Partners

(Blog post started 1/21/11)

As my brain was trying to pull off a second sleepless night in the span of three days, I lay in bed this morning with my mind full of thoughts and ideas.  Surprisingly, they were not thoughts about the present crises in my life but rather a stream of ideas about how to survive the future waves of change in the practice of medicine.  It is much like my friend, Hye Yong, remarked last weekend, that the technology industry has vastly outpaced other industries in rate of change.  Even so, I believe it is technology that will facilitate my adaptation to the very averse present healthcare climate.  Conversations of last weekend became springboards for new ideas, a wide range of considerations, and many reasons to be hopeful.  Thank God for friends!

Laying in bed this morning, I began to connect the dots and came to the realization that I have more than a dozen business partners who have made Green Spring Internal Medicine possible.  This was so suddenly reassuring, because it helped me realize that I have not been alone in what I have been up to, even though I don't quite have another doctor or health provider to practice with yet.  Even as I seek to build community in my private life, I am relieved to know that I also exist within a community in my work life. Here, I will tell the story of the companies with connections that knit together to make our practice possible.  I will include weblinks to the companies I reference.

Once upon a time at my first practice, The Health Associates, I was a young graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Osler Residency Program in Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.  Though we had limited electronic records and computerized order-entry at the hospital, I had enjoyed the benefits of computerized processes.  I asked my old associates if they were going toward electronic records, and they told me they were thinking about it.  Fast forwarding five years, I attended the Pri-Med conference in Boston and heard all of what was new in the health information technology world and my heart was won.  It was at that conference that I first met salespeople for eClinicalWorks .  I was a little intimidated at the idea of adopting a software whose home was up in Massachusetts.  How would there be any help, if something went wrong in Baltimore.  I started investigating different EMR systems as soon as I got home to Baltimore and also launched my first practice website.  Soon thereafter, I bought my first Toshiba tablet and created my own rudimentary documenting system.  It made a big difference in my practice of medicine, reducing the mental clutter that paper charts had always caused me.  I created "Requests for Proposal", by this time planning to leave my old group and start my own "paperless, wireless" medical office.  The research involved took longer than expected and circled me right back to eClinicalWorks!

I worked with the Johns Hopkins Medical Management Corporation on securing office space at Green Spring Station, shortening my commute by 15 minutes in either direction.  Their help was a godsend, and I designed a beautiful office space with the help of NFD, Inc, built by MacKenzie Contracting.  We set up internet connection via Comcast, which remains a great deal to this day.  The front office and back office desktops and servers all came to us via Dell, which was reputed to have great customer service... at least reputedly though faltering in real-time.  We bought an additional three Toshiba tablets, since I had another doctor and a physician assistant working for me at the start-up.  As well, we purchased an amazing Fujitsu scanner which has kept up-to-snuff for nearly 5 years, the workhorse behind converting about 2000 paper charts from my old practice to electronic records.  Our digital ECG and spirogram are from Midmark.

Our medical supplies have been care of McKesson Medical-Surgical and office supplies have come to us from my local Staples.  I always feel like such an entrepreneur going in and out of there.  Recently, we have been ordering vaccines from Sanofi Pasteur, which has proven to be the most reliable source of flu shots.

Of course, we have had countless partners from among the specialists, doctors and other providers who have taken the time to teach me about disease recognition, approach to diagnosis, and how to interpret test results.  There is so much learning after medical school, especially since generalists have responsibility to understand a little bit about everything that affects people.

Clearly my most important partners are my patients.  I work one-on-one with over 2,000 patients who are invested enough in their own health to come and see me.  I am fond of saying that my patients are their "own best scientist", as they are able to gather the most data in real time. When they come to me with information, I am able to help them to interpret it and use it.  Even though the medical literature is pessimistic about lifestyle change, I am so impressed by my patients.  Time and time again they prove to me that it is possible to re-orient diet, activity, and habits and to step into the way we were designed to live.  People desire good health.  They desire to be empowered to manage challenging health conditions, and eClinicalWorks has equipped me with the ability to give my patients the information they need and to coordinate their care with other providers.  I love inspiring people and equipping them with the information they need to succeed.  My web designer, Cari Kramer, also helped me put up an eLibrary with helpful interactive health links for my patients on www.greenspringmed.com. I often say, "Living long is only as good as living well."