Jerry ElprinDigital Health
February 16, 2017
Early in my career l was taught ”what gets measured gets managed” and its corollary: “If you can measure it, you can manage it.” It’s an old saying that some have traced back to the Middle Ages…and others to management guru Peter Drucker. In my case, as a reporter, writer, and editor, that meant counting the number of words in an article and calculating its length in column inches (called copy fitting), taking into account type size, line spacing, and column width.
I’m finding that same thought applies to managing our health as well by taking the measure of things like calories, blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass, blood sugar and a host of other vital signs and lab results.
Enter technology and ICmed.
I was introduced to ICmed by a technology wizard I know and that got me thinking more deeply about all the ways technology is changing our lives — making some things easier, some more complicated. Like in health care, not only are health care providers using technology to better track and manage patient care*, we the patients now have the tech to record, organize, track, share and manage our own and our family’s health.
In my mind, this raises a number of questions. For one, who’s going to use the technology and take the time to collect, maintain and monitor our own and our family’s critical health information like immunizations, medications, allergies, test results, doctors visits and medical notes? For another, will our children, now on their own, want to participate in a family-wide health management platform?
When they were growing up, it was my wife who managed their health care – appointments, medications, taking care of sick ones. My role was mostly keeping a file drawer of bills and insurance statements – and totaling them up for taxes each year.
How might these new technology-enabled capabilities change that equation?
Well, I’m probably the one nominated and elected to use ICmed because I have more experience with computers and am a packrat by nature. But I’ll need to learn more about taking the “measure” of our health.
* One example of providers’ pursuit of promising new technologies is Northern Virginia’s Inova Health System’s recent launch of a new start-up incubator and investment program aimed at accelerating the development of innovative technologies that can better predict and prevent disease.