YourNurseIsOn.com at HIMSS11 - The Journey Begins

The “Olympics” of Healthcare IT is the huge annual HIMSS conference and YourNurseIsOn.com was excited to go to HIMSS11 in Orlando. Like any start-up company, our people wear a number of hats, are busy and occasionally, make mistakes. I recount this story as an example of logistical challenges, flexible responses, dogged determination and perseverance in pursuit the mission. To attend HIMSS11, I needed to depart Hartford, CT on February 19 and would return February 24th. My plan was to attend the HIT Investor Forum on Sunday, we had been selected as a contestant in the HIT X.0 “Geeks Got Challenge” for Monday, hoped to make it to the finals for Tuesday and also expected to spend considerable time at booth #1331 which we shared with Intelligent Insites, our newest integration partners. Simple enough, right?

Wrong! To be more efficient, my executive assistant (me), attempted to book the hotels and travel for two conferences simultaneously and was quite satisfied to have found great deals for both HIMSS11 and the upcoming ACHE Congress in Chicago. The error in my ways became evident on the way to the airport when my lovely wife, Phoebe, began to call the airport to confirm our timely departure during a very windy afternoon. “MATTHEW!,” she shouted from the passenger seat, startling me from my “did I forget to pack anything” thought process, “THESE tickets are for MARCH 19th...”.

Now showing up to your flight without a valid ticket is rather frowned upon in this country, and can lead to a lovely discussion with various customer service “overlords.”

The very “helpful” woman on JetBlue’s “help” line nicely reminded me that ONLY an ignoramus would not bother to check his reservation 42 times before leaving the house to depart on the aforementioned non-existent flight. “Really?” I enquired, imagine for a second that you worked 80 hours per week for the last 3 years, hadn’t had a “day off” in month’s and gave up sleep for Lent so that you could facilitate a new integration, a new pilot implementation, prepare for a worldwide IT competition and , of course, arrange your travel... none of that lends itself to being perfect and may have even contributed to my glaring oversight. So, I askedfar to nicely, when you are done lecturing me on proper flight reservation review protocol, would you please tell me how I can fix this major faux pas?

Oh that would be easy, she let me know, it is nothing that $750 dollars ADDITIONAL couldn’t fix. Is there no other way I implored, as she wallowed in her customer service power trip. “No!” was all I heard. Now, I know that any well-meaning organization can mistakenly hire an anti-social troglodyte ;-) ( or more likely she was just having her own struggles that day), but having flown JetBlue many times, I hoped there might be a better way. So, I thanked her for her abuse and hung up in disgust, almost believing her about how dumb I had been to not check my reservation 42 times! This had never happened to me in 30 years of solo air travel. How the heck was I going to get to Orlando? by tomorrow morning? should I go at all? should I fly out tomorrow? how about from NYC or?? and how the hell did I do this? A  few deep breaths later, I realized it is a mistake, decided it will be remedied and proceeded to the airport to beg for mercy. Did I mention logistical challenges?

At the Hartford airport, I proceeded to the JetBlue counter, without my bags, to see if there was ANYTHING that could be done. I was helped by two incredible customer service dynamos, Julie and Juan. “Night and day” could not even begin to describe the contrast between the telephone “service” we’d received and the exemplary service provided by these two. I explained by plight, and explained my needs. They apologized to me for the inconvenience and proceeded to squeeze me onto the next flight with the slightest of penalties for my incorrect reservation, and my eternal gratitude. They absolutely gained a customer for life and my respect for their professionalism, which I immediately conveyed to their manager and the world. This is the type of flexible response that we will model for our own customer service.

Upon landing in Orlando I went to the hotel to find that I had, of course, booked the hotel at the same time as the flight- with the same incorrect dates... unbelievable! The Days Inn “convention center” informed me that they had NO room for me that evening but that they COULD accommodate me for Sunday through Thursday. Whew! Lucky me, I got a room across the street form HIMSS11 at the very last minute. However, that left me stuck in Orlando, with no rooms available anywhere in town, at 9 pm on a Saturday evening. Tired, hungry, and needing a place to crash, we went into our  creative, problem-solving, startup company mode...How do we accomplish the objective with the resources at hand? I had web-access and 30,000 friends, or soon to be friends, attending HIMSS11 with me- maybe one of them could help? A simple twitter request was re-tweeted by friends and lead to a wonderful late night discussion with a doctor friend from NYC before retiring to his extra hotel bed (Thanks again, Doc!). Lying down, exhausted, in the dark before visiting the sandman, I reflected on the day and decided that my dogged determination not only got me to HIMSS11 in time for Sunday’s kick-off, but was largely responsible for YourNurseIsOn.com’s amazing success at reinventing healthcare staff communications by creating an entirely new way to communicate, from a simple sketch on a napkin to an effective software as a service.

