Dr. Halamka Becomes Harvard Professor -How Can We Clone His Expertise As A Role Model

Congratulations and I felt it was important to focus on the #2 item on his list, being a role model, and we have very few of these in consumer health IT and being a computer geek, a doctor and a consumer he does it all. If you read his posts on his blog, you see it with examples of him being both in the physician spot and then he changes hats and becomes a patient/consumer too. Hardly anyone else does that out there and that’s what we need, role models with ethics. I read a lot of articles and reports when I do this blog and other than Dr. Halamka, I see very little and so many are still stuck on the paradigm of “its for those guys over there”. We all know what that’s all about.

“*Serving as role model - a strong sense of ethics and equanimity, always being moral and fair in every conversation and relationship, fosters an environment that encourages people to excel.”

If just some of those would practice and talk about what they preach, we would need a few less reports as I always say there’s nothing like “hands on” experience and just to correlate this, would you rather learn to drive a car from someone who currently drives on or one who has never driven a car but read a book and wants to tell you about it? I don’t know of of too many that would value the 2nd response over the first:) The second response though is so much of what we get today with consumer health IT, along with studies that continuously focus on how “stupid” we are as consumers all the time.

New Report on Engaging Patients–Still Misses the Boat With Failure to Create Value for Consumers - “Magpie Healthcare” Paradigms

Sadly this is more of what we see at the link below with a Congressman from California totally disregarding cell phone safety and had to do an interview on his cell phone while driving and gets pulled over and embarrassed I might guess as the listeners get to hear it all. Role model – fail here for the Congressman.

US Congressional Representative Gets Pulled Over for Using a Cell Phone While Driving And Was Live on the Air Doing Radio Interview

You can read his entire post at the link below, as it’s a good one and again wish we could clone him a few times over and good mention too on his collaboration and building teams as in health IT we can certain use all of that we can get! Congratulations! BD

Today, I joined several friends and colleagues to celebrate my becoming a Harvard Professor.
Along the journey, I've learned many lessons. Professorship is not about fame, fortune, or what I know. It's about community. Early in my Harvard career, Dr. Tom Delbanco, Sam Fleming, Warren McFarlan, Marvin Schorr, and others advised me to focus on creating teams of smart people to change the world.

*Communicating ideas - publishing, lecturing, meeting, blogging, and serving on expert panels ensures that ideas and innovation are widely disseminated. Today's blog is my 900th post, creating a permanent record of the key ideas I encounter in my life as a healthcare CIO.

*Building teams - assembling and resourcing the best people, especially those with differing opinions and experiences, leads to innovation.

Life as a Healthcare CIO: On Becoming a Harvard Professor