C. T. Lin, MD, FACP is CMIO at
Tell me about yourself and the health system.
My title is chief medical information officer of UC Health. We were just University of Colorado Hospital and now we are now a five-hospital partnership.
That role allows me to continue to practice medicine, both inpatient and outpatient. It’s about 20 percent of my job to see patients in general and internal medicine. Then 80 percent of my job is overseeing the deployment of our electronic health record, the physician-computer interface, and the information flow through the organization.
Is it important that you continue to see patients to be successful in the other 80 percent of your job?
Yes, both for my own sanity and a reality check. Because I feel like if I stop seeing patients, I become more of a suit and less of a healthcare provider. Also because, as one of my colleagues said, you have to eat your own dog food sometimes. I find that to be a helpful grounding. I also enjoy seeing patients. So for several reasons, I think it’s important for me to continue.
You’ve used the terms “secretive” and “paternalistic” about hospitals sharing patient information with the patients themselves. Is that a challenge in most places and is it changing?
Yes and yes. It’s a challenge in many places. I’ve been talking about opening up the patient’s chart for both online communication as well as release of test results — and soon, opening up their progress notes — for over a decade. We started working on this in 2002.
Even now — perhaps a little bit less so than back then — there’s a lot of resistance from physicians, from administrators, to thinking that, “Why would we? This is doctor’s work. This is not patient information. It’s too hard to explain. it’s going to increase our workload.” There’s lot of potential fears, and unfortunately, there’s very little research data.
It’s a little better. We’re helping to contribute to the data. But a lot of it’s theoretical fear with no grounding in the research data or real-life experience.
There’s not a lot of pressure being brought on hospitals and doctors to force the issue. Are there any signs of a growing movement that will increase expectations?
I agree that there’s not a lot of pressure. There’s not a lot of organized patient pressure, aside from the Society for Participatory Medicine. You probably have interviewed Danny Sands or he’s been a contributor before. I really like what that group is doing. In fact, we’ve published in their journal as well, in terms of our views on trying to be more transparent.
But aside from groups like that, which are applying some pressure, hospitals do not feel a lot of direct …read more
