It’s always nice to talk about the value of improved communication between doctors and patients. It’s another thing to read a story about the impact of making that communication easy.
That’s what I found when I read this amazing story by Ethan Bechtel, Co-Founder and CEO of OhMD. For those too lazy to read his whole write-up, Ethan received a late night email from one of his pediatric customers that said the following:
This is the type of email that every healthcare IT company founder dreams of getting. As Ethan says:
I always believed that we could truly have a positive impact on healthcare if we just made patient communication ridiculously easy.
But I never thought I’d get an email quite like that.
Pretty spectacular way to frame it. Although, he does offer this important perspective:
The obvious truth is, OhMD didn’t save that child’s life, the doctor did. She devotes her entire life to her patients and goes above and beyond to provide incredible care at all hours of the day.
But if we can just play a small a role in helping great doctors be amazing doctors, then we’ll have a real impact on patient care.
It’s great to hear stories like this. Thanks to Ethan for sharing it. Certainly there’s a balance we have to reach in this regard. We can’t expect our doctors to be at our beck and call 24/7. They need to have a life too and to not feel responsible for every patient’s whim. However, it’s great to see what simple communication can do to improve the experience for both patient and doctor.