Perseverance plus presence equals opportunity, and our ability to rally, be flexible and to adapt to rapidly changing terrain allowed us to persevere through our travel challenges, to be present at HIMSS11 for the HIT Investor Forum on Sunday and to avail ourselves of the numerous opportunities present in a room full of HIT movers and shakers. The challenges that we overcame en-route lent perspective and clarity to the mission of the trip. This wasn’t optional, debatable or impossible- period! It was going to happen, had to happen and in true start-up fashion it did happen. I don’t present this story to wave my mistake to the world, but rather as an example of the “never say quit” spirit of new entrepreneurs worldwide who go “all in” to innovate, disrupt and change paradigms, possibilities and potential. The obstacles are “barriers to entry” and if you allow them to stop your mission, you will certainly fail. My advice to those visionaries, change agents and disruptors is simple- If you experience an adversarial customer “service” person, a logistical nightmare or seemingly insurmountable odds- don’t despair! Work the plan, be creative, solve the problems, side step and keep on dancing to your own tune. If you are true to your “music”, your vision is unclouded, and your motives are pure- your chances of success increase greatly. No one but yourself can make you stop pursuing the dream and, I don’t know about you, but nothing (and I mean NOTHING) is going to stop me from sharing YourNurseIsOn.com with the world! Good luck with YOUR journey! I believe you can do it, and look forward to your successes. 

Thank You.

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YourNurseIsOn.com and Pecha Kucha - Interconnectivity as a Way of Life

YourNurseIsOn.com CEO Matthew Browning will be presenting "Interconnectivity" in New Haven, CT at Bentara Restaurant on Wednesday November 3rd at 6pm as part of the Pecha Kucha Event. Pecha Kucha means "chit chat" and is a presentation formatted with 20 slides presented for 20 seconds each slide. "Chit chat" is as is as ancient and traditional as "Interconnectivity" between humans; Pecha Kucha and YourNurseIsOn.com just give them a kiss of modernity with a disruptive twist. Please join us for an evening of wonderful presenters and novel ideas. YourNurseisOn.com is pleased to have been invited to participate in the wonderful event and looks forward to an incredible evening.

Learn more about YourNurseIsOn.com's patent-pending communications revolution here at 

YourNurseIsOn.com

Learn more about Pecha Kucha New Haven here- Pech Kucha New Haven, CT

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Health 2.0 Week, HealthCamp SFBay and Health 2.0 Conference 2010

San Francisco is celebrated world-wide for its historic architecture, multi-cultural heritage and glorious past. It has gracefully transitioned into the modern era, embracing human rights and equality, energy conservation and mass-transit and has become a de-facto mecca for technology with its valley of Silicon being ogled, and “Googled,” from both near and afar. The sanctity of that sureness advanced this week as the future of healthcare, in the form of the Health 2.0 week, stormed the Golden Gates and announced an new era of collaboration, exploration, innovation and wellness.

Never has the world seen such a conflux of disrupters, advocates, patients, technologists, writers, social media experts, investors, wizards, sages, gurus and staunch defenders of the old paradigms in an open, transparent, and international forum. They came to directly address, and begin to change, real and perceived challenges that are present within our existing healthcare system. An eclectic group of savvy cats herded by the indefatigable and prescient founders of the Health 2.0 Conferences, Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya, gathered to scratch the surface of healthcare’s future, hiss at existing inefficiencies and purr about interoperability with full access to our own data. The legacy providers were very busy, demonstrating surprising nimbleness, or were left licking their wounds in the cat box. 

