The Patient Within the Code

HIMSS made me have one of those “Wow” moments where the world was once flat and now is in full Spherical shape. I was amazed at the bright colorful booths, the well dressed executives, and the hustle and bustle of it all. As I had a complete geek out moment – playing with widgets, talking tech with providers and hospitals – I began to get lost in the forest of tech and saw how it would be easy to lose the patient amongst the code.


Technology is enabling – Technology is empowering – Technology can become overwhelming and overused.

I had the luxury at HIMSS to tour Grady Hospital with Hakan Ilikan, Director of Process Improvement. Ilikan’s passion is to see technology make life better for the caregivers, patients, and families.  I will tell you the full story in a later post, but one moment stood out.  As I walked through the waiting room of the OR my gaze carried past the screen of information about the patients progression through surgery and I made eye contact with a woman – for a brief moment I was reminded why we are all doing this – for her and her loved one.

How many times a day does the patient enter your conversation?
How about their family?
How many times a day do you visualize how your technology helps them?
Does your technology really help them at all?

Maybe I am the only techy geek that sometimes forgets what it’s all about – maybe I am not. I keep a picture on our website which serves as a reminder for myself and my team of why we do this – why we focus on making life better. 

Technologists – Manufactures – Service Providers is it possible that we are so consumed with the competition, development, deployments, that the patient becomes de-emphasized in our equation?


Don’t misplace the patient among the code – Don’t forget why we are all in this game.


We as a company have not shared our Vision but I think it is important – it’s not long – we didn’t hire a large consulting firm to help us –it’s pretty simple “To Make Life Better” followed by our Mission “To Empower Organizations with integration of people, process, and technology.”