"Our healthcare system is experimenting with quick-care services."

Dr. Westcott, which trade publications have you subscribed to?

I haven’t subscribed to any trade publications, but I get a number of them across my desk every week; Information Week or Healthcare IT News, for example, I read regularly. I also receive membership publications, which do feature technology articles, such as the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Are you getting your information from online sources?

No, not really, I stick to paper. Other than exploring e-mails that I receive a lot, I rarely use online media for information purposes. Paper is still nice to have – it's nice to get the picture together with the article, sometimes you get a break in your day and you just go and read the article instead of searching through a website.

What I realized, though, is that in print the images have become bigger and the depth of reports has been reduced. I guess they really want to encourage us to go to their website and follow up on the print articles. 

What kind of market and product information are you looking for when you read a magazine? 

Currently, we’re thinking of new devices that allow us to offer telemedicine. As we’re entering the age of consumer-driven healthcare, we’re seeing the growth of the “fast-food mentality” in this area, too. Therefore, our healthcare system is experimenting with quick-care services, providing care in factory locations or grocery stores. For example, an otoscope that is connected to a computer would allow the ear to be examined almost anywhere, the image to be sent to a physician in another location and a diagnosis to be made jointly. I can even see the day that patients have such a device at home, so you can stick it in your own child’s ear, transmit the image to your doctor and get the diagnosis.

On the software side, we‘re looking at a patient portal that could allow patients to get their lab results as soon as they're available or to view their medical record. We’re also looking at a physician portal – PDA display is the big topic here.

In such cases, testimonials from customers about their experience with technologies are really helpful - because most of the time these devices go through beta testing and I look very critically at the outcome.

Do you also try to share your own experiences? 

We do. We work closely with our software provider to produce case studies - we just finished a clinical usability study on tablet computers and we’re releasing white papers. We have a whole executive readership team in our health system – we have a director of innovation who goes out to find new “toys” for us to play with.

I’m also responsible for communicating information to our physicians here, so I bring all kinds of sources together. Lay publications can be very helpful as well, although the depth of information does not match that of trade publications. But when lobbying technology to physicians, a lay article might even be better.  

Do you get any of your information from outside the US, and is it helpful?

A little. Our software vendor happens to be an international company, so we have the benefit of receiving some information from them, mainly from Germany and that area. When working on some of the teams I gain an insight into the way they manage healthcare – and there’s an exchange, because they do some things better in Europe than we do over here and vice versa.

How do you rate the information you receive through trade publications. Do you find it reliable?

I get a lot of throw-away journals, but with my background in clinical medicine, I know where to draw the line. I am knowledgeable and critical enough to detect anything that isn't right. If my comfort level is not good, I’ll check it out further. However, I always look forward to seeing the things I read about become reality – and that's where conferences such as HIMSS come into play.

Generally, however, I feel that publications are doing a good job and I’m quite happy with the information they provide and the knowledge they transfer.

Dr. Westcott, thank you for your answers. (AS)