The rapid and dominant ascendence of the Health 2.0 conference, now a week-long affair, into a major international healthcare event lead San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to declare it “Health 2.0 Week” in San Francisco on Friday. Saturday, cleverly maneuvering to not be outdone by Friday, included a major Health 2.0 Developer’s challenge to create useful healthcare applications while newly accessible government data. This was a clearly overreaching, shattering all boundaries and expectations, rallying the diligent disciples and vibrant visionaries of Health 2.0 technology and relative unknowns, like Google, who hosted the event. We loved the idea, the execution, the attention and the winning apps!  Unfortunately, we did not attended. It was only fitting that the ascendent to the uber-throne of healthcare application coding should be Alan Viars, of Videntity fame, who won the Health 2.0 Developer challenge.

On Wednesday, some attention switched to Kaiser’s Garfield Center in San Leandro for a very well organized and executed “unconference” called HealthCamp SFBay. Two hundred and fifty healthcare change agents converging at a world-class, world renown innovation center for a loosely structured, vibrant adventure into healthcare’s possibilities and potential. Envision a pinball machine of intriguing ideas bouncing around, setting off chain reactions of other remarkable possibilities- some leading to high scores, bright lights and high-fiving, while others spiral down to disappear out of play. A spectacular machine topped with a process as transparent as glass, where attendees may watch events unfolding as spectators, or effortlessly slip into play. A finely tuned mechanism that enable one to modify the future with a slight nudge or bump of an idea, or to abruptly end the play with a “tilt.”  Constructed on four sturdy legs of Healthcare, Technology, People and Collaboration, HealthCamp allows participants to actualize imagination in a supportive exploratory environment to gauge reaction, interest, need and potential of ideas and concepts.

“A bunch of smart cookies, cooking up some smart things” would be an accurate description.

It was now time for the main event, a scheduled two-rounder with heavyweights, lightweights, successful producers and “soon to be, too-ers.” There was hardware, software, vaporware, “some day, somewhere”, everywhere and anywhere. There were common themes and uncommon dreams, free-miums and premiums, open sourced, crowd sourced, and poorly sourced ideas in abundance. Collaborators, instigators, perpetuators, and their haters, were present as well, complaining to high heaven about our “hell”thcare hell. There were prognosticators, with their indicators and their data in tow. Trailblazers with case studies, analysis, white papers and and facts were seen frolicking with dreamers making something, for someone unknown. The were names of Fame centered on stage, many worthy of praise, alternately expecting us to provide all of our data to them, or empowering us to access our information, needed healthcare research and locating healthcare providers. Indu and Matthew did a spectacular job at harnessing the creative chaos and channeling it into a substantive program replete with sex, drugs, rock and roll and, oh yeah, a whole lot of new and actionable information. Attendees were afforded incredible access to organizers, sponsors, presenters and other attendees. Heck, you can even invite Todd Parks to participate in your demo on-stage ;-). 

Let’s call this the pre-amble, if you will. I look forward to summarizing our experiences at the Health 2 conference as soon as possible. Enjoy! And remember, talk health to me, Baby...

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When Porter Research talks...Kaiser, Mayo, Siemens, Medtronic & YourNurseIsOn.com

A wonderful write-up by Jennifer Dennard for Porter Research entitled "Innovation: The Common Ground in the Healthcare Vendor/Provider Space" that discusses the leaders in healthcare innovation today can be found HERE . 


It explores how healthcare leaders such a Kaiser, Mayo, Siemens, Medtronic and YourNurseIsOn.com are innovating solutions to today's, and tomorrow's, healthcare challenges.


We are proud to be nationally recognized as leaders in healthcare communications innovation by Porter Research and will continue to work with these and other leading healthcare systems to improve their real-time communication abilities.

YourNurseIsOn.com provides real-time, two-way, multi-channel communications capabilities to healthcare organizations nation-wide. Hardware agnostic communications by phone, text and email for effortless shift fulfillment, routine and emergency communication are now a reality.


We put your organization's needs into your providers hands...instantly and collaboratively.




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Innovation, Kaiser's Garfield Center, YourNurseIsOn.com & Human-Centered Design

On August 3, 2010 excitement, enthusiasm and anticipation descended upon Kaiser Permanente’s Sidney R. Garfield Innovation Center in San Leandro, California cleverly disguised as an early morning group of healthcare innovators and leaders. As our invitations read, our group had assembled:

“At the Sidney R. Garfield Innovation Center (Directed by the awesome Jennifer Liebermann), Kaiser Permanente's patients, doctors, nurses, architects and engineers use elements of human-centered design to improve and to innovate physical spaces, technologies and clinical operations in a unique, “movie-set” warehouse. Many of our innovations have been spread throughout Kaiser Permanente as well as to organizations nationally and internationally.”

