The Power of Immediacy
T
echnology has come a very long way in the past decade plus. For example, I still remember 25+ years ago when booking a flight meant going to a travel agency or directly to the ticketing agent at the airport to get a printed and yes sometimes even a manually written ticket. Remember how does manual tickets would make your hands turn purple because of the copy layer they had? Good times!
Nowadays, everything is on your phone!
Rehabilitation is a phase of recovery occurring after any major life-changing medical or surgical event. Our bodies are designed to regenerate and repair, though optimizing this process takes skilled guidance. PM&R physicians (also known as physiatrists) are trained to use physical modalities (stretching, strengthening, heat, cold, etc.) to mechanically enhance healing. They prescribe medications to manage pain, spasticity, nerve injury, and cognitive impairments, while also leveraging the power of physical therapy to increase cardiopulmonary fitness, muscle strength and flexibility.
I can’t live without these notifications. They make my life easier and the immediacy of them allow me to act quickly and decisively with the information they provide me. I honestly can’t imagine traveling without them.
Maybe you’re not a frequent traveler like I am, but I’m sure you can think of dozens of instances where a received notification saved you time or hassles or made you aware of some breaking news that was really important to you. And what made these notifications valuable wasn’t just what they told you, but the immediacy with which they said it.
Real-time information is valuable!
Just like travel, the healthcare field is seeing a seismic shift towards immediacy.
For example, there are dozens if not hundreds of ways to look at data in a graphical way, but what good is it to have a dozen bar graphs, pie charts or even counters if your normal day to day responsibilities don’t allow you the time to look at all the “pretty pictures” in your dashboard?
Let’s face it, particularly in the healthcare field, there are very few people that can take even just a few minutes during their busy day to look at some fancy dashboard. No matter how great and applicable the information contained in it is, there is just, normally, no time to pause your actions to go look at the data.
What ends up happening is that you most likely will look at the data once the day is “over” or later in the week or when you are asked to create reports for your weekly or monthly meetings.
Relying on a dashboard and nothing else, could mean that you will miss out on real-time situations that will be occurring while you look at the dashboard instead of carrying out your responsibilities.
Well, as with other Apps, we are seeing that technology can make your life much easier by providing you with immediate notifications on your iPhone or iPad so that you can react without ever having to look at a dashboard.
For example, can you imagine being informed of a user that has just checked into the ER with Head Trauma? Or how about being informed when an order has been placed for a Nuclear Medicine study thus allowing you to pre-order your radioisotope and save on rush charges? Or getting a notification that a last-minute MRI was ordered right before the end of your shift, thus allowing you to better manage that patient that really needs your service?
These are not just imaginary situations, these are notifications that we are already sending to dozens of devices in our customer sites. Just like I can’t travel without my notifications, neither can our customers live without theirs.
