Today is my first blog. Surprising for many since I talk an aweful lot.
I am Tara Khan and I am the founder and CEO of DocMatcher.com. DocMatcher.com is an initiative to change the United States healthcare system from the inside out. It is a web-platform that helps people find doctors who meet their personal and specific needs and then helps then gives them a safe and easy way to communicate to create a long-lasting healthy relationship.
At this point people usually stop me and go great idea! Doesn't that already exist?
You would think so. But unfortunately it does not.
I am an Emergency Physician. People believe that my profession is all guts and glory. Though it’s true, there’s no more stimulating place, at least in a hospital, most of my job is not saving lives; it’s touching lives.
I am a full-time patient advocate. Much of my day is spent fighting fires and advocating on my patient’s behalf. Sometimes I am a primary care doctor, a therapist, and family councilor. Emergency Docs know first just how fundamentally flawed the healthcare system is and just how difficult it is for people to find the help they need.
I have found that many people find the entire system confusing, and why shouldn’t they? So do I. And so do most other doctors. Doctors feel just as bullied.
It was this daily struggle and my own difficulties with the health care system that motivated me to develop DocMatcher.com, nearly two years ago.
DocMatcher is tool for patients and doctors to take control of the healthcare system together. It is a way to connect patients and doctors in a more meaningful way and to free them up from the hassles of healthcare so they can continue to communicate.
Large companies are swooping in to clutch a morsel or two of the indiscriminate funding that is being hurled into the repair of a an already decayed healthcare infrastructure. Unfortunately, though money stimulates ideas, they are not necessarily all very good ideas.
Health Information Technology is in the spotlight as the solution. Just Wednesday, President Obama encouraged the use of Electronic Medical Records. And though the technology is available, and has been for years, it is how we use the technology that will make the true difference. We have to remember to simplify the system, not complicate it.
It all comes down to communication. All HIT initiatives should focus on improving communication, not hampering it.
