In today’s technology-dominated world, social media and the internet are playing an increasingly larger role in healthcare. But what does this mean for physician practices and care management?
Brad Brabec, M.D., Chairman of Children’s Health Network and President of Complete Children’s Health, an independent physician practice, shares his thoughts on the relationship between the internet and healthcare for both providers and patients.
Topic Breakdown
1:06—Dr. Brabec on social media and what’s next for Children’s Health Network
1:50—The role of physicians in an internet-dominated world
7:00—Challenges physicians face with electronic medical records
7:45—Managing your online reputation as a healthcare provider
Takeaways
- The spread of misinformation online is a challenge physicians must confront head-on by engaging patients in conversations and involving them in the medical decision-making process.
- Maintaining electronic medical records can be challenging for practices as certain systems become obsolete — but the benefits of electronic access for patients are numerous, especially if a child has complex medical needs.
- Technology can help streamline pre-appointment information gathering, which gives providers more time to help patients in-office.
- Online reputation management is important for providers — but not something that medical schools necessarily prepare new physicians for.
Transcript
CHN News: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the CHN podcast. We are speaking with Dr. Brad Brabec.
Dr. Brabec, can you give us an introduction to who you are and what you do?
Brad Brabec, M.D.: Absolutely. I’m a general pediatrician in a private practice, here in Lincoln, Nebraska. The practice is called Complete Children’s Health, which I first founded coming on 22 years ago, back in 1995, after having been in private practice for six years in Seattle, and having trained out there at a children’s hospital and medical center.
With regards to this practice, we have taken it from one office location to, currently, four office locations. We have plans to expand to a fifth office location in the next couple of years here in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Evolving Role Of Physicians In A Digital World
CHN News: Our topic for this podcast is how mobile technology can drive care management. How are you seeing your patients and families use mobile apps, social media to be patients or to be healthcare consumers?
Dr. Brabec: We’re obviously seeing that more and more nowadays. Families come in and say, “Well, I was on the internet and …” Or “What about this, Dr. Brabec? I read this on the internet …” Or, unfortunately, the things that steer patients in the wrong directions — in our opinion — sometimes with their medical decision-making, such as choosing to not vaccinate their child.
It is something that we have to constantly learn to deal with. Probably the most important piece of information I could give anybody is just to make sure you develop as close of a working, medical professional relationship that you can with your families.
And also guide them in their decision-making and care. All too often, I’ll hear families say, “This doctor I went to for my care as an adult basically gave me some choices and options and left it up to me.” I try to help guide the patient’s decisions, ultimately, in terms of what they decide to do with their child.
Now, mind, you, the discussion regarding the choice to not vaccinate, I give my strong beliefs. But, ultimately, families have to make a choice and decision about what they’re going to feel most comfortable with in regards to their child. I respect that, but I also let them know that we firmly believe in the need to vaccinate, as an example.
But I think when it comes to that knowledge out there, having that relationship with your patient families is most important. Discussing in a congenial manner the information that they’ve found on the internet can help them make the best choice they can for the healthcare they’re going to receive.
There are many apps and websites out there. As a provider, I think you just have to be ready and develop a style for how you’re going to address that when it comes to you.
The Dangers And Benefits Of Technology In Healthcare
CHN News: There are some ways that your practice is using technology to understand patients better. You probably have an electronic records system. Tell me how you guys are using technology to understand your patient population and make care management decisions.
Dr. Brabec: The rudimentary Facebook we have is up and going. And I think, again, the key with that is making sure you have people who know how to use Facebook and deal with the comments as they come in from patients. I think a good, knowledgeable user who can manage that is most important as well.
After 22 years at this practice here in Lincoln, we’re actually getting ready to go to new electronic medical records. This has always been a stressful thing for physicians in terms of trying to find the ideal electronic medical records system to use in your office.
Sometimes the product that you thought was going to be around forever has been bought by a large company that is going to be shelving the product and driving practices to their product. We decided against that and spent close to 10 months looking for a new product that we’re getting ready to evolve toward that as well.
What we want to do here in our practice — and again, this has to do with the amount of time patients have to spend getting off of work to come into the office — is to drive more of the information gathering process that we all experience to before the office visit.
Things like giving your insurance card, filling out a two- or three-page form that updates demographic information, filling out a form about the child’s check-up that day — we’re hoping to drive a lot of that data gathering pre-office visit through our website or other mobile devices.
This will allow us to streamline the process and spend more time when they come into the office educating them and talking to them about their medical problems, rather than most of the visit being about collecting the data.
So for us, what’s going to be key is using the website and various apps that interact with our electronic medical record system to provide that information gathering ahead of time, so we can improve on the patient experience and the care they receive when they come in the office.
Likewise, we also have to — through federal mandates and initiatives — allow our patients access to their medical records, which will be done through the website or apps that link in with the electronic medical records.
This allows them more portability with their medical information, so that whether they’re in Lincoln or whether they’re in Orlando, Florida, if their child gets sick and has medically complex needs and medications, they are able to easily pull that information up and extend that information to other healthcare providers who may otherwise not be familiar with that child’s care.
Then, they can provide the best quality medical care, even though they’re not the child’s regular provider.
CHN News: You may have already answered this question about the greatest dangers and benefits surrounding technology and medical care. It sounds like the danger can be the misinformation that can be spread when it’s not vetted by your actual pediatrician.
Dr. Brabec: Yeah, the misinformation is huge. We all know about that because we’ve all used the internet to search for information and resources. So, first of all, misinformation is a big concern.
But another big concern is social media management of your reputation online. That’s another huge, huge issue and concern that probably drives some practices and physicians away from wanting to be involved with social media and utilizing it for their practices or themselves individually.
There are so many resources out there — Healthgrades.com is one example — where all it takes is for one negative comment to pop up and that can mean a lot for your reputation.
And it may be a situation where you provided adequate medical care but yet for some reason somebody was dissatisfied with the care or the outcome. That’s a huge concern that we’re going to have to learn to manage more and more as time goes on as well.
Transparency is something that’s being put out there more and more by everybody —including the federal government — and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with transparency. It’s just you have to be prepared to manage that.
But, when it comes to medical school, none of us were prepared for that. For those of us who have been in practice for several years now, things have evolved. These are aspects of medical education that need to occur through time.
And then when it gets to residency, more education about the business of medicine and what it means for you if you’re in private practice or working for a larger hospital system. And again, social media management is something that is going to have to be implemented within our medical education system as well.
CHN News: Absolutely. Well, we look forward to getting tweets from you soon.
Dr. Brabec: We’ll start working on that, maybe, next week.