On the Eve of Innovation
It’s the eve of the 2017 eClinicalWorks National Conference, and everywhere you go inside the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center — from the smallest breakout session room to the Texas Ballroom’s ocean of seats — there is motion, music, murmurs of anticipation, and last-minute musings.
eCWCentral is coming to life. The bright blue carpeting smells of new beginnings, innovation, and fresh thinking. Forklifts are supplying much-needed muscle. Booths are in final assembly. A few curious early registrants are already making their way through the space, getting a sneak peek at what the weekend has in store. Signs and banners are laid out.
Whew!
Putting together a major conference is a bit like running a medical practice. There are dozens of moving parts. Frequent surprises. Everyone needs something, often right away, and getting things right isn’t just nice, but almost as important as treating each patient with the care, respect, and quality medicine they deserve and need.
Happily, this 10th annual eClinicalWorks National Conference comes with built-in advantages — a fabulous venue and picture-perfect Dallas weather. From all 50 states and the District of Columbia, thousands of healthcare professionals are arriving to temperatures in the mid-80s, brilliant sunshine, and breezes in the single digits.
For some attendees, it’s their first taste of the Lone Star State. For others, it’s familiar territory. But for everyone, the endless Texas sky lends an air of optimism and limitless possibilities. In short, it’s the perfect stage for focusing on the challenges and opportunities in an age of value-based care and patient-centered medicine.
As always, our annual Conference will build on past successes. But this landmark Conference is about a lot more than making improvements here and there to our market-leading software solutions. It’s about keeping the best of what has come before while simultaneously taking quantum leaps forward — in the products, services and the thinking for which eClinicalWorks is known.
As afternoon gives way to evening, the entire eClinicalWorks team is displaying the preparation and focus of a starting lineup the night before the opening of the playoffs. Whether they are pushing pixels, tweaking technology, filming fun, or scarfing pizza for that late-night energy, they are pumped.
At this Conference, it’s that fine balance between experience and novelty that will prove critical to success. But then, relying upon what we know while embracing the unexpected drives innovation in fields from sports and business to healthcare. We learn from collective experience and wisdom — both ours and that of our many customers and clients. And that includes learning from mistakes, what writer James Joyce so aptly called the “portals of discovery.”
Speaking of portals, we’ve got more than one. There’s Patient Portal, of course, our innovative and flexible product for Patient Engagement. But we also offer portals in the more generic sense of doorways to discovery. They are the portals where we invite our customers to journey with us toward a healthcare future that promises to be more connected than ever. Where we no longer forge links one by one among providers, patients, and devices, but think systematically and holistically about systems for interoperability.
Collaboration. Innovation. Imagination. And plain old hard work. Those are a few of the elements that go into “Improving Healthcare Together.” It’s a shared journey. And it has to be. Because no one has a monopoly on good ideas. From the simplest tip for using our EMR more effectively to the most sophisticated new service, excellence happens sooner — and benefits more people — when we work together.
The excitement that everyone is feeling today is just a warm-up for the real action tomorrow morning.