I have been getting lots of questions lately about finding jobs in healthcare management. The healthcare field is very mobile right now and many managers inside the field and in other fields are looking for advice on the best way to make a move.
In addition to making sure they have the right skills and experience, job seekers also need to be sure that their digital reputations are sterling, and if not, need to make the move to correct them. In fact, every single person reading this post should check on their digital footprint and see what the web has to say. You never know when an employment change will suddenly be in your future.
What if you don’t show up on the web radar at all because you’re not on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google finds no matches for your name? That says you’re not in the know, not networking, not sharing and definitely not computer-savvy. Here’s an excellent SlideShare presentation by Susan P. Joyce of job-hunt.org that gives job seekers (and truly, each one of us in healthcare is a job seeker, whether we admit it to ourselves or not) a gold mine of information about creating or correcting your online presence.
With huge growth in 2009, social media is not just a passing trend used by online marketers; it’s a real, effective method of communicating ideas, sharing information and connecting with people across all age and socioeconomic groups. Healthcare, while slower to adopt the social media wave than other industries, is coming to realize the potential social media tools provide to develop connections with patients, potential patients, along with other physicians and healthcare leaders around the world.
What are some of the driving forces behind this explosion in popularity? One reason is that as consumers, we’re no longer trusting of advertising and we don’t want to be marketed to, we want to be engaged, build a relationship, make the company earn our trust and hear our friends or family’s review of their experiences. In fact, studies show that today, only 14% of people trust advertising, whereas 78% of people trust recommendations and referrals. Companies are using social media outlets to build relationships, trust and encourage recommendations and referrals from their engaged consumer base. As practice, hospital and physician growth are so strongly correlated to patient referral and recommendation volumes, it is only natural healthcare organizations look to social media outlets to continue to foster patient relationships and increase referral volumes.
As of February 2010, where is the healthcare industry in its adoption of this social media explosion? Larger organizations and health systems are utilizing the power to connect, share and engage their patients. While, on average, smaller private physician groups and individual physician offices are still slightly hesitant and dipping their toes in the social media pool cautiously. One can understand why healthcare professionals do need to take a more strategic approach to interacting and engaging patients online with potential HIPAA privacy issues and other challenges looming. However, with a carefully crafted social media strategy, many health organizations are realizing the benefits of becoming more accessible in their marketing and reaching out to inform, educate and build trust with patients. According to Ed Bennett (edbennet.org) hospitals are currently at a 53% adoption rate, with 336 Facebook pages, 430 Twitter Accounts, 254 YouTube Channels and 70 blogs. In total, 557 health systems are reported to be participating in some capacity with social media, with the term “social media” encapsulating many forms and tools, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, LinkedIn, Flickr, and a number of patient forums.
How are healthcare organizations using these tools effectively? Let’s focus on the top three tools currently adopted and being utilized in the healthcare social media sector.
Facebook: Physician practices and health systems alike are using Facebook as a dynamic, community-based website. It has become a place where physicians and leaders can post timely, organic or professional videos to educate patients and also connect on a more personal level. As a valuable resource for health information sharing, many organizations are taking the embarrassment out of sensitive subject matter and addressing specific medical problems, questions and issues for patients. Also, introductions to staff members and tours of the facilities are assisting organizations with connecting with their patients outside the four walls of their office and building rapport before patients even arrive for their appointment. Practices are also encouraging patients to participate and engage on their site through discussions and contests. Private practitioners are more likely to start their social media strategy with just a Facebook Fan Page, while larger health systems and hospitals are embracing other social media tools in combination with Facebook in their initial strategy.
Twitter: Twitter is being adopted quickly by the larger health systems as a way to share information, publicize events like health screenings, fairs and clinics and also connect with other health organizations. I like to think of it as a public relations channel for these hospital and health systems. What’s great is that in short, 140 character or less “tweets”, these organizations are sharing a wealth of information to their patients and those patients are finding ways to access this health information and the system like never before. Overall the smaller, private practitioners are not as quick to adopt Twitter as they are a practice website or even Facebook, but many are starting to realize the benefits of utilizing this community as a way to share their expertise and knowledge, along with driving traffic to their websites.
YouTube: Healthcare organizations are using YouTube like their own, private television station that can be shared with millions of viewers across the world. Again, more popular amongst the larger health organizations, videos of procedures, interviews with clinicians, tours of new facilities and patient testimonials are being posted in a searchable, user-friendly manner to continue to enhance brand awareness, build trust and gain patient loyalty. This social media tool can be used much like Facebook, easing patient fears and answering tough or embarrassing questions. It can also give patients a visual insight into the facility so they know what to expect before arriving at an appointment or for a procedure. It can act as an online referral source, highlighting patients that have had outstanding experiences and are recommending that organization to over a billion of their closest friends and family online. YouTube is the second largest search engine and healthcare professionals are quickly utilizing its power to share and connect with patients.
The fact of the matter is that for all industries, including healthcare, social media is both a curse and a blessing. Patients, who are now consumers with choices, can post content and interact freely with their physicians and their hospitals, sharing both outstanding experiences and negative experiences. Many health professionals are worried about their vulnerability, but social media is real life, online. As 2010 progresses, you’ll be seeing more and more attention placed on social media by healthcare professionals and by the end of the year, it will be a necessity for organizations to be participating and engaging online, or be left out.
For those organizations still looking to test the waters, my best advice is to develop a clear and concise plan for your online activity. Think about your goals, who are you trying to reach and where are those patients connecting online? What resources do you have to allocate to this new marketing initiative? Will you keep your efforts “in-house” or look to a firm to help with the process? Who will manage this strategy once it has been developed? What legal implications must we bear in mind as we move forward to protect our patients’ privacy? These are some of the questions that must be asked before ever jumping into the real-life world of social media. Remember, your patients want to feel engaged and interact with you; they are not looking to be marketed to, promoted to, or sold to. They want real information that can assist them in making important health decisions, while getting to know you and why you care about them as a patient. Use social media tools as a way to connect with your patients outside your office and build lasting relationships, keeping you on the top of their mind. When you can make those types of connections with your patients and build loyalty, your organization will begin to see social media as an effective way to increase your referral and recommendation volumes.
Thanks to guest author Jamie Verkamp, Director, Growth and Development of (e)Merge whose tagline is “Helping Medical Practices Grow”. She can be reached by phone (816)326.8464 – OFFICE, (816)565.1657 – CELL, (816)474.0595 – FAX and can be reached electronically email | web | twitter | facebook.
UPDATE: The poll is now closed and the webinar has passed, but you can still listen to the webinar here until April 2010:
You might have noticed that I’m a big fan of FREE. I believe sharing information and experience builds relationships. Giving information and experience away for free is my ideal. My blog is free, although I must hint that my first eBook is about to be published and will be available here at Manage My Practice. It will not be free. But it will be a great deal and it will pay for itself in 31 days.
What do I get out of blogging? You! You freely share your information and your experience with me, and we both learn and become better. We also get to know each other. Through my blog I’ve met the most wonderful bloggers and authors and managers and vendors and people who have enriched my life.
I have a favor to ask of you. I am participating in a webinar on October 14th – the details are at the bottom of this post. The webinar, of course, is FREE. I am exploring the future of traditional medical transcription and it would help me so much if you would answer one question. I really, really want to know what you think.
Please click here to answer one question.
Thank you very much!
Mary Pat
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Evolving Medical Transcription: Technology’s Impact on Traditional Transcription’s Processes
What will happen to dictation and transcription in the coming age of electronic medical records? With the help of computers, doctors and nurses do more of the documentation themselves, and transcriptionists may find themselves becoming editors rather than typists.
When: October 14, 2009
Time: 2 pm ET/ 11 am PT
Duration: 1 hour
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VistA, (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) which was originally developed in the 1970′s by the Veterans Administration, is an open-source (meaning that the code is available for others to collaborate upon and improve) clinical documentation system that is used by all the 160-plus VA hospitals in the United States, plus all of their outpatient ambulatory clinics. Providing care to over 4 million veterans, employing 180,000 medical personnel and operating 163 hospitals, over 800 clinics and 135 nursing homes , about a quarter of the nation’s population is potentially eligible for VA benefits and services because they are veterans, family members or survivors of veterans. The VistA system has been in use by the Veterans Administration for more than 20 years, and as such is one of the most mature electronic medical records in existence.
