My own experiences with Healthcare IT

So I've been absent dealing with my own medical issues.  This has allowed me to particiipate as a patient in several different Health IT Setups.  The surgical center I used was on Epic.  I interacted with this as a patient via Epic's "MyChart".  The web interface seems to be pretty good and most of the things I might need to know as a patient are readily available and easily found.  There are a couple of areas that were confusing.  On a funny side note, after scheduling my appointments I was granted access to the portal.  The "Home" page lists action items you can take and as a new patient the prominent ones were intake and initial paperwork.  I completed these that evening from the comfort of my home.  When I arrived at the hospital to be processed, the nurse started to go through these with me and even had blank paper forms in hand.  Within a few minutes she noted that the "information" was already iin Epic and she asked me if I had already gone through this process.  I informed her that no, but I had filled out the online forms.  She was surrprised and let me know that I was the first patient she had encountered who had filled these out online in a manner that didn't require her to type them in.

As part of my prep, I was hooked up to Vitals machines and had an EKG performed and both of these went right into the chart directly from the instrument.  The Vitals machines of course also reported out to the nurse desk.  The EKG results including interpretation were ready for my review in MyChart a few days later.

I've been able to communicate with my nurse and provider via the secure messaging center.  This is a convienence but on the other hand, nothing beats instant gratification.  Alas, even when I phoned, I rarely got to speak to anybody as typically I was screened, a message taken and then I was called back anywhere from 2 - 6 hours later.  A little frustrating as a patient but I certainly understand the need of the clinical  staff to have tme to research, pose a question to a provider and then get back with a more informed decision.

Where all this IT has broken down for me is with regards to the type of procedure I had.  It's evidently not a common one.  My provider is in Dallas and I'm in Austin and most of my interactions are back with my local doctor.which adds a different perspective..  And finally there seems to be no readily available information online that a patient can use to verify whether syptoms being experienced are a normal part of the healing process or symptoms of concern.

I see a lot of progress and I also see a lot of opportunities.