Two Health IT Pros Chat About Innovation

So the 9^th Annual Health2Con Conference started in Santa Clara, CA yesterday and the #health2con hashtag was getting plenty of use. As I worked in the office I kept one eye on the tweet stream for this tag and saw quite a few interesting things. One thread in particular stood out to me: A tweet from @Availity asking “What's the coolest thing you've see today at #Health2con?”

Two of #HITsm’s most prolific tweeters, Bill Bunting (@WTBunting) and Charles Webster (@wareflo), jumped on @Availity's question and then went back and forth between themselves. I don’t know why but I thought their exchange was somewhat amusing.  As best as I can reconstruct, here’s their exchange in the order it unfolded over the course of about 20 minutes.

Note that I removed extraneous hashtags to make for easier reading and comprehension.

Person	Tweet
@WTBunting	The coolest thing will be when we start using #innovation widespread to change #healthcare. http://bitly.com/1V9xQSd  #health2con
@wareflo	Innovation, shift, could you please be more specific?
@WTBunting	#mHealth, #digitalhealth, #healthIT, #workflow tech, etc... just do it & improve. Quit BS'ing around.
@wareflo	Got it, just do it, quit BS’ing around < do what? What constitutes not BS’ing around?
@WTBunting	#Healthcare needs to implement what fits, what will improve, not fear change...otherwise they risk extinction
@wareflo	Excellent top level goals, but devil in details, please provide specifics, what, exactly are you proposing?
@WTBunting	How many #hospitals have implemented what you advocate for? Not many. Same issue. What’s your plan?
@wareflo	My plan? Implement HIT/EHR on process aware business process management foundations < YOUR plan?
@wareflo	5 part series interop chuckwebster.com/2015/08/social… 5 part series HC BPM chuckwebster.com/2014/06/health…
@WTBunting	Me? Change the way we manage & use data. Change the way we engage the #patient. Change #healthcare deliver.
@WTBunting	Yet we both lose on the HOW. Can’t make orgs / #hospitals change. Can only offer ideas & hope they implement.
@wareflo	Great thing is? My plan is happening. Dramatic uptake workflow tech in healthcare
@WTBunting	We've been talking about #interoperability, since what, the 70's? How's that working for us? :)
@WTBunting	Crap load of tech on both sides of the isle... the issue is actual use, widespread, not just a select few.
@wareflo	Not been talking about interoperability since 70s, I've been talking about workflow (literally)
@WTBunting	Slowest industry to change...ever. Meanwhile providers suffer & #patients suffer more. Sad.

Three Things I Took Away from Bill & Charles

Innovation will be necessary to make a meaningful change to healthcare but as Charles stated “the devil is in the details.”

We in healthcare IT must provide specifics on exactly what we propose to do to effect that change.

Ultimately, we can only offer ideas & hope providers implement them.

But Wait!  There's More!

Charles ended the discussion with a call to join a blab session in honor of the 10th anniversary of NHITWeek scheduled for 10/7/15 at 14:00EST

"Come and spout off at Mid #blab! http://chuckwebster.com/2015/10/nhitweek/join-our-blab-wednesday-at-2pm-est-mid-national-health-it-week-blab Wed 2PM:  https://blab.im/charles-webster-md-mid-national-health-it-week-nhitweek-chat-what-s-been-great-what-s-coming-up"