During a recent DGTL Voices podcast, Ed Marx aimed to reverse roles with our esteemed guest, John Lynn. He is usually the man behind the microphone at Healthcare IT Today interviewing and talking to people about the latest and greatest news and information in the healthcare industry. Instead, The HCI Group flipped this and aimed to tap in to the wealth of knowledge that John has gained by being on the other side of the chair. 

John Lynn is founder and editor of Healthcare scene and Health IT Expo, as well as dozens of other websites that provide a variety of information for healthcare professionals. He has authored over 16,000 articles and has received multi-millions of page views collectively through the 13 EMR, EHR, mHealth and Healthcare IT websites that he manages. 

When I first started in IT, I had the ambition to be successful and really do something with my life, but I quickly realized that I did not want to be a CIO. I don't want to manage people. I love technology, because it can transform organizations. So, that's where it all started. I have the ambition, but I don't want to be a CIO, so where does that leave me?

                         - John Lynn, Healthcare IT Today 

How do you leverage digital in your business? 

"There are a number of ways to look at this, but I think the top way for us is probably through social media. We have such a strong presence on social media and have 100,000 followers across six different accounts. Related to this, is the idea of community and for us community is key to everything. We see our followers as members of our community.... Technology allows us to bring people together in way they wouldn't be able to come together otherwise." 

What is the future of healthcare?

For more healthcare organizations there is a lot of untapped frontiers and there are two reasons that this happened. Firstly, is that many healthcare organizations didn't have to innovate. Their businesses were fine without having to grow and change. Many of them had monopolies or had long waiting lists for patients, meaning they didn't have to innovate. They were in such demand that they weren't forced to. Secondly, many of the organizations just didn't care. They cared about their patients but they didn't understand the transformative effect that technology could have on the experience for the patient. They took it for granted or were ignorant to it. 

If I look at what areas could really grow and improve an organization, as well as transform the experience for the patient, the biggest area is the way that you communicate with the patient. It's amazing how many realized during Covid-19 that they didn't have a way to communicate and connect with their patients.

Value-based care

Value-based care is the future and the core to value-based care is having a deep connection and relationship to the patient. Therefore, communicating with the patient and having the channel to do that that is customized to their unique needs is essential. This is one frontier that is interesting and exciting to me. 

Ambient clinical intelligence

Another frontier that is interesting to me is ambient clinical intelligence. How do we automate the minutiae that doctors hate doing? They hate it because of the document burden that is represented by the EHR and so if ambient clinical intelligence can solve that and automate the process of document while still satisfying reimbursement and regulatory needs, to me that is a beautiful frontier that we all need to embrace. 

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