The toast of the town

When I started out in this industry, it was often challenging trying to explain to people what I did for a living. Now it's on the front page of the newspaper.

It was the mid 1980s. This was before cellphones and before the World Wide Web. With the exception of some enthusiasts, there were no home computers, and those who did have them had to connect through 300 baud modems over the phone line  -  no broadband, no WiFi.

I worked for one of the handful of hospitals in the country that had CPOE with 100 percent physician utilization, integrated pharmacy and electronic nursing documentation. We had bi-directionally interfaced lab and radiology information systems. I didn't realize at the time that we were such pioneers. What I did realize, however, was that trying to explain to the uninitiated what these systems did often elicited the same look I would get if I tried to explain quantum physics to a poodle.

Even my mother, who was a healthcare professional working with special needs populations and had two university degrees and a faculty appointment at a medical school, didn't get it. To this day, she still tells people that her son does something with computers in hospitals. Not inaccurate, but sort of like saying that an architect draws pictures.

Sometimes a tragic news item will provide a better opportunity. When there was a story about someone who had died or been injured because of a medication administration error, I could point to it and say that what I do helps to prevent those types of events. People still don't fully understand, but it helps provide some context.

All that changed in 2009. With the HITECH Act, electronic health records were now firmly planted in the lexicon. GE ran commercials about their EMR on TV in prime time.

And with mobile health exploding, I now find myself a pundit at cocktail parties. OK, so I don't get to many cocktail parties, but at curriculum night at my kids' schools I now engage in greater discourse with the finance folks, lawyers and advertising executives. Healthcare has always been a hot topic, though the subject was usually around its high costs. Now, everyone wants to talk to me about their own experiences with mobile health and show me what apps they have on their mobile devices. They want my opinion. They want to hear about the latest and greatest in mobile health because that's something they can relate to.

Most people don't touch the healthcare system until they or a family member get sick. But mobile health has now brought the healthcare system to their pockets and purses. They now engage proactively and, in typical New York fashion, competitively. I have more apps than you do. My cholesterol is lower than yours. I walked more steps today than you. My doctor uses an EHR and yours doesn't  -  nah, nah, nah-nah, nah.

Recently, The New York Times ran several stories in its weekly Science section on "The Digital Doctor." It featured, among others, the following articles:

• • Redefining Medicine With Apps and iPads
• • Texting the Teenage Patient
• • Apps Alert the Doctor When Trouble Looms
• • Mobile Devices 'On Call' In Hospitals (video)

I am thrilled because mobile health innovations are getting the exposure they deserve. As a bonus, the more people use these apps, the healthier and safer our population will be. Healthier populations equal lower healthcare costs. Double bonus. And with all the media exposure, my popularity at social events continues to grow. Triple bonus.

My son goes to school with the son of a film and television star. He asked him recently about the pitfalls. The star's son responded that it gets kind of tiring having people stop his mom on the street for pictures and autographs, though he can appreciate that it's the nature of the business. 

While I can now converse as an informed source with people about something that's in the media and more easily explain what I do for a living, I don't think I'll ever get to the autograph level. And aside from my bald pate, I don't have any visual highlights like Farzad Mostashari's bowties that will attract picture-takers. Maybe at the next party I attend I should bring Lindsay Lohan. We can talk to people about great innovations in mobile health. And that you should pull over first before using them while driving.

The views expressed in this blog are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.