Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2014 - (Page 4)

hospitalrounds COMMENTARY How to simplify health care Here's a start: What about drive-thru urgent care clinics? By Wendy Sue Swanson, M.D., M.B.E. P Wendy Sue Swanson, M.D., M.B.E., is the executive director of digital health at Seattle Children's Hospital. Read her blog, Seattle Mama Doc, at seattlemamadoc.seattlechildrens.org. Got something on your mind? Want to share a thought, idea or hotbutton opinion with your peers? Submit a column to magazine @childrenshospitals.org. 4 children's hospital s today Spring 2014 eople can search and learn about health anywhere-at the park or in the walls of hospitals, clinics or homes. I completed my medical training just as social tools were percolating out to the masses. Using my phone, Twitter, my blog, apps, Facebook, activity tracker and patient online communities to provide health care, consume it and engage with it is my reality. I can see that intuitive ways of learning about science-wed with thoughtful technology-will let us care, cure and prevent illness and injury like never before. I've just started a new job at Seattle Children's Hospital overseeing a group in digital health. Our goal is to rapidly improve the way we serve children and their families' needs in the hospital, clinical setting and community. I want to help facilitate elegant communication between parents, patients, families and their clinicians and surgeons when they are outside the hospital or clinic. The reason is this: Over 60 percent of all American adults have a smartphone in their pocket and crowd-sourcing happens at virtual water coolers, like Facebook, every day. More than 40 percent of Americans visit Facebook every day to listen, lurk, snoop, learn and vet ideas. We are no longer limited in asking one question to one person at a time. This is true in every aspect of our life, including health care. Now, smart and thoughtful innovators ask the tribe for help in solving the world's most challenging problems. It turns out many of the best solutions are simplifications, fortunes of chance, or focused areas of light in a sea of complex circumstances. Think about the creation of the mouse for navigating a computer, the nasal bulb suction for clearing a newborn's nose, finding life-preserving penicillin in a growing spot of mold. Or the recent gestalt from a mechanic during his retrieval of a cork from the inside of a wine bottle that sparked the idea for revolutionizing how women deliver their babies, potentially avoiding C-sections during prolonged deliveries all over the world-all at low cost. We all want simple solutions to living a healthy life. Sometimes it takes those on the outside to offer up the best solutions for those of us on the inside. Therefore, how we're connected with each other offers up fertile opportunity. Creative problem solving takes teams of invested members chiseling away at change and constructing new shape and form to our world. The great fortune for us all is that big solutions can sometimes stem from small, simple changes we make. Surviving on earth, let alone thriving and living a long life, is no easy task. We need simple solutions to thrive amidst chronic health conditions and complex circumstances. Let's continue to let the tribe bring in the solutions and open up the white space for more and more simple changes to take hold. Let's get healthier faster. I'm noodling on an idea for a drivethru urgent care clinic and thinking about creating a new coast-to-coast network for expert moms. And there are initiatives in the works for facilitating physician sharing online. What are your solutions for simplifying health care? childrenshospital s.org http://seattlemamadoc.seattlechildrens.org http://www.childrenshospitals.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2014

Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2014
Contents
Editor's Note
President's Message
Reader Commentary
Everyday Heo
Transforming Care
Measuring Up
Data Breach: 10 Ways to Prepare and Respond
A Fresh Take
Balancing the Business of Care
Better Together
Public Policy Update
Board Member Q&A
Child's Story

Children's Hospitals Today - Spring 2014