There certainly wasn't a shortage of health IT news and developments in 2015, and accompanying those was commentary from healthcare's IT leaders. From dress codes to developing apps to notes on competitors, here are some of the best quotes and commentary on health IT from Becker’s Hospital Review this year.
Garry Choy, MD, Assistant CMIO of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (Boston)
Discussing the lack of smart data in EHRs in January 2015
"We need a way of discovering the needle in a haystack [in EHR data]. If we can 'Google' for any information on the Web, we should be able to 'Google' our medical records."
Judy Faulkner, Founder and CEO of Epic Systems (Verona, Wis.)
Discussing corporate culture at Epic in March 2015
"Our dress code is when there are visitors, you must wear clothes."
Erin Trimble, Manager of Business Development of athenahealth (Watertown, Mass.)
Discussing the lifecycle of startups in October 2015
"You can build software a hell of a lot faster [than hardware] and you can iterate on it even faster. And, you can do it with one guy and a laptop."
Zane Burke, President of Cerner (Kansas City, Mo.)
On a conference call discussing Cerner's third quarter 2015 financial results in November 2015
"I believe [our primary competitor's] list of clients, where the significant costs of deploying and maintaining their system has been cited as a key reason for financial challenges, is starting to impact them in the marketplace. This not only differentiates us in the sales process, it has also contributed to some of their existing clients switching to Cerner, even after having spent $100 million-plus on their system."
Judy Faulkner
Discussing the history of Epic's name in December 2015
"I think [the name] is perfect. It is an Iliad or an Odyssey; it is the story of the patient…I was a math major in undergraduate school and computer science major in graduate school, but during my undergraduate time I was an English minor. I think it is important that computer scientists can be seen as literate, too."
John Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston)
Discussing interoperability in December 2015
"There is more social networking and collaboration capability in World of Warcraft than there is in EHRs."
Robert Napoli, Senior Vice President and CIO of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands (Seattle)
Discussing the year's highs in health IT in December 2015
"The Oct. 1 transition to ICD-10 actually happened!"
More articles on health IT:
40 healthcare apps for clinicians and consumers to know
6 EHR vendor switches in 2015
8 thoughts from Cleveland Clinic CIO Dr. C. Martin Harris on decision-making and leadership