Today I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer at my kids school. They make it a big deal for dad’s to volunteer at the school and my kids absolutely adore having their dad at school with them. We have a tradition that I go and spend the day at school with my kids on their birthdays. It’s pretty awesome and I might have even shed a tear or two. (Side Note: Check out my new Daddy Blog for cute pics of my kids)

However, that’s not the point of this post. It turns out today was testing day for a bunch of my kids (I have 3 in elementary school). What was amazing is that all of the test were administered on a computer. Yes, even my 5 year old kindergartner was taking his test on the computer. In fact the teacher told me, “It’s kind of hard because they don’t even really know how to type.”

Whether this is a good idea or not, is a topic for an education blog. However, I’ve written before about the next generation of digital natives and the impact they’ll have on healthcare and EHR. If we look a little further out, my 5 year old won’t even be able to comprehend the idea of a paper chart. It will be so ridiculous to him.

I’m still processing what this will mean to healthcare IT and to society in general. As I think back on the thousands of blog posts I’ve written about adopting EHR, I can think of many that will sound ridiculous even 5-10 years from now. That has me very excited. Not that my content is no longer useful (unless you enjoy Health IT history). I’m excited that a whole sea change is going to happen in how we want technology applied to healthcare.

No doubt, it’s not without some risk. I’ve heard many argue that the next generation doesn’t care about privacy. Personally I’ve seen quite the opposite. The next generation has a very sophisticated approach to privacy. They know when and where to share something based on who and what they want to see it. It’s the older generation that has a problem knowing exactly where something should be shared and where it shouldn’t. That’s not to say that some young kids don’t make mistakes. They do, but most are quite aware of where something is being shared. It’s why so many kids use snapchat.

What do you think of the coming generations of technology savvy people? What benefits will they bring? What challenges will we face? Are you excited, scared, nervous?