This is the age of healthcare technology. Big data and clinical data management, EHR (electronic health records) and Meaningful Use, clouds and virtualization, SaaS and the mobile era, not to mention the incredible advancements in medical technologies like genomics and bioinformatics.

Medical City’s Dallas Valve Institute became the first U.S. hospital to perform a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commercially-approved heart procedure that, until now, had been approved only for patients in clinical trials. The procedure is known as Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR), which we’ve talked about before on this blog.

Overland Park, KS If you’re looking for pudding in a cup at Menorah Medical Center, you’re out of luck. And the same goes for lumpy mashed potatoes, canned fruit and other hospital food of yore. Thanks to Dining On Call, the hospital’s innovative food choice and delivery program, patients customize their meals from many different options, all of which have been vetted by dieticians to meet specific nutritional needs. They also get to order it when they want, rather than having to wait for a set delivery time, said Steve Achord, Food and Nutrition Services Director. “The patients really like… Read more.

Time is of the essence when it comes to treating stroke victims and other critical-care patients. Often that means making quick decisions about sending a patient to another facility if there’s no doctor onsite when the patient comes in. To connect physicians to patients in outlying areas, Plaza Medical Center of Fort Worth rolled out the ‘doc bot,’ a robotic communications system that lets a doctor see and interact with a patient elsewhere. The technology adds a layer of personal treatment, letting the doctor actually see the patient as well as their diagnostic tests, said Sharon Eberlein, Neuroscience Program Director.… Read more.

Sometimes determining whether someone is having a stroke isn’t easy. But for recent stroke victim Diane McPeters, video footage (shown below) taken by her fiancé Dave O’Neal provided evidence she was having a stroke, even if she didn’t believe it. O’Neal’s quick-thinking to use his phone to capture the event not only provided proof, it gave first responders and Dr. Janardhan a time-stamp for stroke onset. When dealing with a stroke, time is crucial. In most cases, doctors can only guess when a stroke occurred. But O’Neal had the exact timeline on his cell phone. “It was absolutely critical for… Read more.

Have you ever thought about hosting a Twitter chat? Many Twitter users, including President Obama, are turning to the platform to engage with other users around a particular topic. If you work in healthcare, this represents a tremendous opportunity to connect both with the local community you serve and the broader community interested in your area of expertise. In April, HealthONE began their first in a series of monthly Healthy Happy Hour Twitter Chats that take place the last Wednesday of every month from 6-7pm Mountain Time. We highlighted their May chat in another post. While the idea of conducting… Read more.

On April 25 from 6-7 p.m. Mountain Standard Time (MST), HCA-HealthONE in Denver launched a monthly Healthy Happy Hour Twitter Chat to provide real-time access to HealthONE physicians and healthcare providers.  The chat takes place on the last Wednesday of every month from 6-7pm (MST) and is open to all. In other words, you don’t have to live in Denver to participate. The next chat is tomorrow, May 30, and you can participate by using the hashtag #HealthHH. This is a great opportunity for you to have a conversation with and get answers to your health questions from real physicians.… Read more.

Dr. Thomas Frist, Sr., a founder of HCA was known for saying “good people beget good people.” He was a true humanitarian, believing in the good of people and that with hard work and a positive attitude, anyone could achieve their goals. He practiced this through his caring spirit and philanthropic work. Since 1971, we’ve honored employees and hospital volunteers annually who demonstrate this same dedication to caring for others with The Frist Humanitarian Award. Volunteer recipients of the award receive a $5,000 donation to the charity of their choice and $5,000 in cash to use as they wish. Medical… Read more.

Last week I was in Austin, TX with a few thousand of my closest friends for the annual South by Southwest conference. If you’ve ever been you know that there are so many events and sessions to attend that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Some of the sessions I attended really inspired and motivated me. Others fell short. Overall though, I’m walking away with new perspective and ideas that will stick with me for a while. I want to talk about one of those today. I went to a panel discussion called “Designing Daily Positive Additions”. One of the members… Read more.

Recently we announced a collaboration with and financial investment in AirStrip Technologies and their mobile patient monitoring software. Technologies like this, give physicians the ability to check important patient information through their mobile device allowing care decisions to be made much faster. My colleague, Bill, spoke about the concept of smartphones in healthcare a few months ago. And last month, I talked about direct communication between a physician and patient via email, text, Facebook, etc… Today, in light of this recent announcement, I want to dive deeper into the idea of remotely delivering real time healthcare information about a patient… Read more.