I must admit that I didn’t really know about Larry Weed until in 2013 I saw Neil Versel interviewing him at HIMSS. I’d been getting to know Neil Versel pretty well at this point and I saw him hit the press room full of energy and totally engaged with a man who was 89 years of age. I was new to the press room then, but I now know well the look Neil gets when he has a good interview. It’s how he looked at HIMSS 2013 when I saw him interviewing the 89 year old Larry Weed.
After the interview, I was talking with Neil and he recounted to me that he’d just been able to interview Larry Weed. I could tell that this was a real highlight for him and that he was honored by the opportunity. This month, Larry Weed passed away and Neil Versel offered up this great tribute to Larry Weed’s work.
I love this Larry Weed quote that Neil shared in his tribute:
“The worst, the most corrupting of all lies is to misstate the problem. Patients get run off into the most unbelievable, expensive procedures … and they’re not even on the right problem,” Weed said during that memorable presentation in New Orleans.
“We all live in our own little cave. We see the world out of our own little cave, and no two of us see it the same way,” he continued, explaining the wide deviation from standards of care. “What you see is a function of who you are.”
We should all take a week or so to think about the most corrupting lie of misstating the problem and how our own experiences corrupt our views.
I also didn’t know that Larry Weed was possibly one fo the founding father’s of patient empowerment. As Neil notes:
Indeed, it could be argued that Weed was a founding father of patient empowerment. Back in 1969, Weed wrote a book called “Medical Records, Medical Education, and Patient Care.” In that, he said, “patients are the largest untapped resource in medical care today.”
Larry Weed also co-developed an early EMR and the SOAP note was his idea.
I often don’t think that those of us who take healthcare IT and EHR for granted today realize the rich history and evolution of technology in healthcare. Thanks Neil for sharing a small glimpse into that history and honoring a man who was an important part in it.
Everyone should take 2 minutes and go and read Neil Versel’s full tribute to Larry Weed.