Taking control, for the right reasons

This one is for my fellow healthcare providers, an attempt to explain my bizarre actions of late. Drilling down to the heart of it, I am very frustrated, a little scared, and cautiously optimistic.

This one is for my fellow healthcare providers, an attempt to explain my bizarre actions of late. Drilling down to the heart of it, I am very frustrated, a little scared, and cautiously optimistic. I am also stubborn and arrogant. And frustrated -- did I mention that part?

I am pretty well sick of being told what to do. I am tired of being told what is best, I am fed up with hearing that things have to be done a certain way, or that we are not allowed to do things differently. I reached my limit some time ago. There are generally two responses to inexorable scenarios: give up, or give in. But there is another option, and that realization is stoking the smoldering optimism.

I have two examples.

The first is my seemingly unhealthy obsession with this little communication app called qliqsoft. Anyone so determined to ram it down the throats of his colleagues is surely being paid (or at least has some financial stake in the utilization) because what else could be the motivator?

How about that frustration I mentioned?

I want qliqsoft to become ubiquitous in our healthcare community, but I have absolutely no financial stake in it at all. None. Not being paid by them, no investment in their company, no qliqsoft logos on my racecar (which, by the way, I am selling to help fund all of this madness, in case you are interested). So what's the big deal?

Lack of communication is a colossal issue that we hear lamented from every corner of our world. Yet despite the explosion of opportunities to connect in ways that were fantasy just a few years ago, nothing has improved. Why? Because everyone is trying to capitalize on the need. Every single electronic medical record promises to improve communication, but every single one is strategically designed to do one thing first: make money for the manufacturer. You need the information, but you are going to have to pay to get it. It is the American way, nothing wrong with that, except the fact that it is keeping us from fixing things. There is a reason EMRs do not seamlessly talk to each other, and it has nothing to do capabilities, nothing to do with HIPAA, but it has everything to do with $$$.

If we as healthcare providers step back from our financial silos and designed a system that would allow us all to communicate, it might look something like this:

• It needs to be easy. Life is too hectic to have to hunt for a phone number or email address of wait on hold or pull someone out of a room or wonder what office they are working from or if they are even in town today. I need to be able to type a couple of letters of their name and be done with it.
• It has to be secure. I have to protect people's privacy, and I also have to be able to speak openly.
• It has to be blind to financial or organizational associations. Patients shouldn't have to care about where, and all of us benefit when we help each other out.
• It has to be cheap. When one of the biggest problems is cost, spending even more money to try to fix a problem doesn't make sense.
• It's not about the bells and whistles. It doesn't have to be fancy or complex, we just need to be connected.

Qliqsoft will do all of these. Is it the only system that could? I don't know, and I don't really care. It was already here, and that makes it cheaper and easier. We can use it to collectively build solutions to our problems. Why didn't we see it before? There are forces which don't really want us to fix these issues, because they won't be able to capitalize on the need. Is anyone else going to show us how to do this? No. No one else really cares about fixing our problems, they just want to sell us something. So we either do it ourselves, or we remain pawns in the system.

The second is this transportation app that I am building, which is following the exact same philosophy: don't capitalize on a need, fix the problem. In this case, transportation in the city is the problem, and it's a problem for all of us (whether you know if or not). It is also critical for the health of our community. Most assume that it is going to make me a bunch of money. Since the app will always be free to get or use, there isn't much hope in that, precisely why the business people say it is folly: it isn't designed to make money. Nor is it free transportation for poor people. So what the hell is it?

Start by looking at Uber. Uber is nothing more than a modern take on a taxi company, and is analogous to a modern electronic medical record: it is a slick system that intends to capitalize on our need. In this case, the need is transportation. Just like an EMR, for Uber to make money, everyone needs to use Uber. If an EMR's goal was truly to facilitate communication, it would make it easy, regardless. If Uber's goal was to improve transportation, it would work with other assets, not against them.

So if we as a community take a step back and imagine a better system, it would probably look something like this:

• It has to be for everyone. The situations that are the most difficult to address aren't where the money is, but they are the most important.
• It should increase the utility of all existing transportation assets. No part of our current systems is the answer, not taxis, not buses. But that doesn't mean you shut them down. Instead, work with them to make them more effective.
• It should create new options. If we need to improve transportation, we are only going to do that by growing the system in innovative ways.
• It has to be safe. Uber puts profits before people, this is about our people.
• It has to be cheap. When one of the biggest problems is cost, spending even more money to try to fix a problem doesn't make sense.
• Use all the bells and whistles. And give them to everyone, to make every part of the system more effective.

MoveUP will do all of these. We can use it to collectively build solutions to our problems. Why doesn't something like it already exist? There are forces which don't really want us to fix these issues, because they won't be able to capitalize on the need. Is anyone else going to show us how to do this? No. No one else really cares about fixing our problems, they just want to sell us something. So we either do it ourselves, or we remain pawns in the system.

Sound familiar?

This is why I am pushing qliqsoft. This is why I am building MoveUP. If you are frustrated, you can give up, or you can give in. I'd rather give them all the bird. I am tired of being told what is best, of hearing that things have to be done a certain way, that we aren't allowed to do things differently. We have everything we need, right here, and we know better than anyone else how to fix our own problems. We just have to have the courage to do it.