Electronic Health Reporter

The Olympics always inspire me. They are one of most fantastic human events to witness, including the obvious sportsmanship; athletes overcoming obstacles; the sheer passion displayed by those competing in the field; the pain and joy of the athletes; shots of their family’s responses to the competition; and the personal stories and exposition about overcoming the odds.

Despite the haul of medals taken by the likes of swimmers Michael Phelps and Missy Franklin, the U.S. women’s gold in gymnastics and Serena Williams in tennis, other Olympic contributors will leave London without any hardware, but perhaps having just as much impact.

Healthcare technology continues to invade nearly every aspect of life, and the Olympics are not immune. One of the most notable appearances of HIT in the games has been by GE Healthcare. Actually, from my recollection, GE has been the only game in town during the greatest human competition on the planet.

What GE has done so well during the games is connect its products with consumers. Through a series of informative commercials, those of us on the sidelines have been able to learn how GE’s systems help keep the games clean, how they help identify and localize athletes’ injuries and potentially help treat injuries more quickly, and finally, how the systems actually help us in our lives anywhere we may be.

For example, we are also able to see how GE’s healthcare technology is being used to change lives, as is the case of its commercial about the technology serving an East London hospital’s pediatrics unit.

The stories featured in GE’s commercials are compelling for a couple of reasons, primarily because GE is the only technology vendor talking about how its products change the lives of real patients, but also because GE is taking the healthcare technology conversation to people who never would have otherwise engaged or thought about technology in healthcare without the commercials.

Consumers are not often engaged in conversations about the benefits of the machines and software they encounter during trips to the hospital or while meeting an iPad screen in their physician’s office.

Most patients have no idea what the letters “EHR” stand for. Those of us in healthcare technology seem to forget that; we pollute our own well, if you will. We get so enamored with the industry, its terms, its regulations and its advancements that we forget there is a whole world out there, that we eventually must try to sell to, that doesn’t know the first thing about technology or its purpose in healthcare.

Prior to my joining the EHR vendor space, I only knew things like, “That big tube thingy take pictures of my insides,” and “The jumping green line on the electronic graph means my heart works …”

But, those of us in the HIT community like to talk technology, and if we can’t find someone in the real world to listen, we talk to ourselves, which brings me back to GE.

If for no other reason than to educate consumers of the importance of healthcare technology and how it can impact something as mainstream as the Olympics, the company at least brought the conversation to the public and met consumers in their world rather than simply ignoring it like so many others, and that’s admirable.