I joined the pinksocks tribe where it all began, in Chicago at McCormick Center, during HIMSS15. Andrew Richards & Nick Adkins were walking around gifting folks with pinksocks, and Gregg Masters was taking photos to ensconce the moment. HIMSS15 was special. I was sharing my healthcare story, “My Mothers Scrap of Paper”, and my son Jayson, also in Health IT, accompanied me (it’s now a family tradition). I was able to introduce Jay to many of my “friends”- folks I’d known for 10+ years, some of whom I’d never met in real life. “Love more, fear less”…

I was a clinical practice administrator when my Mom was ill. As her sole caregiver, it was a daily struggle to connect the information in her medical record with multiple care providers and care settings. I accompanied her, my 3-year old son tagging along, to every visit to the physician, ED, rehabilitation, LTC, etc. If I did not accompany her, care coordination was nonexistent, information at the point-of-care was incorrect, and as a result, mistakes happened frequently. Sadly, I could not save my Mom and she passed away in 2000.

In 2002, I was approached to go into EMR. I saw this as MY opportunity to change the healthcare paradigm for other patients and caregivers. I saw the world as “full of good” and refused to let even ONE person fail with their EMR. Over the next ten years, I customized MANY templates, drove hundreds of miles and OPTIMIZED countless EMR systems, in the end realizing that EMR was not the “panacea” we originally thought.

The world IS full of good. We can dramatically change things if we keep believing this, seeing this, and passing it along to others. #pinksocks Click To Tweet

The next logical step for me was HIE. To connect data across silos, I needed a larger platform. “THIS, THIS will be the game changer”, I thought. Connecting patient data across system silos, with information available across the healthcare continuum, helped. Yet, there were additional issues. SSO, intra-state, bulky design, NPI. While a great concept, HIE was also not the “panacea” I hoped it would be. Yet I never gave up my passion for transforming healthcare. I learned along the way that it wasn’t in EMR, HIE, eRX, or Lab SYSTEMS. It was not in cloud SERVICES. The answer was in PEOPLE.

PEOPLE would change the healthcare paradigm, by connecting, communicating, and collaborating. When Nick and Andrew came up to me with a pair of pinksocks and a great big hug, I was in, yet I had no idea how big and how wide this friendship, this connection would be. Over the last three + years I have come to know and to gift pinksocks to others.

I found the pinksocks community to be a strong collaborative of DOERS: Experts, entrepreneurs, patients, community workers, advocates, and many more. We all share the same PASSION to transform and HUMANIZE healthcare, to CONNECT people, data, gaps in the care system, and to support one another along the way. The world IS full of good. We can dramatically change things if we keep believing this, seeing this, and passing it along to others. This connection, through a single pair of pinksocks, near an escalator in McCormick Place, introduced me to people I would have never met otherwise. We are fearless, we are fierce, and we are bonded by LOVE.

 

Post written by Linda Stotsky

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *