Cultivating Innovation instead of Conformity

I had the opportunity to see Neal Patterson speak at the American Royal scholarship lunch. For those of you non-Kansas City people who read my blog – American Royal is a foundational aspect of Kansas City which is facing a momentous challenge….but I will close with my thoughts on that…

Neal has an interesting way of communicating, if you haven’t experienced him in a large venue you should. He speaks as if looking at a whiteboard – where he can see how everything fits nicely together yet he is searching for the next white space that he is supposed to identify and fill. As he moved into a segment on Healthcare (industry) he made several statements that have sat with me for the last few days.

Here was my take away: We as a culture/ industry have moved from innovating in healthcare to finding a way to work within the constraints the government has put on us. This has created a mantra of focusing our creative efforts towards efficiency and conformity to squeeze the turnip. Many have resigned to the idea that government provided healthcare will be our new way of life. I believe this will strangle and destroy the ability for the innovators to create a new way of being.

Gut check…..how is the product we have created and our roadmap conforming to the government constraints? Are we answering the problems of today without considering the opportunity of a future that is NOT created by Obamacare?

As a company, Sphere3 has been tagged in number of different buckets. Early on people continuously called us a “bolt on reporting software for nurse call” which always annoyed me. Their short sighted understanding of what “reporting” is and what the impact of patient generated data could be on the care delivery model….if you can’t see beyond “reporting” then you are stuck in the early 1990s and need to get your head out of the sand. Reporting is dead – it is a post mortem and if your company is still focused on reports…..then to quote my 10 year old “dude”.

Most recently, we have been tagged as a survey tool…..ugh….while our tool can gather everything from patient experience to site specific data. The FUNCTION of survey is really meaningless without a true intersection of patient behavioral and caregiver engagement information. When we try to use “feeling” to define process we lose the ability to have long lasting impact.

I believe that a product category will emerge this year that will even go beyond Alarm Fatigue. It will identify how the patient generated data produced in a useable format at the point of care beyond dashboards and beyond that of an alarm or alert. I believe the category will be AS impactful as Electronic Medical Record. This spider web of information produced BY the patient will be AS important as information produced ABOUT the patient. The information produced BY the patient must be compiled and visually produced in a useable manner as engageable digestible information…at the point of care.

Hospital Leaders, do me a favor the next time a sales person shows you their reports….ask them “How do you expect me to use that at the point of care? How do you expect me to create an environment of quality care that is actively evolving with a piece of paper?” The next time a sales person shows you their survey tool…… ask them “How do the actions of the care team compare to that patients perception?” The next time a sales person throws the word “Alarm Fatigue” make them really tell you how their tool will impact care….how will they really engage and change the behaviors of your care team other than a Pavlovian response to yet another alarm…….

I promised a close on the American Royal….so if you are not from here then the end is not for you but I welcome you to read on.

Our city has a lack of vision accompanied by a lack of appreciation for our Agrarian roots that should be seen as a strength and not a weakness. Do you not see that the American Royal is part of who we are? Or are you trying to define us by the music concerts and monster truck rallies at the Sprint center?

My personal rant which is shared in good company by Neal Patterson..…children today do not understand how food gets to our tables, but there is an uprising of individuals who believe in buying local or even producing their own food. I live in a rural area. (Across the street from cows and surrounded by farming) I desire to know where my food originates. We have an obligation to our community and region to continue to support and promote those who feed us. There is a slippery slope and danger to a community that fails to recognize where our food originates. We have an obligation to our area to encourage and enable young people to learn how to be the next generation of farmers.

Agriculture has become a growth industry again in our economy. The promise of technology and innovation as America feeds the expanding population of the world is a great opportunity. Our youth have an opportunity to cultivate promising careers in a sector of our economy undergoing great change.

My question back to the AR is how are you cultivating growth in the city which birthed you? How are you innovating beyond rural to impact the local community beyond merely brining in additional attendees to your events? How are you reaching into the schools to provide education and perspective?

Don’t you agree city leaders……or do you think that your food comes from a grocery store?

The Patitent as a Person - my lunch with Clay Patterson

The patient’s position in the HIT marketplace is that of data….that is a really strong statement but if you look at the Medical Record you know it’s actually a fact. The focused push to enable EMR in hospitals IS critical and has to occur. The mindset around it, to me, is often concerning.

Somehow the “data” has to evolve back into a “patient” who has to evolve back into a “person”.


As most of you know – my professional passion is the patient, the one who must take up residence within the walls of a hospital for a period of time. However, if we limit ourselves to seeing the “patient” only within those walls then we limit our view of the health continuum.

On Monday I enjoyed a wonderful lunch with Cerner’s Clay Patterson. I wasn’t sure what to expect – Cerner is an enigma – when people ask me about it I say “It’s shiny” meaning it’s very exciting, cool new innovations, amazing technology, thriving business, and flashy interactive gadgets. However, nothing I had seen to date gave me the feeling of heart – innovation, yes – incredible business, absolutely – heart, not so much. The heart I was missing was the patient – the person. Then I met Clay. His passion is getting medical data in a useable format so that a person can better interact with their health. This incredibly engaging and friendly man painted a picture of Cerner unlike any I had seen before – he shared a vision of people not products.

As he spoke, the picture that formed in my head was a giant sphere and inside of it there were stations of a person’s health journey. They include Hospital, Family Doctor, Medications, Tests, and even Diet & Exercise. (which I call DEA - which is a blog for another day) all surrounding the ability to research within the platform. The components within the sphere are interconnected and the data can ride freely between them.

The Sphere is taking information that is generally spaghetti and putting it into waffle format. When it’s in waffle format it can be searched, analyzed, cross referenced, and made into useable information. Think of it like managing your finances. Many of us keep our receipts in a box – or a wallet – or the center console of our car (or for some of us all of those places). You may have to dig them out if you need to return something, but the data of what you bought and when generally goes nowhere. However, if you use an online banking service then it automatically can analyze your spending habits and you can toss your little pieces of dispirit papers. The evaluation can lead to better planning, better habits, and overall better financial wellness. WHY? Because Data itself is not valuable – Data analyzed and applied into information is valuable.

But will adoption of this medium really occur. My prediction is yes – if you look at the slow recovery of our economy, you notice that people are spending less with credit cards and more with cash. Why because when you lose your home due to over spending you must take drastic measures to get things under control. People have had to learn to live within their means. Currently, the US is one of the most unhealthy nations in the world. Out of necessity a time is coming when we are going to have to reclaim our health. Sooner than later change will occur – not because there is some cool gadget but because consumers will realize that managing their health is the same as managing their finances.

The challenge will be education, access, and funding. How are we going to teach masses of people how to engage with their health while using a computer based tool?  Encouraging people to take control of their health is only part of the puzzle.  How are people going to get access to this portal?  This is a really layered portion of the equation including socioeconomic, locations, etc.  Who is going to provide access to this cool portal and who will “own” the data? Remember the data isn’t the value, the value is in the analysis….. when the data becomes information. As with everything else, it all comes back to who is going to pay for it? In a time when socialized healthcare is looming are we going to drive consumers to pay (not likely), employers, payers, ACOs?

If you believe that the patient is the heart of all we do then you must believe that the patient’s ability to interact with their health is critical to our success.

Stay Tuned for an exciting announcement from Cerner in the coming months.