YourNurseIsOn.com CEO Matthew Browning, RN, and approximately fifty other healthcare leaders, attended the inaugural Innovation Workshop for non-Kaiser employees. Entitled “Innovation and Improvement in Process, Space and Planning” the innovation workshop featured Human-Centered Design principles and explored Kaiser’s methodology for finding and fostering innovation in healthcare. These principles were taught to workshop participants during an intensive “two-day inaugural session that introduces our unique methodology and prototyping capabilities at the Garfield Center led by Kaiser Permanente innovators from our own Innovation Consultancy, Innovation and Advanced Technology and National Facilities departments.” The workshop was further explained as “during this highly interactive session, participants will focus on improving medication safety as a case study and actively prototype new spaces, technologies and processes that improve medication safety.” 

I am happy to say it exceeded my high expectations and proved to be a highly informative, very educational and unquestionably valuable workshop for all of the participants.

Highlights of the program included:

•Experiencing first-hand how Kaiser understands their users’ needs and then ideates and prototypes new processes, spaces and technologies

•Learning how we can engage end-users (patients, doctors and nurses) and how they can impact the successful spread and sustainability of innovation

•Understanding how we can learn from failure and embrace it as part of our culture 

•Learning how to build your own Innovation Center and process

•Collaborating with other like-minded innovators on real world cases

Through expert instruction, example and interaction we were able to achieve the following learning objectives:

•Understanding of human-centered design & collaboration as powerful tools for innovation

  •Extrapolating case study learnings to real world problems 

•Understanding of different innovation centers and their similarities and differences

Participants were engaged in learning exercises to: identify potential areas for innovation; practice brainstorming techniques to capture possibilities, learn how to group, rank and rate ideas; act out, or “bodystorm’ ideas to clarify utility; and, finally, utilize processes to encourage the adoption  or “spread” of an innovation. These ideas are summed up in the phrase “storming, forming and norming,” and are incredibly effective in facilitating a “fail quickly and cheaply” mindset that is essential to innovation prototyping. Acting out of scenarios using a new idea, product or processes should occur in “low-fidelity” mode to save time, money and effort in the beginning. “Low-fidelity” includes using items like chairs, cardboard and other inexpensive, readily available props to “simulate” the innovation. Using real life humans (our teams) to act out these scenarios in our hastily created low-fidelity simulations allowed us to quickly examine an ideas feasibility and decide to refine it or reject it immediately, or to “fail fast.”  This was an invaluable exercise and allows an organization to quickly and easily decide where it may best use its limited resources.

Everything about this workshop was world-class. We had a diverse group of widely respected professionals as facilitators, teachers, speakers and participants. The Garfield Innovation Center is exemplary setting for an innovative space that is effective and efficient. Extraordinary efforts were taken to ensure a successful program as evidenced by the smooth registration process, the convenient lodging, the delicious catering, the excellent networking event and the obvious preparation of the instructors, facilitators and collateral. Discussions about an “Advanced Innovation Workshop” and a LinkedIn community where innovators and Garfield Center “graduates” could remain in contact and contribute occurred and may lead to amazing things from incredible connected community. 

As a leading healthcare innovation technology company, YourNurseIsOn.com was pleased to attend and participate in Kaiser’s inaugural innovation workshop and looks forward to working with progressive innovators from around the world. We anticipate Kaiser’s continued success in the fostering of innovation and await word of the LinkedIn group and Advanced Programs so we can continue to be involved. We would also like to thank the attendees at this workshop for sharing your wisdom, knowledge and experiences with us all- without you all, it would have been just another seminar...

And finally, a big THANK YOU to the tireless Kaiser crew at the Garfield Innovation Center, Collective Invention’s consultants, KP’s Innovation Consultancy Group, KP’s Innovation & Advanced Technology Group and KP’s National Facilities Group. Individual recognition must be given to Jennifer Liebermann, Christi Zuber, Chris McCarthy, Deanna Konrath, Sherry Fry, W. Scott Heisler and Kent Yoshiwara from Kaiser’s various groups and to Collective Invention’s Erika Gregory, Fiona Hovenden and Arnold Wasserman. Individually you are all awesome and as a group “You ROCK!!.” 


