CONTACT US: (855) 487-4822
HealthFlex
×
  • Data Solutions
    • Reference Lab Test Mapping
    • LOINC® Mapping and Coding
    • Data Translations
  • Consulting
    • Virtual CIO
    • Interface Management
    • Project Management
      • LIS Conversions
      • LIS Implementations
      • Data Center Relocation
      • Equipment Upgrades
      • Lab Instrument Interfaces
      • Information Technology
        Assessments
  • Digital Lab Services
    • Lab Services Success Management
      • Production Management
      • Systems Administration
      • Dynamic Enhancements
  • Business Solutions
    • FulCRM: CRM Solution
    • NOC Monitoring
    • Supply Ordering Application
    • Online Directory of Services
    • Cloud Data Exchange
    • Telecom Advocacy Program
    • Secure Messaging
  • About Us
    • Testimonials
    • Our Team
    • Contact Us
    • Join Our Mailing List
  • Blog

Giving Thanks Where It’s Due

Giving Thanks Where It’s Due
November 21, 2019

By Cristy Reiter

So often in our articles, we make it about us: our perspective on an industry trend, a new product, or an experience at a trade show.  So we thought given the month and a certain special turkey-and-stuffing-infused Thursday approaching, we’d pause to acknowledge and give thanks… to all of us.

Let me explain.

First, the “us” is you too – all of us who serve this industry. I think I’m more guilty than most in terms of getting caught up in the daily grind of the business we’re in. It’s numbers, it’s accounts, it’s meetings. It’s easy, if not inevitable, to end up focused on all the parts of what we do that “pays the rent.” When we are doing our jobs well, we can lose sight of the fact that we’re serving our communities in perhaps the most important way. At the end of the line there are people who need blood work, cancer screenings and everything in-between, and how that data is gathered and communicated… well, it’s about someone’s grandma. Someone’s dad. Someone’s baby. I invite us all to pause and be grateful for our part in that.

Our Thanks to Dr. Henry Plummer

Dr. Henry Plummer

There’s a wonderful Ken Burns PBS documentary that I encourage you to see called The Mayo Clinic (it’s currently on Netflix). The film celebrates William Worrall Mayo, born 200 years ago this year. He and his two sons, Charles and William, would form an unlikely partnership with the Sisters of St. Francis Catholic order (the Mayos were atheists). In the unlikely small town of Rochester, Minnesota, they built the life-saving influential institution that would become first St. Mary’s Hospital, and then the Mayo Clinic. By the turn of the last century, the sons, amazing doctors in their own right, continued to grow the clinic by actively seeking to learn what other doctors around the world were having success with in the fight against sickness and disease.

One of the doctors they brought into their clinic was Dr. Henry Plummer. As recounted in the documentary:

Henry Plummer impressed them with his knowledge of blood diseases … they wanted to focus on surgery, but he convinced them better, more advanced lab and diagnostic work would improve surgical outcomes or perhaps make those surgeries unnecessary … He modernized their lab and explored ways to make patient information they were gathering more accessible … he became part of the movement that emphasized the patient, who instead of being a spoke was the hub of which all medical personnel revolved.

Plummer convinced the Mayo brothers that the lab work was so important it not only needed to be brought in-house but needed to be located right next to the operating room. In an archived newsletter on the Mayo website, there is this:

Dr. Will Mayo once remarked that the hiring of Dr. Plummer was the best day’s work he ever did for the clinic. When he joined the Mayo staff in 1901, Dr. Plummer took charge of bringing the laboratories up to date.

Other innovations advanced by Dr. Plummer include how the clinic’s medical record system was handled, which was based on the then-radical idea that patient information is the property of not just the doctor alone, but the group. He also innovated the pneumatic tube system for sending patient histories underground from the clinic building to Saint Mary’s Hospital, and a conveyor system that proved to be vital to its “communication network.” Does some of that language sound familiar?

So are we all Dr. Plummers? A bit of a stretch, but we at U.S. HealthTek are proud of our advancements in communication technology, though we’re not sure it measures up to the head-spinning advanced technology that was the pneumatic tube system! But undoubtedly the work that all of us do in this industry carries on what Dr. Plummer and the Mayo brothers believed to be essential. I’m thankful for not only my associates here, but our clients, our vendors, and yes, even our friendly “competition.” We’re all contributing to a good that is greater than the sum of our parts.

