Clicking the image (or this link) will download a small file (.asx Windows Media) that plays the video from AHRQ’s archive of the day. Slides aren’t included in the video; they’re here. (URL updated 8/22/15 due to AHRQ site reorganization)
About the talk: An hour long plenary address, June 2010. I don’t often get a full hour to speak, but when I do, I can really cover the landscape.
About AHRQ: The Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality is a terrific Federal agency that administers grants and contracts for health-related projects, including health IT. This was a high quality group of smart people who manage significant projects.
About the title: Just before this meeting a rumor was circulating that an executive at a medical records company had said “Over my dead body.” The exec was referring to the idea that these systems would be required to be usable by the clinicians who care for us. I was aghast; a December lecture by Ross Koppel had detailed how bad some of the systems were, and believe me, if hospital staff are caring for my loved one, I want them to have a good system, not one that screws up as badly as Koppel describes. So I threw that line in the industry’s face, using it as my title – and connecting it to why this matters to patients.
We must, must, must stop thinking about systems primarily in technicians’ terms. We must remember that the purpose of healthcare is to deliver care, and tools must support the workers who do that.
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