Thank you to all of you for sharing your wisdom, your experiences, your teaching, your friendship and your time.

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Health 2.0 Goes To Washington- A summary

Health 2.0 goes to Washington was held on June 7, 2010 in Washington, DC at The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. YourNurseIsOn.com was in attendance along with hundreds of other Health 2.0 companies, entrepreneurs, ePatients, advocates and government officials for this exciting day of events. Once again, I left a Health 2.0 event feeling as though I had learned many things, met some wonderful people and had reinforced our collective vision of quality healthcare that is available for all people.

Our “conference calculus” is always performed before we spend a single dollar of our start-up budget to attend any of the myriad events in the “healthcare space.” As CEO of YourNurseIsOn.com it is my job to constantly introduce our company and it’s instant, 2-way, healthcare staff communications system to potential customers, possible investors, government movers and shakers and the healthcare business media. When performing our “conference calculus” on the various conferences we could attend, I am always impressed that Matthew Holt and Dr. Indu Subaiya’s Health 2.0 conferences rate so highly.

The DC event was my second Health 2.0 event, the first was in San Francisco in October 2009 when YourNurseIsOn.com was selected to present for 3.5 minutes live on-stage to an international audience. The board of directors of YourNurseIsOn.com, including myself, was incredulous that we would even consider buying a plane ticket, a hotel room and flying across the USA to present for a few minutes at a “newer” health conference. However, after speaking with Matthew and Indu, several previous presenters and participants, and much homework, we decided to attend. It was, without a doubt, on of the best business decisions made by our company. During a whirlwind couple of days we met corporate leaders, healthcare investors, fellow entrepreneurs, ePatients with moving stories and hundreds of people figuring out a “better way” to deliver care and participate in our healthcare system.

“Health 2.0 Goes to Washington” was all of that and much more. Connecting with old friends, meeting familiar social media faces in real life, and the magical chaos of sponsors, entreprenuers, patient advocates, ePatients and investors made for a high energy, action packed day. The addition of prominent government officials, who are striving to encourage participation in the future of healthcare design and delivery, added an official “we’ve arrived” feeling to the event. Once again, all the ingredients needed for an action packed day where present and accounted for.

The unofficial kick-off was the Tweetup held Sunday night at Vaviano’s near DuPont Circle in DC. Organized by the ever supportive Cindy Throop (@CindyThroop) and attended by Phil Baumann (@PhilBaumann or @RNChat), Trisha Torrey (@TrishaTorrey), Barbara Ficarra (@BarbaraFicarra), Carlos Rizo (@CarlosRizo), Amy Romano (@midwifeamy), Gilles Frydman (@gfry), Mark Schrimshire (@ekivemark), Francisco Grajales (@CiscoGiii) and several others was a great way to connect, reconnect and kick-off Health 2.0 Goes to Washington.

The next morning, bright and early, registration and breakfast began. I met Carol Torgan (@CTorgan) as she checked me in to the event and we both commented on the excitement in the air for the day’s events. At breakfast, we became reacquainted with old friends and made new ones. I even met the world famous investor Esther Dyson (@edyson) and said a brief “Hello.”  We then headed to the auditorium for the morning’d events which began with an introduction by Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) and Indu Subaiya   (@BlueTopaz) to ONC initiatives by the ever-helpful Wil Yu, Director of Innovation for the ONC’s Health IT program.

Then came the Health 2.0 tools showcase with presentations by Greg Fitzgerald of HealthCentral, Howard Steinberg of dLife, Ellen Baldinelli of ScanAvert, Alexandra Drane of Eliza, Mike Kirkwood of Polka, Matt Parker of DestinationRx and the inimitable Erick Von Schweber with his entertaining SurveyorHEALTH demonstration all moderated by Health 2.0 Accelerator’s Julie Murchinson.

Next up was our panel discussion “The Role of Consumers in Health 2.0” moderated by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn (@healthythinker) and included Linda Harris from the HHS, Carol Diamond of the Markle Foundation, Gordan Norman of Alere, and Trisha Torrey of About.com. It was a lively discussion about the role of consumers in healthcare with great points made by all. And to think, it was only 10 am.

