Perhaps it’s a sign of age - but these days I find the process of watching change filter through our healthcare system as fascinating as the change itself. Does anyone else remember when health and wellness was the exclusive realm of earnest, crunchy, do-gooders? When employer health coalitions were novel and wielded relatively little influence - despite their impressive “payer” status? When fax machines meant you no longer had to race to the FedEx store by 5:45 pm for the last pick-up of the day? Sorry - too far down memory lane.

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Photo by Matt Callow, used under Creative Commons License

But at what point will we be able to look back and shake our heads in dumbfounded amazement at how health information used to be delivered, shared, acted on? CDH, EHR, EBM, Ix - (in healthcare we sure do love our acronyms) the overarching theme, of course, is the intelligent sharing of information to improve care delivery. It’s fascinating watching the process to achieve this holy grail, and here are a just a few of the organizations wading into the fray and leading us in information innovation:

Open notes: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is ripping off the Band-Aid - with the truly wild idea of sharing patient charts…with patients! Here are some interesting comments on both sides of the story.

And along those same lines…a consumer movement endorsed by the ultimate in informed patients - e-Patient Dave.

And - near and dear to our heart - shared decision making. Along with most everyone in the healthcare space - we’re on the front-lines of this one daily (with focus on ER utilization, reduction in back surgeries, therapeutic-equivalents…)

With these innovations in tools and technology,  “Remember when?” soon just might refer to yesterday!