Technology meet links value with patients, providers

As providers increasingly struggle with how to humanize technology, the timely topic will be covered at a conference June 9-10 in Asheville, N.C., sponsored by local hospital system Mission Health.

Dr. William Maples, Mission Health's chief quality officer, said poorly designed technology tools have led to employee burnout and a lack of joy at work. His boss agrees. Technology that is better integrated into the clinical workflow could create value for patients and providers alike. “This is a hidden problem,” said Dr. Ronald Paulus, Mission Health's CEO.

One area where healthcare technology isn't yet well-adapted for human use is alarms and alerts, which produce employee fatigue from too many false alarms. But problems also arise when there is a lack of needed action by staffers when there is no alarm. “We can sometimes have a false sense of assurance,” Maples said.

Paulus wants to bring investors, entrepreneurs, providers and patients together to come up with better designs. “It's going to increase the adoption, use-rate and value added of their product,” he said.

For now, he worries about the dangers of distraction from too much data, as providers are inundated with patient information transmitted by home-monitoring devices. “It's next to impossible (to manage) without appropriate filtering, triaging and communication,” Paulus said.

Augmedix, a startup company integrating electronic health records with Google Glass, will be one of the conference presenters. Co-founder Pelu Tran said his firm's vision is that “technology should be unobtrusive; it shouldn't disrupt the patient experience.”