Our coffee break include opportunities to see the Cisco ‘Deep Dive” with Dr. Danny Sands (@DrDannySands) or check out the exhibition hall. The WebEx for Healthcare seemed like a good idea from the Cisco Deep Dive. After this break we returned for the ‘Data drives Decisions” part of the showcase. David Hale from the National Library of Medicine showed us their amazing Pillbox software that can ID medication tablets over the phone. Hugo Stephenson showed us iGuard to notify of recalls (and gave away an Ipad), Mark Walinske explained Boundary Medical and Daniel Palestrant discussed Sermo.

A Todd Park keynote on data liberation lead to a panel discussion with Kenneth Buetow from the National Cancer Institute, Patrick Soon-Shiong the amazing Chairman of Abraxis Health and Josh Sommer of The Chordoma Foundation. All of them had remarkable stories to share and plenty of inspiration to go around. This lead to lunch.

Lunch demonstrated some of the magic that happens at a Health 2.0 event. I was in discussions with a well-known media personality about a story on YourNurseIsOn.com, while being approached to partner with a newer firm that wants to be able to instantly communicate with their customers and, momentarily interrupting both of them, I tried for the third time that day to share what YourNurseIsOn.com is and does with Esther Dyson. As she was hurrrying past to another important meeting, I asked her for a moment of her time to tell her what YourNurseIsOn.com does. Mid-way through her practiced, polite brush-off she suddenly stopped, faced me full-on, squared her shoulders as she squinted her appraisal of me and said, “You’ve got 1 minute.” An entreprenuer’s dream come true! Without hesitation those hundreds and hundreds of repeated 60 second and 90 second “elevator pitches” produced a clear, precise explanation of what YourNurseIsOn.com is and does- We help hospitals and healthcare systems contact and confirm their providers and other staff by 2-way text, phone and email communications- to put the right people in the right place at the right time.  She graciously stated, “it sounds like a great idea” and asked for my card. I gladly provided one, thanked her for her time, and said I’d be in touch and shook her hand “goodbye.” I then returned to my table of my now amazed colleagues, shook hands on exploring the partnership with our new Health 2.0 company friend, agreed to do a piece with my journalist friend and then went back to the auditorium, riding on cloud nine, and proceeded to shake hands and converse with Wil Yu from the ONC. Man!, I love these events :-)

The afternoon was a wonderful blur of new introductions, Dr. Danny Sands, Patrick Soon-Shiong, Jamie Heywood of Patients Like Me, Erik Von Schweber, Ted Eytan (@TedEytan), Regina Holliday (@reginaholliday), Gilles Frydman, David Hale (@lostonroute66), Kevin Walsh (@KWalsh30) and many more. In addition we participated in “Moving the Needle of Innovation Together” a great breakout session hosted by Wil Yu and Julie Murchinson that grouped participants together to try and brainstorm solutions to specific health 2.0 challenges. It was beneficial and enlightening and many of the participants felt we could do a full day session of just this type of problem-solving.

Back to the auditorium for an energetic keynote, the HHS announced the freeing of enormous amounts of HHS data for developers and announced a “Developer’s Challenge” that you can find out more about on the Health 2.0 website. We then had the last panel of the day with Esther Dyson, Chris Schroeder and Wil Yu that clearly summed up the day- Health 2.0’s challenges are our opportunities for business, growth, health and enlightenment. Together we can address this challenge successfully with a combination of technology and common sense.

When I do my “conference calculus” on which events to spend our marketing and education dollars, Health 2.0 events always seem to come out on top. The amazing blend of industry, government, providers, payors, patients and entrepreneurs is unrivaled, unparalleled, and undoubtably worth the time, effort and expense to attend.

To Matthew Holt, Indu Subaiya and the entire Health 2.0 crew and community, Kudos! on another job well done!

YourNurseIsOn.com and myself, Matthew Browning (@matthewbrowning) will see you in San Francisco this October!! Keep up the great work!! 

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YourNurseIsOn.com CEO Matthew Browning interviewed for ManageMyPractice.com

We had a great time with Mary Pat Whaley doing this interview for ManageMyPractice.com

Thanks Mary Pat!!

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