As the Veterans Administration does not bill third-party payers, VistA is not a billing system. VistA was released to the public through the Freedom of Information Act by the Veterans Administration and today is publicly available on CDs for a nominal fee. Althought the software is free, there is a cost to install, implement and maintain it.
WorldVistA was formed to extend and collaboratively improve the VistA electronic health record and health information system for use outside of its original setting. The system was originally developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for use in its veterans hospitals, outpatient clinics, and nursing homes. WorldVistA has a number of development efforts aimed at adding new software modules such as pediatrics, obstetrics, and other functions not used in the veterans’ healthcare setting.
WorldVistA seeks to help those who choose to adopt the VistA system to successfully master, install, and maintain the software for their own use. WorldVistA will strive to guide VistA adopters and programmers towards developing a community based on principles of open, collaborative, peer review software development and dissemination.
For more information on VistA, click here for the Wikipedia entry.
People of my generation (the author is in the late afternoon of his twenties) don’t get it. What we don’t get is how relatively new and modern personal computing technology is. We don’t realize that we were one of the first generations to have computers in our classrooms when we started kindergarten, one of the first to have internet access in our libraries, and one of the first to have networked computer interaction as a fundamental part of our lives from a young age. We don’t understand why other generations don’t find computing as intuitive as we do.
Learning to use computers effectively is a process of repetition, immersion, and is ideally started early in life, just like learning a new language. I think there is both a challenge and an opportunity – for all generations – in the generational computing gap. The younger folks who can find ways to tailor their products and services towards usability, approachability and friendliness can often make big strides in taking new technologies mainstream. Boomers and older have tremendous opportunities to separate themselves from their peers and their competitors by balancing a willingness to be open minded about embracing technology with a keen eye towards results.
In this spirit I would like to talk about a basic computing concept: file extensions. First, what is a computer file? (more…)
What a wonderful, crazy time this is, both in healthcare and in my life. I can hardy keep up with either!
First, some changes to my website/blog. I’ve added a few new pages to house special resources, but I don’t have them connected to RSS or email yet, so for the time being readers will need to check out these pages on the bar at the top of the page to see what’s new:
- The Library will house links and documents. Right now it houses links, but documents are coming soon. If you have documents you’d like to share, or some you’d like to see posted on this page let me know.
- Dictionary (will be available soon) is a collection of definitions of words used on this site and is a quick reference for readers. It works two ways. You can go to the page to look up a word alphabetically, and my wonderful tech guy has set it up so the definition of any word in the Lexicon shows up any time you roll over the word anywhere on the blog.
- Down the road I plan to…well, why ruin the surprise – stay tuned!
Second, yesterday my husband and I embarked on a cross-country trip from Seattle to Raleigh. We are relocating back to North Carolina as I continue my job search. If you’d like to hear about our travels, click on the last new page, Road Trip.
And third, Manage My Practice.com is closing in one year of blogging, 100 posts, more than 100 subscribers via email and RSS, and close to 100 visitors daily. I sincerely thank each of you for taking the time to visit my blog.
An excellent article on EHRs and CCHIT was pointed out to me recently and I thought I’d pass it along to my readers. To answer the question “What is CCHIT?”, the site SoftwareAdvice says this:
CCHIT is a private, non-profit organization formed to certify EHRs against a minimum set of requirements for functionality, interoperability and security. It was founded in 2004 by three industry associations ( HIMSS, AHIMA and the Alliance (no longer in operation.) It was subsequently funded further by the California Healthcare Foundation and a group of payers (e.g. United HealthGroup), providers (e.g. HCA) and software vendors (e.g. McKesson). In 2005, CCHIT was granted a $2.7 million contract by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support its mission. A number of other medical associations have since supported CCHIT. Despite the HHS contract, CCHIT is not an extension of the federal government.
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I wrote this article for the Physician Office Managers Association of America (POMAA) March/April 2009 Newletter. If you don’t know POMAA, check out their website.
Each of us have areas of expertise based on our experience, our education and what we find interesting and fun. IT knowledge and skills are no longer optional, however, and I suggest every medical practice manager learn as much as possible about the following five areas. Your work life and the life of your practice may depend on it!
