Looking at EHR Internationally

Today, I’m sitting in my hotel room in Dubai (Check out my full health IT conference schedule) looking out over this incredible city. This is the 3rd time I’ve come to Dubai to teach an EHR workshop and so I’ve had a chance to fall in love with some many things. Not the least of which is the people that come to participate in the workshop. Each time is a unique perspective with people coming from around the middle east including countries like Saudia Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and of course Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the UAE to name a few.

There’s something incredible about coming to a place that is culturally so different and yet when I talk about EHR software it’s more alike than it is different. A great example of this is the often large divide between doctors and EHR implementers. It seems that everyone struggles to get doctors to take enough time to really learn how to use the EHR effectively. Then, despite not doing the training they complain that the EHR doesn’t work properly. If you’ve ever been part of an EHR implementation you know this cycle well.

What I find interesting in the middle east is that they don’t feel suffocated by regulations like we have in the US. There’s much more freedom available to them to innovate. However, there’s not the same drive to innovate here that exists in most US markets. It’s interesting to sense this disconnect between the opportunity to innovate and the desire to innovate.

I think there’s also a bit of a misconception about the region. From the US perspective, we often see these rich middle eastern countries and think that they just have as much money as they want and they can spend lavishly on anything. When you look at some of the amazing buildings or the indoor ski slopes in Dubai it’s easy to see how this perspective is well deserved. However, that’s not the reality that most of these healthcare organizations face. This seems to be particularly true with gas prices being quite low. In many ways, this is a similar to what many doctors experience. Doctors like to drive the Mercedes, but then complain that they aren’t really paid as much as people think. That creates a disconnect between what’s seen and the reality. I think the middle east suffers from this disconnect as well.

What’s most heartening about the experience of talking EHR internationally is that there’s one core thing that seems to exist everywhere. That’s a desire to truly make a difference for the patient. That’s the beautiful part of working in healthcare. We all have a desire to make life better for a patient. It’s amazing how this principle is universal. Now, if we could just all execute it better.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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