Why We ❤️ Health IT – CommonWell Members Weigh In

February is American Heart Month. It is only fitting to have it in a month that hosts Valentine’s Day. So while we are focused on heart awareness we found these CommonWell members discussing what they love about Health IT, the advances in Health IT, and how it has positively impacted on health care. Thank you to CommonWell (@CommonWell) for sharing.

Kerri Harpole RN, BSN, Director, Product Specialists MatrixCare Home & Hospice
Twitter: @MatrixCare

“I love healthcare technology because of its role in expanding collaboration across the care settings to optimize patient outcomes. In the past year, as providers and clinicians have become overwhelmed by the sheer volume and changing landscape of caring for COVID-19 patients and internal staffing issues, accessible and efficient healthcare technology has become even more crucial to patient care. Providers and clinicians require tools that enable them to easily access patient records across care settings and varied geographic locations, facilitating accurate and optimal decision-making. CommonWell is integral to this; joining healthcare IT vendors to work together in sharing information across the healthcare continuum, bridging the gaps, and breaking down barriers to reduce the “black holes” within the industry. It’s an exciting time to be involved with cutting edge technology that reduces silos and creates more successful care transitions. MatrixCare and the greater ResMed family embrace the philosophy of WellConnected; through our commitment to interoperability, our work with CommonWell, partnerships, and ongoing development of software solutions that continue to grow to meet the ever-changing needs of healthcare.”

Kathryn Ayers Wickenhauser, Director of Marketing & Membership, DirectTrust
Twitter: @DirectTrustorg

“No doubt, the work of health IT is challenging and is never done, but I love that it’s with purpose – to foster the patient and care team relationship, to facilitate the best possible care, and to get the right information in the right hands at the right time. At its core, interoperability is collaboration – sharing information gathered at one point to benefit another, and the health IT community echoes this collaborative spirit. I’m so proud to be part of an industry driven by cooperation and the pursuit of empowering care teams to best support their patients.”

Amy Shellhart, Senior Vice President, Solutions Management, WellSky
Twitter: @WellSkyHealth

“As healthcare technology leaders, we have the opportunity and responsibility to transform care as we know it and ensure that vital patient information transitions alongside patients as their care needs evolve over time. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to validate the need for increased care coordination and interoperability across the continuum. The team and I at WellSky are honored to collaborate with fellow health IT vendors and CommonWell in our shared mission to advance smarter, better, and more connected care in 2021 and into the future. We’re all working together to power better health outcomes for more people. That’s at the heart of what we do.”

Hazem El-Oraby, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, TrakCare, InterSystems
Twitter: @InterSystems

“By leveraging data and analytics, cardiologists can view patient cohorts to gain a clearer understanding of what’s happening at scale. These days, it’s simple to determine which patients with chronic heart disease are taking a particular medication and experiencing certain symptoms or adverse events. That knowledge can produce the kind of insights—into, say, the development of complications—that help save lives. And cardiology is only beginning to feel the effects of innovations such as telehealth and machine learning. These technologies are here to stay, and they’re likely to further enhance the work of cardiologists across the world.” Read more from Dr. El-Oraby here.

Miona Short, Strategy Analyst, Redox
Twitter: @Redox

“For anyone who likes solving hard problems to make the world a better, more efficient place, healthIT is the perfect home. I particularly enjoy my work because the interoperability issue is an elephant in the room that requires a lot of attention, collaboration, and trust to conquer. Bringing it down to Earth a bit more, being successful in the work we do means that actual lives are impacted every day. That is what drives our purpose and passion. It’s also just really cool to make this happen with such dedicated customers.”

Jessie Swindell, Professional Services Analyst, Ambra Health
Twitter: @ambrahealth

“Health tech has been given a makeover into a sleek, readily available, user-friendly space – a space that is accessible even from a smartphone app – while all the data analysis and coding are excluded from the patient experience, reserved specifically for IT support. Tech support is in constant communication with the software developers, customers, and patients, allowing for these worlds to merge and create a technology service that is not only innovative and transformative, but that is usable.” Read more from Jessie here.

This post was originally published on the CommonWell blog and reprinted here with permission.