Skill 1: Email Etiquette and Management
Email can rule your work life if you don’t make good choices with your messages. Managers need to know how to use the Rules Tool (Outlook) to automatically move messages into folders, and how to turn emails into Tasks and Appointments. Work communication can succeed or fail if you don’t have the basics under your command. Knowing how to archive your email will not only save you time when looking for important information, but will save you from the frustration of searching through hundreds of emails. Here are the basics of email management:
- Most organizational experts recommend looking at your email twice a day, and turning off the setting that notifies you immediately when you have new email. Email can be very addictive, and can suck your time away from projects and other work.
- Just like paper, try to only touch an email once. Once you read the email, decide whether to delete it, answer/forward it and delete it, or do something else with it like dragging it to the task list or calendar. Don’t get caught in the ugly cycle of reading it once, and going on to the next email without doing anything about it. If you do that, you’ll end up with lots of emails that you have to read again…and maybe a third time.
- Never put anything critical (of a criticizing nature) in an email. If you need to have that type of conversation with a colleague, pick up the phone. A critique to an employee is best done in person, with a follow-up email for the file.
- Always check your outgoing email for tone. The best tone for business email is professional. This means a greeting, a message, a “thank you” and footer with your full name, title, and contact information. Some organizations are more formal, and some are less formal, but I would err on the side of being more professional. You can always set your email signature to include the greeting and thank you and your name, so all you have to do is complete the middle.
- For emails that do need to be saved for reference, make subfolders under your Inbox to place reference email. Even better, copy the email to a Word document, and delete the email.
- Have high priority (your boss or bosses) and low priority (listservs, subscriptions) email automatically come into their own folders. The low priority email can wait and the high priority email can be dealt with first.
- Group emails with jokes, homespun wisdom, clever tests and unbelievable pictures are a waste of your time. If you need a break from work, go for a walk, but get rid of the group emails. They take personal and server email space and can border on or be outright offensive, causing a problem if you don’t nip it in the bud. Remember that email is legally discoverable.
- Be careful about answering emails off the top of your head, possibly when you’re angry, or rushed. If you need to delay answering an email because of your mood, drag the email over to the task list and set the to-do for tomorrow.
Skill 2: Understanding Medical Office Software
Acronyms come and go, but the basic software that supports medical practices remains the same. Practice Management Systems (PMS) typically include registration, scheduling, billing and reporting as one component. Today’s systems are built around the billing function, with scheduling and registration supporting the ability to generate electronic claims and post payments back to the transactions. Because billing is becoming more standardized, it is the reporting that can make or break a practice.
Electronic Medical Records (EMR) are sometimes referred to in a broader sense as EHR (Electronic Health Records) and range from the simplest of systems which act as a repository for the electronic chart to the most sophisticated systems which may include digital imaging, e-prescribing, complex messaging, medication reconciliation, and test alerting, among others. EMR and PMS can be totally integrated, or can interface with each other, populating the other uni-directionally or bi-directionally. Those mangers with a deeper understanding of their own software systems will find it easier to implement pay for performance measures such as PQRI and e-prescribing, and will not have to rely on vendors to educate them.
PACS is Picture Archiving and Communication System and allows easy indexing and retrieval of images. PACS exists primarily in radiology and surgical specialty offices, but as more hospitals extend EMR and PACS privileges to physician offices, managers will need to understand something about the technology.
Other systems that will interface to your system are transcription, outsourced billing systems, data warehouses, claims clearinghouse, electronic posting systems, and web services interfaces. Get or make a graphic representation of your software and hardware system/network so you can talk knowledgeably about it and understand the effects of adding new servers, workstations or software modules.
Skill 3: Using Technology to Stay Current in Your Field
Magazines, newspapers and even television news is losing favor as people find the latest and most in-depth news on the Internet. For physician office managers, news and important information is available through websites, newsletters, newsfeeds, webinars, podcasts, listservs and blogs. How does a manager sift through all these options and stay current with the demand of running a day-to-day practice?
