thoughts and comments on this ME-P are appreciated. Feel free to review our top-left column, and top-right sidebar materials, links, URLs and related websites, too. Then, subscribe to the ME-P. It is fast, free and secure.

Speaker: If you need a moderator or speaker for an upcoming event, Dr. David E. Marcinko; MBA – Publisher-in-Chief of the Medical Executive-Post – is available for seminar or speaking engagements. Contact: MarcinkoAdvisors@msn.com

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