At the end of a workweek, good, bad, or indifferent, it’s appropriate to appreciate the results of our efforts: lives are extended, even saved. So I’ll pause before carving the turkey, and be grateful to play a small part in all of that.

Recent Posts

  • Jeff Policastro Introduces Laboratory Systems Success Management
  • It’s What Already?!? Reflections On a Lively Year
  • Seven Hacks for Your Virtual Office
  • Finding IT Problems Before You Have a Crisis
  • The (Game-Changing) Art of Data Management
  • Turning Short-Term Growth into Long-Term Success
  • Five Tips for a Five-Star Retreat
  • EWC2022 Recap: For Those Who Didn’t Make It – And Those Who Did
  • Executive War College: Be There
  • The 2022 ACLA Annual Meeting: Inspiring & Rejuvenating
  • We’re Hitting the Road: Let’s Meet
  • Growing a Business: A Long-Term Strategy
  • Shout Outs Where Shout Outs Are Due
  • The Data Whisperer: True Analytics Are Key to Profitability
  • Why Your Lab Needs a CRM Solution Post-COVID
  • Meet the Team: Keri Thomson
  • 7 Elements of Efficient, Productive Meetings
  • Return to Executive War College 2021: More Important Than Ever
  • Virtual CIO Success Stories
  • Is a SaaS Solution Right for Your Lab?
  • Clinical Lab Services Market Growth: 5 Ways to Be Prepared
  • Meet the Team: Shannon Sinclair
  • Moving Your Lab to a DTC Model: User-Friendly Reports
  • Looking Ahead to 2021: Trends During and After the Pandemic
  • The Year in Review – And Lasting Changes for Our Industry
  • Software Development Services Doesn’t Have to Be Scary Part II
  • Software Development Services Part II: Case Studies
  • Oh, the Horror! (J/K: Software Development Doesn’t Have to Be Scary!)
  • The Trials, Tribulations, and Future of Working from Home
  • Meet the Team: Lauren Sutton
  • COVID-19 Makes Demands for Clean Interfaces Imperative
  • Meet the Team: Mike Pratt
  • Sales and Customer Service During COVID-19: Are You ready?
  • IT Versus Covid-19: Why Data Will Save Us
  • We’re Here to Help
  • ACLA Conference: Coronavirus and Beyond
  • “I Quit!” 7 Ways to Reduce Turnover Now
  • Looking Forward by Looking Back: A Year of U.S. Healthtek
  • Looking ahead at 2020: 6 Ways to Prepare for Disruption
  • Giving Thanks Where It’s Due
  • Scenes from the Lab Quality Confab
  • Looking Forward to Lab Quality Confab – and the Debut of fulCRM
  • Protecting Your Infrastructure with the Right NOC
  • See You in Court? Standing Up for Ourselves
  • “Big Data” Can Be a Big Threat – If You’re Not Prepared to Control It
  • Considering a new LIS? What You Need to Know
  • Executive War College 2019: Highlights
  • The Unsung Partnership Between IT Departments and Sales
  • Why You Need a Virtual CIO – And Tips on Getting There Successfully
  • Guest Blog: Making Sense of ASP and SaaS Software Delivery Models
  • A Conduit for Real-Time Lab Data Exchange
  • Medical Data Translations: Seven Steps to Avoiding Disaster
  • Lab Quality Confab and the Pursuit of “Best in Class”
  • Report: Precision Medicine Institute Meeting
  • Precision Medicine & the Future of Lab IT
  • CRM: Creating Efficacy Via the Personal Touch
  • “With a Little Help From Our Friends”
  • Executive War College: Let’s Connect!
  • The U.S. HealthTek New Client Experience
  • HIMSS Convention Report: Meeting Clients Current and Future
  • 2018 Report: “Keeping Pace”
  • Keeping Clients Informed

Archives

(855) 487-4822

info@ushealthtek.com

Contact Us

QUICK LINKS

Contact Us

Data Solutions

Business Solutions

Consulting

About Us

Blog

Copyright ©2017 U.S.HealthTek. All Rights Reserved.