One of the most important ways to consolidate this information is to subscribe to a feedreader or email from websites you like and have the news come to you (called “push technology”), instead of you checking the website every few days or whenever you remember (aka “pull technology”). These are the programs that will eventually do away with most, if not all, of your magazine subscriptions. You know that guilty pile of professional magazines that you have in your office or at home that you have scanned but still plan to read in-depth? Gone!
Most websites offer email or RSS options to their users. An email option asks you to enter your email address and will email you when new information is available, typically offering the full content inside the email itself. This is ideal for anyone who has these emails automatically placed into an email subfolder to read later.
RSS stand for Really Simple Syndication and is a way to push the content of many sites into a feedreader, which is an organizer of website feeds. There are many feedreaders available at no cost and adding a new website feed to your personal feedreader is as simple as clicking on the orange RSS icon on the website page and identifying the feedreader you use. The nice thing about using RSS is that you can group sites into categories you decide upon, it is easy to add new sites and drop sites that you find a waste of your time, and you do not clog up your email program with lots of emails.
Webinars and podcasts are another way to stay current. Many webinars are free and allow you to dip your toe into the pool of knowledge on a particular topic. Webinars with a fee attached are usually longer and more in-depth, and can replace the traditional go-to conference which has become a budget breaker for many practices.
eBooks are quickly becoming the way to get just the information you want when you want it. Most eBooks are reasonably priced (some are free) and can be stored or printed.
Skill 4: Online Patient Interactions and Web 2.0 Applications
Patient interactivity via practice websites is growing exponentially. Many practices are using web functionality to communicate with their patients via secure messaging. This allows bi-directional communication such as:
1. Request an appointment (patient) or appointment reminders (practice)
2. Send statements; patients pay online with a credit card (practice & patient)
3. Inform patients of test results (practice)
4. Create personal health records (patient)
5. Request a prescription refill (patient)
6. Virtual office visits (practice & patient)
7. Complete registration via fillable .pdf forms and download to practice management system (practice & patient)
8. Request medical records; send an electronic copy of same (practice & patient)
9. Complete a history of present illness prior to the on-site visit (patient)
10. Ask & answer questions for the doctor, nurse, or staff (patient & practice)
If you’re not looking into ways to communicate with your patients electronically, start now. Web 2.0 is now more typically referred to as social networking, social media or new media. What started out as a way for friends to communicate with each other is now an amazing, ever-expanding ability to connect/market to businesses, patients and referrers. Very few medical practices are using social media, but they should, because it is the way of the future, and in many cases, very affordable.
Skill 5: Knowledge Management and Retention
Most medical offices try hard to document processes such as “How To Make An Appointment For Dr. Jones,” but find it difficult to keep up with documenting changes to those written protocols. Documentation is crucial for operations in that it supports job performance and consistency, and is a basis for training new employees. The traditional documentation method for most practices is use of Word documents, which can create an immediate usability logjam. Due to cost, Microsoft Office is not installed on many workstations, and many office employees are not trained to use Word, so the onus for original creation of and changing of protocols falls to one person. Changes in healthcare are happening so quickly that it is not reasonable for one person to be able to update all documentation, unless they are dedicated to it on a full-time basis.
Better and more affordable solutions are becoming available. Speech recognition and office wikis are two possibilities for documenting office processes. Speech recognition (you may already be using it for your transcription) is a very affordable solution, but it does take time to train the program to recognize your voice. If you are not used to dictating, it may also be a learning curve, but it is one that will pay dividends down the road. Doctors can use it to help you by dictating their preferences, such as appointments, patient intake, room set-up, procedure set-up, patient phone protocol and after-hours call contact protocol.
Private wikis are another good bargain in the marketplace, as many are available at no cost, and may be installed and managed on the web. Wikis need at least one person to function as editor. Since you can have your entire staff work on documentation, the staff becomes very invested in the process of keeping the wiki fresh and up-to-date.
There are other free or low-cost project management web programs that can also be used to track changes and remind staff to document changes later. The one area that is most important for tracking changes and managing knowledge in the practice is in billing. Many practices are held hostage by their billers as their knowledge is so specific and proprietary that the manager feels s/he could not recoup it if they left. No practice should be vulnerable based on knowledge any single employee has, including the manager.
