Although our 11th annual National Conference is still four months away, we are in full-speed prep mode for the big event in Nashville, Tennessee! We’ve been designing, organizing, packing and planning so our customers can enjoy an experience to top even the hard-to-follow 2017 Conference.

In 1984, in the early days of the AIDS pandemic, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler made a bold prediction: An effective vaccine against HIV would be available within two years.

What happens when primary care practices don’t provide patients with the service they demand, including flexible hours? Someone else does.

An outsider might assume that New York City youth are universally savvy and self-reliant, capable of finding their way in what is, after all, one of the world’s largest and most diverse cities, a place that is brash, bold, and seemingly bursting with confidence.

But the reality is that youth everywhere face many of the same problems, have many of the same questions, and struggle with many of the same issues. Those issues range from dealing with the physical and emotional changes that come with puberty to questions of identity, self-confidence, and how to navigate the world.

Two converging trends

When you step back and look at long-term trends in medicine, some things seem obvious. The use of telemedicine to better serve pediatric patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is such a case.

While mental restlessness has been a part of human behavior throughout history, it is only in recent decades that medical professionals have discerned a treatable difference between individuals who sometimes have trouble focusing and others, including many children, who have the disorder known as ADHD.

Let’s Talk about Excellence!

At Prime Care Family Practice of Prince George, Virginia, things were going well. Having worked with eClinicalWorks since 2012, the practice had an excellent healthcare IT partner. Providers were seeing 600 patients each week. The phones were busy.

But early in 2016, Dr. Amar Shah recognized a serious deficiency in his Patient Engagement strategy: It was all about the telephone.

Telephones are great, but if they are the primary or sole method patients use to reach their providers, access to healthcare can suffer, along with patient satisfaction.

Like many rural areas in the U.S., Pecos, New Mexico and environs has two tales to tell. One is of breathtaking natural beauty, where hiking, biking, and sightseeing unfold against a backdrop as beautiful as any in the nation. The other is a story of hardworking people who sometimes struggle with issues of health, insurance, and access to quality care.

When it comes to making quality healthcare available to any community, what’s the first challenge? Access.

After all, the best medical services in the world are of no value unless patients can make use of them. And even when a doctor/patient relationship has been established, the doctors and patients sometimes need help staying in touch and making best use of available resources.

That’s where a tool such as Patient Portal can make a critical difference.

The spirit of 1996 lives on

If you want to understand the role that Petaluma Health Center plays in California’s Sonoma County, it helps to understand what took place in 1996.

In October 2016, Frontiers in Psychiatry published an online review of studies regarding cellphone addiction, some of which suggest that many people today might be a bit over-attached to those gadgets that seem to take care of more and more of our daily tasks.

Starting (and Staying) Small in Michigan

According to the numbers, small and independent medical practices are headed for extinction. But in Marquette, Michigan — on the shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula — the husband and wife team of Dr. Christopher Dehlin and Dr. Jennifer Dehlin are demonstrating that there’s a place for smaller medicine, even in an age of consolidation and managed care.

Dubious Idea? Try Brilliant Insight!

Most doctors would never do what Dr. Todd Stivland did — move from a successful clinical practice to founding one in which the average patient is 87 years old, suffers from multiple chronic health conditions — including dementia — and has less than two years to live.

What to do when the doctor cares too much

Yes, every doctor cares about their patients. But some doctors really, really care about their patients. These are the selfless physicians who will put the practice of medicine ahead of their need for personal time, family, and the need to recharge after what can be a very long day at the office.

The results can be very bad for everyone’s health.

According to a study in the September-October 2015 Family Practice Medicine, 46% of physicians report some level of burnout, with consequences ranging from lower patient satisfaction and increased errors to higher risk for drug and alcohol abuse among providers, and even suicide.

Defying a trend

If you happen to be in the Salt Lake City area and visit any of the 18 locations run by Granger Medical Clinic, you’ll see a lot that looks familiar, including a busy front office and the range of primary and specialty services you’d expect from any growing medical facility.

Look more closely, and you’ll see an organization that’s just a bit different in key ways.

While more and more U.S. doctors are giving up owning their own practices, and joining larger, hospital-owned networks, Granger continues to proudly assert its independence.

The 2017 eClinicalWorks National Conference was full of excitement and announcements, as we brought together more than 4,000 medical professionals to explore the latest developments on the healthcare IT frontier. We debuted Eva, our virtual assistant, offered a sneak peek at V11, and highlighted what’s new with our core EMR and Practice Management solution. From advances in interoperability to improvements in Revenue Cycle Management and much more, Dallas was unforgettable!