Friday, October 21, Cleveland: For more than 30 years, C. Martin Harris, M.D., has led the movement to apply information technology to healthcare delivery and create better, more efficient systems of care. Now comes a book that shares his vision and explains how information drives clinical and financial success while helping both doctors and patients to make better healthcare decisions.
In partnership with McGraw-Hill, Cleveland Clinic announces the publication of “IT’s About Patient Care: Transforming Healthcare Information Technology the Cleveland Clinic Way.”
Co-authored by Dr. Harris and Gene Lazuta, a novelist and a communications director in Cleveland Clinic’s Division of Information Technology, the book distills lessons Dr. Harris learned pioneering healthcare IT at Cleveland Clinic and illuminates the coming frontiers of health information.
The book is sprinkled with real-life examples of information technology speeding a diagnosis or saving lives. It also describes strategies that lead to successful integration of medicine and technology. Readers will learn about how:
- Electronic health records are becoming as much a part of the practice of medicine as a stethoscope or an X-Ray
- Telemedicine systems are eliminating geography and physical distance as barriers to expert care
- The power of technology is accelerating as software, devices and systems are integrated into coordinated networks
As Dr. Harris sees it, medicine at its most technically advanced is medicine at its best, because it is still rooted in the bedrock principles of compassion and healing.
“I believe that we can use the power of this technology to make our work more efficient,” he writes in the book. He adds that efficiency saves lives when it can “speed up the process of bringing the right patients and the right clinicians together so the healing that starts with human contact can begin.”
“IT’s About Patient Care” is the fifth in McGraw-Hill’s “Cleveland Clinic Way” series, which began in 2014 with “The Cleveland Clinic Way: Lessons in Excellence from One of the World’s Leading Healthcare Organizations,” by Toby Cosgrove, M.D., President and CEO of Cleveland Clinic.
“IT’s About Patient Care” will be available through most booksellers beginning Oct. 28. It can also be ordered online, along with other “Cleveland Clinic Way” books, at clevelandclinic.org/clevelandclinicway.
About Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. U.S.News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation’s best hospitals in its annual “America’s Best Hospitals” survey. More than 3,000 full-time salaried physicians and researchers and 11,000 nurses represent 120 medical specialties and subspecialties. The Cleveland Clinic health system includes a main campus near downtown Cleveland, eight community hospitals, more than 90 northern Ohio outpatient locations, including 18 full-service family health centers, Cleveland Clinic Florida, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, Cleveland Clinic Canada, and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. In 2014, there were 5.9 million outpatient visits throughout the Cleveland Clinic health system and 152,500 hospital admissions. Patients came for treatment from every state and 147 countries. Visit us at www.clevelandclinic.org. Follow us at www.twitter.com/ClevelandClinic.
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