I am very interested in technology that creates value in medical office practices. If you are using something new and different in your practice, please email me and let me know. Also, if you have any questions about the ideas I discuss in this article, I am glad to answer them: marypatwhaley@gmail.com.
It seems only yesterday we got along just fine using words like “photography” and “cable television” without the world “digital” in front of them. They were “analog” technologies, but they didn’t need to be marketed as such, because there was no point – there was no marketing buzz on the term, and no alternative. Nowadays the word “digital” is everywhere and is accompanied by a very positive connotation. It seems if you are selling something “digital”, it is a superior, more technologically advanced product or service, and it probably lies on the cutting edge of its field. Digital is an old buzzword, maybe even a little past its prime, but it is still used heavily to promote what are already standard, mainstream technologies. If you Google the word “digital” the search engine returns around one billion web results. Compare that to “health care” which gets only a tenth of that.
“…But, what does digital mean?…”
Good question! Digital is a word I imagine few can give a succinct, straight definition for. For all the triumphs and innovations of the “digital revolution”, I doubt that there are a lot of people who can define the term’s root-word.
Let’s talk about theory here for a while, in abstract terms.
Imagine a two clocks on the wall of your office. Both are set to the correct time, and are the same model, except for one small difference. The clock on the left is always moving. The second hand of the clock sweeps around the dial in one long stroke, as do the minute and hour hands, although much slower.
The clock on the right is not always moving. It jumps second to second in a “tic-toc” style, and when the minutes, and hours are finished those hands jump as well. Both clocks represent the same piece of information- what time it is- but they have two different ways of representing how the time changes from moment to moment.
The clock on the left is one constant motion, and so it never stops to tell you “exactly” what time it is, but does tell you when the time is between seconds (not very useful, but remember we’re being theoretical). The clock on the right is much more specific (you can tell exactly what time it is, to the second), but never reports time in the intervals between the seconds.
This distinction, between a continuous flow of information, and a constant drip-drip-drip of individual pieces of data is the difference between analog signals and digital signals.
The clock on the left is analog- it provides a continuous “signal” (flow of information)- what time it is. The clock on the right is digital- it provides a continuous series of “points” of information, with periods in between each point with no information being produced (the moment between each second’s “tic”)
Back to the real world
You remember music records, right? They were flat, circular pieces of vinyl that could be put into a primitive version of what looked like a large CD player. If you had electricity, you could plug this “record” player, or “turntable” into a power outlet, and attach it to a set of two speakers using pieces of wire. The player would turn the record at a constant speed, and then the listener would carefully place a delicate needle attached to a mechanical arm on the record player onto the surface of the vinyl and under optimum conditions, sound would be produced through the speakers. There were all manner of musical groups that made these records, and they could played at parties or by yourself for solo enjoyment. The whole affair was quite charming.
Record players work by having the needle run gently over the “grooves” of the record, which are imprinted on the vinyl in such a fashion that the vibrating needle will quietly reproduce the recorded sound. Then the record player electrifies and amplifies the sound, and boom- party time!
There are no “gaps” in the record when it is playing. Even while the record is silent, the needle is running over an empty groove that isn’t vibrating the needle. Even when the signal is blank, it is part of the entire record, and it’s continuous playback. Record players therefore, are an “analog” technology.
I grew up with compact discs. Compact discs are actually very similar to vinyl records in how they operate. A CD player spins the disc at a constant speed, but instead of a needle running over the grooves, a laser (Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation) is focused onto the grooves, and is reflected back onto one of two sensors, which then create a series of data points that are turned into music. But the key difference is in how that sound data is represented. Instead of a continuous flow of sound, a CD is comprised of billions and billions of these tiny data points. Every second of sound on a CD is 44,100 individual pieces of data that tell the CD player what sort of noise to make. Even though you don’t hear “skips” in between pieces of data, the sound is actually a series of noises that are 0.0000226 seconds long. CDs are digital technology then, because they rely on many individual pieces of data rather than one long stream of information.
Is digital better than analog?
Well, let’s stay with the record player vs. CD player discussion. Listening to the same recording on the two different players produces two distinct sonic experiences. If you’re not a huge music fan, but like to hear tunes from time to time you might not even notice it. But if you’re a music fanatic who takes his sound quality very, very seriously, then you probably notice a lot of differences. The analog record is going to have “signal noise” where electrical and environmental interference distorts and slightly interrupts the signal- the slight hiss you hear in the backgroud of a record, and the loss of audio quality as the signal fades in strength over time. Never mind the pops and scratches that come with the wear and tear of handling and playing the record. Purists insist however, that the analog signal provides a certain “warmth” and some talk about the presence of a “soul” to the music that can’t be found in digital.
Of course, this isn’t to say that CDs sound bad. In fact, without the signal loss and interference, many everyday listeners think CDs sound far superior to records. The digital signal means a “cleaner”, “brighter” sound that comes from listening to only the music, and not the noise in the background. However, something is lost with CDs, literally. Like the brief moments of time between the jumps of the second hand on the clock on the right in our earlier analogy, the tiny moments between each of the 44,100 tiny pieces of sound aren’t recorded or played back on CD. These microscopic little pieces of music that aren’t on the CD lead some audiophiles to call digital sound “cold” and slightly “empty”.
The bottom line is this however. Most music that is being made today is being sold on either CDs or MP3 downloads (learn how to start using MP3s in my earlier Learn This Now post here), and not vinyl records. Even disc jockeys that play in clubs rarely use real vinyl anymore. So even if you think CDs sound a little worse than vinyl, chances are you already use digital music almost exclusively, and will continue to do so.
What should I know going forward?
The truth is, there aren’t many traditional analog technologies still in use. Radio and television broadcasts are still analog, but with the rise of Satellite Radio services like Sirius and XM, and the coming American Digital Television transition, even those are on the way out.
The important thing to remember is that just because something says “digital” it isn’t necessarily a huge leap over an old technology, or even particularly new. But now that you know what digital and analog means, you are empowered to decipher any such attempts at newfangled tomfoolery. Stay tuned to ManageMyPractice.com for the resources you need to stay ahead of the curve. Cheers!
Note from Mary Pat: The change to digital technology has tremendous implications for healthcare. Think about telemedicine, electronic health records, and sharing of all information digitally. Expect some significant changes down the road in medical records between Obama’s stimulus plan and dollars for HIT and the transition to digital technology.
Brief But Meaningful Communication
One of the most valuable, if not THE most valuable, resource a healthcare executive has are colleagues and their collective experiences. The issues that we confront daily are what we need and want to discuss with our comrades-in-arms.
The listserv is the most direct way of sharing information between colleagues. I belong to a number of MGMA (Medical Group Management Association) listservs and to the AAOE (American Academy of Orthopedic Executives, formerly BONES) listserv. These listservs are amazingly helpful and I have more often been the benefactor than the provider of information there. But listservs have their limitations.
You have to be a member of these organizations to participate in their listservs. This is not unreasonable, as the infrastructure and management of a listserv is not without cost. As healthcare continues to get squeezed, however, managers will have to make harder choices about which resources and memberships they and their practices can afford. Membership requirements also screen the participants, which may be important to some. The screening, however, may limit the amount of participation and the diversity of participation. Healthcare is becoming global, as any medical practice competing for the medical tourism dollar will tell you.
Listservs can also take time to read and delete or store. I have not found an easy solution to arranging the information I want to retain, although there is always deleting the listserv emails and searching the archives later.
I am finding Twitter to be a no-cost solution to many of my needs not fulfilled by listservs. I have access to thought leaders in and outside my field, and the conversations we have can be on or off the grid. Although it was initially difficult to constrain myself, I now find the limitation to 140 characters to be very liberating.
Tweets are brief pointers to people, conversations, blogs, and resources across the world. As Kenneth Yu says on his blog MindValley Labs:
…Twitter is currently the closest app on Earth that replicates the actual thought patterns of the human mind. You see, the human mind does not really think in blog and article form. It does not think in huge chunks of information. Instead, it thinks in a stream of consciousness way, random disjointed thought layered upon random disjointed thought.
Twitter also has a number of applications designed to organize information, contacts and conversations in ways that make information easy to retrieve. To follow me on Twitter, use my Twitter name @mpwhaley. To join a brand-new community of discussions around medical practice management, use the #medpractice hashtag to search and join the conversation.
